Perseverance

This is the word that keeps coming. Whenever anyone prays for us, or gets a word for us, this is what comes - perseverance.

I guess this is God's way of encouraging us not to give up, and I know that from most of our posts most people would think that we never even consider giving up. We have a tendency of sharing all of the fun, exciting and adventureous things that are happening. We try to reasure everyone that we are doing well and in doing that, may sometimes give the false impression that this whole thing is just a breeze to go through.

The reality though, is that we do have moments where we cry out "Lord, why are we here?" "Why did we leave?" "What were we thinking?" "We left all we had, our friends, our family, our church, everything we've ever known for this? Are we crazy?" There are times when loneliness overwhelms us, and we wonder "are we alone?" We know the truth, but the darkness comes and the attack comes with it. There are times when we feel so far away...when the kids cry and ask us why we moved them away from home. When Dan looks around the convenience store and wonders "I left my job for this?" When I come home from work and the kids are doing their homework and I wish I could sit and chat about my day with my girfriends like I used to, but there isn't anyone.

Last Sunday was one of those days...I just broke, I couldn't hold it in anymore. I missed my church, my home, my friends, my worship team, everything! I couldn't see what God had brought us here for anymore. I just couldn't see how anything here could ever come close to what we had in Cambridge. I just wanted to go home, I was hurt and angry with God for bringing us here! I cried and cried and cried. I poured myself out before the Lord. It just so happened that the service had been changed to an evening one, so I had to gather myself for church that night. I surrendered it all to God again and went, not expecting anything, just wanting to be able to control the waterworks long enough to get out of there in one piece! One of my biggest issues was the hard time I had worshiping here, its mostly in Inuktitut, and I don't know most of the songs they do sing in English, and they don't have powerpoint or songbooks or anything...and I miss my worship team! When I walked in, James was playing "Forever" on his guitar, a song that our worship team sang often! It was like the Lord was saying that He was forever going to be faithful to me, that He was with me and that He hadn't sent me here to be alone. I just broke! I had been feeling so far from home and far from God and here He was again, faithfully meeting me where I needed to be met. So James opened saying that He just felt that whoever wanted to share could share what was on their hearts...there weren't many people there, and I didn't want to say anything (imagine that!) but once everyone was finished, I was moved to share because I needed to share my heartache with these people. God had sent me here not just to minister, but to be a part of them...so I had to take the first step. I shared and cried and they prayed for me and blessed me...I've been feeling better most of the time since then. I had to humble myself and be open and vulnerable. How could I minister here, if I couldn't be real? And the only reason I could be real, is because of God's faithfulness to me...reminding me that I'm not alone, that He has sent us, and has not abandoned us. So I must not give up, keep my eyes on Him, as Scott kept reminding us "remember the call" and PERSEVERE.

"Forever God is Faithful,
Forever God is strong,
Forever God is with us,
Forever, Forever."