According to my parents, I talked about being a missionary my entire life. As I child I dreamed of living in mud huts in some remote village of a far off land. I was going to grow up, go to school and then head off to that land (hopefully alongside a husband).
It became painfully more and more clear to me during the first year of college that not only was God not leading me a life of foreign missions, but that even going with Baylor to Kenya the following summer was going to be in complete disobedience to God and for my own selfish desires. I will never forget the sorrow that penetrated me as (through sobs and gasps for breath) I told my team leaders that I was not going to be able to travel with them to Kenya. Heartbroken, frustrated and confused I obeyed what I knew God was telling me. Just to make sure God would not throw in a u-turn, I spent college studying Swahili, to be on the safe side of course! My senior year I had the opportunity to work on campus with the ministers who planned and executed all of the summer missions trips. Doors began to open and slowly it seemed as though God were inviting me to finally take a trip to the place my heart so deeply desired. And before I knew it, I, along with a team of graduate students landed on Kenyan soil.
I could spend days writing about all of sites, people and experiences that changed me forever during those short 16 days. But for your sake I won't.
There actually is a reason I'm heading down memory lane today . . . the women of my church are going through the Experiencing God study together and this weeks focus has been on a love relationship between us and God. Today the author encouraged us to spend time identifying how we know we are loved by God and then praising God for those things. Needless to say, Kenya was the first thing to came to mind.
God loves me enough to say no when I beg God to say yes. Christ knew I had to grow and be ready for that experience, in that place, with those people. How do I know God loves me? God took me half way across the world, to walk with people I passionately loved, yet did not know. Allowed me to see the Holy Spirit in ways I had never seen. Marveled me with the true love of God's people. And, just to show off, introduced me to the man I would later fall deeply in love with. God authored the first sentences of my love story in the middle of a slum, a school, an orphanage, a HIV/AIDS clinic, a village and a sermon being preached to the most beautiful children.
God made dreams I couldn't even dream up come true. How could I not know that I am loved by God?
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