When I (Julie) was younger I would dream of what I wanted to be when I grew up like most kids did. On the top of the list was to be married to a great man, have wonderful children, and live in some distant land serving God as a missionary. And God has blessed me beyond measure as he has granted me all those things over the years and I am so blessed. However, over the past few years God has been teaching me that it also requires a lot of hard work to live that dream that He placed inside of me. I would need to be stretched at times, I would almost need to be broken at other times, I would become tired and afraid, I would become frustrated and want to give up. I realized that those dreams I had as a child need to grow and expand to do the work God needs of me.
Isn't it amazing how God can place a small seed into a child and allow it to grow and spread His word along the way. That doesn't not mean that it will be easy all the time but I have found that even when I am tired, lonely, and ready to pack my bags God is faithful through everything. And sadly I have noticed that when the hard times do come and I want to question everything it is not because I am on the wrong path but I have become so busy I have lost focus of God and stopped truly listening to Him. Most of the time when I find myself losing focus it is because I am trying to do this without Him and it just doesn't work. For God designed this dream with Him stationed in the center and when I take Him out, it is impossible to have the dream life that I wanted as a little girl. And to be honest it is not so much the dream that really matters but having Christ in the center of my life that is the most important.
Dreams can change and develop along the way while God shapes and molds us. Even through all the change and hard work I have found that the desires that He has placed inside my heart keep growing pushing me forward. Life is full of hard work no matter where you live, work or serve but the blessing that come from all that hard work and faithful service is indescribable. When I am going through a hard time I try to look back over my life and remember all those blessings. And it can really take my breath away when I look at all that God has allowed me to see, the people he has allowed me to meet, and the places He has granted me to walk through. He is forever faithful!!!!
I love watching my children start to dream about the future as well as they think about the little things that they would like to try or even some big things that they would love to maybe do for a living. My prayer is that they can see through my life that the dream is so worth all the hard work. And that when that dream is placed inside of you by God it is worth fighting for and at the end all that hard work will one day seem like not such a big deal.
Greg and I fill so blessed that all three of our children are doing well here as this life and dream that God placed into our hearts greatly has an impact on their lives as well. And one of our kids dreams is to be able to go home to Canada for a visit and see family and eat all the foods that we miss. Thankfully, the Lord has blessed our family with a opportunity to do this as a family this summer. Greg will need to take a course back in the States that will allow him to fly the float plane here in Papua. This means that at the end of July our entire family will be heading back to Canada for a short three month furlough that will allow Greg to take this course, for our family to rest, catch up with dear friends and family, and for our house in Merauke to be finished. Just like most dreams this will require a lot of pray and hard work though as we must first move out of our house here and put stuff back into storage as it waits to be shipped to Merauke. Our family will be staying in a small two bedroom apartment on base for about a month before we head home. We are all so excited to be able to come home and see as many of our family and friends that we can, but since it is such a short break we are going to focus our time in the western region instead of traveling all over Canada and the USA. And then for our dear family and friends living in a more easterly region we will focus our following furlough with you, sorry we had to choose someone to be first. We can not wait to share with those that we can about our lives and work here and to also here how everyone is doing back home. Please keep us in pray over this next many months of transition as we move out of our house and back to base, as we prepare for our first furlough, and then upon returning to Papua we will move to a brand new town and area for the first time.
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