In His timing

In my life, many people have told me to trust in the Lord’s timing.

Over the past year, I have really learned this. I am learning it even still to this day. It will be something that I will think about all the time.

Trust that the Lord is preparing me for my husband. Trust that the Lord is preparing my husband for me. Trust that His timing will be perfect.

His timing will be perfect.

Not mine. If anything, I am learning to have patience. Being patient in situations that I wish I could control but I have to give it daily to the Lord. He is the one who controls time. He is the one that pushes me in the right direction. He is the one that will give me peace. He is the one that will show me that His timing is perfect.

In His timing…

Amazed

I am constantly amazed at the way that the Lord works.

I find myself looking back at the past 5 years of my life and how much I have done in 5 years.

Five years ago, I was finishing up my freshman year of college. It was one rough year if you ask me. It was one of transition, making new friends and learning how to really study.

In the past five years I have learned who I am in my faith. I have been to Thailand, Ireland, South Africa, Japan and Australia. That is a lot of traveling in five years. I have fallen in and out of love. I have acquired a lot of debt in student loans. I have paid off TWO student loans. I have moved to a foreign country to teach English. I have attempted to learn Japanese. I have made lots of friends.

I have been amazed at how the Lord works.

He is good.

He has helped me get over break ups, culture shock, and missing my family.

He has also helped me love on people I have not yet met in real life. Friends who are just online friends, but they are actually so much more than that. They are life friends. Friends that I know that would do anything for me. Friends that if they are hurting, I hurt too.

He has helped me hold onto friendships. Friendships that would have never happened if I didn’t trust in Him. I would not know two of my best friends if I hadn’t trusted in the Lord. If I hadn’t of trusted in the Lord, I would have never been able to go to Thailand or South Africa.

He is good. He is constant. And I will delight in Him.

 

Growth

Over the past year, I have grown in many ways.

I have grown as a person. I have grown to become more independent. I have grown to realize who I am in Christ.

The first two were a struggle, but the last has been more of a battle.

Moving to a country where you are not able to speak with anyone, you are not able to read anything and you are not able to basically communicate has been hard. It has been frustrating at times. It has been hilarious. It has also been character building.

Yes, there are a few churches here in Sendai. I only know of one that has an English service. It is rather small. There are about 20 or 30 people who attend that church. Most of the people who attend that church are also my coworkers.

If you don’t know this about me, I am a person that needs to have one outlet of separation. I need to be able to breathe. Working with the same people all of the time and also having those people as my friends is great. I love them don’t get me wrong. But also including those people in the spiritual part of my life is a little rough. I feel like I am drowning and I cannot breathe.

I found a church that I attend online, Table Rock Fellowship. They are awesome. They have the worship and sermon broadcasted over the web. I feel like that is an outlet for me to be able to breathe. I am able to talk to some people who also attend online and they are praying for me and encouraging me. I love it. Today, I logged on and was waiting for the service to start but nothing was happening. I guess that they were having a problem broadcasting overseas. They told me that they were going to switch web providers because it wasn’t working and their purpose for having it online is so that everyone all over the world would be able to “attend” church. I definitely felt loved.

Back to being in Japan….

There was a period that I didn’t open my Bible for 3 or so months. There was no one who asked me how my walk was going. What I was learning. I don’t have a community group or anyone to help hold me accountable. This was rough. It still is. I know that satan is using other things to distract me from opening God’s Word and reading about Him. He does this through scheduling my time with skype dates, talking on facebook chat or reading peoples blogs.

Some days I hate my computer because I feel like it sucks up an entire morning, which is usually what it does.

I have had my faith shaken to the core. I feel like I had a pretty good pillar of faith before I moved to Japan. Now, I feel like I just have the foundation. Thankfully, I still have the foundation and I am able to work on building my faith back up again. I wish I could just jump to where I was before I left for Japan. But, it won’t happen like that. I have to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. It takes time.

After all of this rambling, I am just asking one thing well maybe two.

1. Would you please pray for me? Pray that I will be disciplined to open my Bible and read it and hear what the Lord is wanting to teach me.

2. Will you help keep me accountable? Ask me how I am doing. Ask me what I have learned. Don’t be afraid to reprimand me.

Thanks friends!

That one word

Patience.

This is a word that the Lord is always trying to teach me. He has taught me this my entire life and I don’t think that He is going to quit anytime soon. He wants me to wait for just the right everything.

I waited for 4 years to finally own a MacBook. A lot of my friends had gotten Mac’s and I was always wanting to get on their computer and use it. My lovely computer that I bought myself when I graduated high school was something that taught me patience. It was the slowest thing on the face of the Earth. It even crashed on me and I paid money to revive it.

I am currently being taught patience through trying to find a job. I know that the Lord has the perfect job out there for me and I have to be PATIENT and wait for it to land in my lap. I am waiting to hear back from a job that I applied to in Japan.

I want this so much. I really hope that this is what the Lord wants for me!

What is something that the Lord is always teaching you?