One More Day

As I reflect on the events that have led me to where I am today, I am absolutely blown away by God's sovereignty. I am so blessed that God has all my days had a hand in my life and I am so grateful for the people he has crossed me with, the trials he has allowed me to endure, and the doors that he has opened and closed. I cannot believe it. By Monday evening I will step foot in an entirely different world. A world so completely foreign from everything I have known. What an adventure I am on.

This week has been so amazing. I have grown to know so many new friends - some joining me in India, others in Uganda, Costa Rica, Canada, and Colorado. We've shared our strengths and passions, and I've wept at how God has drawn each and every one of us to Himself, and to the edge of this cliff - asking us to simply jump and trust in his faithfulness.

I have come to the realization that there is no such thing as a boring testimony. Christ's saving work no matter how seemingly insignificant is amazing. Grace is amazing. That God would find it worthwhile to save a broken and sinful people is beyond my understanding. That he would come to this world and forgive me of a self-centered life full of pride, lust, greed, idolatry, lies, malice, hateful thoughts, and bitterness, and make me a new creation - a new and forgiven person. Redeemed and reconciled.

There were stories of broken homes, abusive fathers, drug addictions, emptiness, hopelessness, struggles with acceptance, jealousy, family death, health problems. There were stories of Christian homes, Sunday School, youth groups. Whether a blessed childhood or a broken one, there was not a single one of them who found satisfaction in anything else but through Jesus Christ. There is no hope found anywhere except by Him. It is by Him alone that men are saved and by Him alone that men are made right before God.

And I know this to be true because I know Jesus. It isn't because I went to church every Sunday. It isn't because I was force fed some foolish dogma. It isn't because my life was easy and painless and the Christian bandwagon sounded peachy. I was a broken and messed up person and Christ saved me. I spent most of my life looking for acceptance and could find it nowhere. I longed for relationship with my father. I got caught up in shameful addictions that trapped me in destructive cycles of guilt and sin. I was a hypocrite and a liar. A thief and a murderer. An adulterer and a blasphemer.

I was not worthy of grace and yet for some reason Christ came into my heart and fixed my brokenness. My Father in Heaven filled the voids in my heart. Jesus looked at my heart and my life with all of my screw-ups and mistakes and he not only told me that He loved me anyway, but He showed me. He gave me purpose and joy and peace. He took every one of my sin which made me deserving of death upon himself and died for me. What greater love is there than that.

None.

And I'm on this crazy adventure and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. But it is only because of Christ that I am doing such a thing. Not to see a new place, or to experience a new culture, but because He has done such a great work in my life that I want to see Him move in this world and in another people.

One more day.