Lately God has been teaching me lessons one of two ways. Either through experience or stories. I’ve only been back in Hawai’i for 12 days and God has just been rocking me with lessons, and just bringing me into realization about so many things I was oblivious to before. Three of the lessons God taught me these last 12 days really stuck out to me and I just wanted to share briefly.
I left for Hawai’i on January 28 after being there for six weeks. I was in no way excited to get back to paradise, I was dreading leaving my family. The best set of words to describe what I was going through was basically a temper tantrum. I knew what God wanted for me, and it was in no way a safe and predictable lifestyle and for a brief moment I broke down and didn’t want it. I loved the refreshing time at home with my family where all my needs were provided for, and I was just constantly in community with the people who have been there with me since I was born. It was such an amazing feeling. And for the first time I realized how important my family was, and how much I love and cherish my time with them. Even the people in my family that I have never gotten along with, God just gave me these new eyes to truly see them and just love them. I didn’t want to leave that. Within those six weeks I was loved so much and I had so much love for everyone else in return. But what I didn’t realize was that it was just a short season to be refreshed and for God to really instill in my heart the value of my family and how lucky I am to have one that is always there for me and supports me no matter how much my life doesn’t make sense.
So when I was on my way back to Hawai’i I was so miserable , but my first full day back in Hawai’i was AMAZING. Suzanne, Aaron and I set up shop at the Tea Room in Honolulu and had one of those life-changing conversations. That night we went to Surfers Church in North Shore and God confirmed everything we had been talking about previously. The night was amazing, I got to see everyone from the bali surf house, all my Surfing the Nations friends and met so many new friends. We had a bonfire on the beach and again I just felt so much love and excitement. The next morning however, I woke up miserable again. I went to Subway to buy a sandwich and I realized that I didn’t have my wallet. I searched everywhere for it but it was gone. I was crying about missing my mom, crying about missing my wallet and crying because I was acting so silly. Then I had an aha moment and God spoke to my heart. Not only was he GOD, the almighty, and I was crying about losing a stupid wallet, but He has repeatedly proved to me over and over that he can take care of me without me even having to try. Numerous times he has provided money for me when I was in need, why would this be any different, God is God and my wallet is just a wallet, and I needed a new one anyway. So I calmed down and was basically ok with it. I called some people asking them to look for it but then I sort of just gave it up to him. About six hours later my new friend Jayden called me and told me she found my wallet in her car. Again God proved himself, and again he spoke to me and told me that He was in control and always had me in His hands, nothing would ever come in between that, especially something as little as a wallet. Even though this was such a common circumstance and really nothing to panic about, people lose their wallets everyday, it happened so that God could teach me this lesson that he is constantly in control and that he is taking care of my every need and nothing will ever get in the way of that, which is now already preparing me for my next season in life. So even though it was so simple it really impacted me.
The next lesson I learned was from a story my mom told me. She was talking to me about the protesting in Egypt. There was an older lady who did not evacuate her house where the protesting was happening because she didn’t want to leave her stuff. The protesting became worse, and she was stuck up in her apartment, alone, with all of her stuff. How disgusting is that. That might seem harsh but that is the first thing I thought of when she told me that. That is disgusting. This lady is going to lose her life, because she chose to stay with her stuff. My initial thought was she will never see her family and friends again because she chose her stuff over them, but she will never truly live again. She will never travel anywhere else in her life, and she will never get to just walk down the street and smile. She will never get to do any of those things that she said, “Oh one day I would love to do that” and scariest of all, she may have never fulfilled the purpose she was put on this Earth for, because she chose to stay with her stuff. I started thinking about all of this and I realized, I never want to be like this. “Stuff” is a dangerous thing. You can get so attached and so comfortable with your house full of stuff, that when God speaks something over your life, you may just decide to not do it and instead stay with your stuff. What a scary thought, we probably do it absentmindedly everyday. If someone calls and says, “hey wanna meet up, get a coffee and just talk?” and you think, “I really do need to share some things on my heart, or talk to this person or I know this person needs to talk” but then you evaluate your situation and realize you are in the middle of your favorite show and decide against the coffee date. Is this choosing our stuff over our relationships? Or if God tells you to move to a different state, or country and not take anything with you, would you do it? I am making a commitment to never have this attachment with my stuff. I will never, ever chose to stay.
The last lesson I want to share is about blessings. I recently went to a three day conference called “Simply Jesus”. However, I didn’t buy my ticket before I went because I was starting my new nanny job and I wasn’t sure what my hours would be. It turned out that I could make it to all of the conference but the tickets were sold out. So I went in faith anyway. When I got there I found out I could buy tickets to watch a projection feed of the conference at a separate location, but Suzanne had the ticket to be there live, and I wanted to experience the conference with her. So I went to the live location. It turned out for the first two nights they had enough space for me to sit in the conference but EVERYONE kept telling me not to try it on the third and last night because thats when Francis Chan was speaking and it would be packed. So what did I do? I went back on the last day to try again. To get into the conference you had to have a red button, I had a blue one and they were not letting the blue buttons in. Suzanne saw a lady that she had spoken to before to get me into the conference so with a little encouragement from Suz I went up to her and I said, “Umm hi, I’m back, and I have a blue button, but I was wondering-” and thats all I could get out before she went and got me a red button to walk through the door. I cried. It sounds so silly but it was such a blessing and I had been praying so hard to be able to get in and I didn’t even have to explain myself. They weren’t handing out red buttons to anyone else, but for some reason she gave me one. It could have only been God answering my prayer. But if Suzanne would have never asked two nights in a row to get me in and if I would have never asked on the last night I would have never been blessed with that button. What I realized was, you cannot sit around and wait for blessings to just come to you. You have to be proactive, and sometimes just simply ask. =]
Lessons learned. Alooooooha
FreedBird 