I told my mom the other day that I wondered if God was disappointed that I didn’t already have Spanish mastered before I came to Guatemala….
I’ve known for 21 years that God was going to send me to a Spanish speaking country. AND I lived in a 90% Spanish speaking town for 3.5 years before moving here. I could have learned it. I could have worked harder. Could have studied more…much more.

My mom’s response to me was, “God already knew you were going to be at this level with your Spanish when you arrived.”

I’ve been thinking about that statement off and on since then… “God already knew….”

How many times do we think, without really thinking it, that we have really messed up God’s plan?
How many moments do we want to give up because we feel like we have missed so many opportunities that even giving our best now will never make up for the half-effort we’ve given over and over in the past?
How often do we feel deflated imagining God searching for someone else to be great in, because He can’t handle the fact that we just can’t seem to measure up?

But it’s true :
Yesterday God knew where you would be today.
And guess what:
He still has a plan for today.
And He is just as excited about it.
He did NOT give up on you and walk away.

I started getting excited about this tonight.
I asked Him as I was folding laundry,
“Is this just me being too easy on myself – or are you really THAT merciful to be excited about a new plan for me EVERY DAY?
And then His Word – you know the written one that you can’t doubt or wonder if you heard right,
It came to my memory strong and true:

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. THEY ARE NEW EVERY MORNING; great is your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:22-23

So let’s throw off our disappointment in ourselves and our mindsets that God has joined our disappointed pity party. And let’s rejoice in His faithfulness by waking up tomorrow morning full of joy and confidence that He has a plan for us. And that He’s excited about it.

I remember when I was around 8 years old and I felt God for the first time. I saw a picture in my mind of an umbrella and me under it safe and dry and warm. And in my little 8 year old heart I knew the umbrella represented God and that He was showing me that He would cover me always.

When I was 11 years old I felt God call me to missions.

I knew what it was to feel God. And then in middle school my 6th grade teacher asked our class (at a Christian school) “How many of you have ever felt the glory of God?” And I felt a thrill in every fiber of my being. The glory of God. That’s what it is that I feel when I know God is speaking. For the next two years the glory of God was my biggest desire. I spent at least half an hour every night praying and the biggest part of my praying was asking God to let me feel His glory. Worship was the most thrilling part of my life. God’s voice, His presence, His love for me…it was all intoxicating.

It was a season and it was beautiful. Like a honeymoon with the Lord. But it lead to different seasons. Seasons of spiritual growth and discipline. Seasons of emotional growth and maturity. Seasons of drought and hanging on out of sheer, painful hope that God was real and I wasn’t a lost cause. Seasons of questioning. Seasons of intense conviction. But in every season there have been moments. Beautiful, incredible moments when out of nowhere I am drenched with that feeling…that experience….His glory. And I’m transported to those years again. From 11 to 13 when His glory was my whole journey. And He let me see it and feel it over and over and over.

Last night I was doing dishes. The kids were upstairs and Blake was on the computer at the bar a few feet from me. He turned on worship music and a song began to float through the air and I felt it: His Glory. And my heart turned over and I was in such awe that I could hardly breathe. His presence; His love so strong and so real. And like always I remembered being 12 years old in my bed night after night and meeting Him just like this.

Blake interrupted my thoughts with, “Isn’t this song good?” And I whisper, “It takes me somewhere.” And Blake whispers back, “Right?! Me too!” And my heart turns over again because this man that is my husband has had those times too. He knows what I know. That there is NOTHING like the glory of God. NOTHING.

I read some things on the internet that bugged me this week. Critical thoughts and opinions on international adoption and short term mission trips… two things that are huge parts of our lives. We are adopting internationally, and our job here in Guatemala will primarily be to be over short term teams coming to partner with our ministry. So yep. It was a double whammy attack.

You know that feeling you get when something that is personal for you is vehemently judged “awful” by someone else. 50% “pit of your stomach dread” that maybe they’re right and your life and decisions are really “awful”. It causes you to doubt for a minute all those confirmations God has given you that you’re in the right place; doing the right thing. And then the other 50% is anger. What does that prideful person think they know? How dare they have such a judgmental opinion?

But then I’ve constantly been weighing my emotions and responses with the things I shared in the last blog…about God calling me to a life of sweetness. And through the lens of sweetness I am allowing God to shape my thoughts.

Attacks, whether personal or found in web-world or book-world or even church-world should take me right into the secret place with Jesus. Not only do I need Him to reconfirm to me once again that we are in His will, but I also need to step into the place of humility that allows me to ask, “Is there some truth to this Jesus?” Is there something in this person’s rant, I mean passionate belief that could open my eyes to a dimension that would make my calling/passion more fruitful; more Christ-like?

Secondly, or maybe even firstly, we need to plead with the Lord to give us the grace to not hold a grudge or personal offense against the attacker. We don’t know their heart or motive. It could be much more righteous than we would ever want to admit.

Or sometimes not. I know this because I’m guilty.

Sometimes our callings can become our plank. We judge other people based on the things God has spoken to our hearts. God is so faithful to direct us so specifically so that there is no doubt what we are supposed to do. However, it then becomes scary easy to think that He must be saying the same thing to everyone else too, and that they are just refusing to listen. We decide it’s our job to be the “God whisperer” and shout His “message” as loudly as we can.

And we hurt people. We cause the beauty of our calling to lose some of it’s brilliance. It starts to blind us, when the primary purpose of it was to open our eyes.

I guess for me it comes down to two things:
- I need to listen to Jesus. Every single day, I HAVE to hear His voice. I have to be able to hear Him louder than the roar of everyone’s opinions. His voice is the only thing that will keep me steady.
- Stop judging the judgers. Because when I judge the judgers I become a judger. And that’s not who I want to be.