Dear Friends,
I'm thrilled to say my visa nomination has been approved! I've been praying about it for sometime now and it's uber exciting to finally hear that there's progress. My visa has been a bit of a nightmare, I mean it's not horrid but truth be told God is using this time to strip me yet again of my pride, stubbornness, confidence, and security. Which is difficult... I just don't seem to get it heart wise. I'm struggling with this paradigm of having everything familiar being flipped upside down. I wish I could say "yet it's getting better" or something on a lighter note, but honestly I'm just turning to God and spewing out all these emotions, broken and bare before His throne. It's frustrating and exhausting to continually battle it out.
The next step in the process of getting to Oz is to send paperwork to D.C. to get approved to leave, which can take anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks. I sent the paperwork via express mail yesterday, and today I called to confirm that it arrived in D.C. only to find that due to an error in labeling the address it's been sent back to me. As you can imagine I was not pleased to hear this, I called the embassy to find out what the actual address should be, only to find I wrote it flawlessly correct.... Not OK.. I then made a bunch of calls only to get No where. The perfectly horrid thing is I just knew deep down that God was saying it's not time to leave just yet. ........Geeeeezzz!!!....
which left me in tears telling my mom "I just don't know what to do, I don't know what I'm not getting." Looks like I'm going to be saying good byes for a bit longer and apparently being much more of a teary eyed sap. Fan-freakin-tastic! >___<
Annnnyyywwwaayyyy that's where I'm at, and there's days where I'm surrendering everything and rejoicing in the fact that the battle is won, no matter how challenging this struggle is or how stupid I am to fight for control, God has won the battle, you know?
But there's also times like today where I'm beautifully broken and have a lack of words slash energy.
I know I'm all over the grid but wth why not just be straight forward and lay it all out there. What God is teaching me during this time is that grace is grace and no matter what I'm going through "He is pleased with me" I love that! I mean I really Love that, it's like my mantra right now. It comforts me to know God is delighted in who He's created me to be, and despite EVERYTHING. That truth remains...
YES!!! It's just amazing! . Pure and simple! .
My Bible Study leader added to that by saying in Matthew 3:17 (" This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.") we forget that God makes this statement before Christ has started His ministry. Also, God says this about us (read it again with this in mind) addressing our identity, need for love, and affirmation in purpose. PERIOD! Done! Before we do ministry... Pretty incredible huh?
I'm learning to embrace that on a deeper level and with that, my complete failure as a being, completely reliant on God. ... Again, it's not particularly easy to live out when everything is a mess and you feel like your just levitating in the dark stuck in limbo. It makes me uncomfortable, nervous that I'm going to get to Australia and just continue in this state of confusion and inverted reality, the unknown doesn't scare me, but the strange reality of being in limbo scares me to pieces.
Prayer would be nice and praise for the nomination being approved, I have not forgotten what God has done (Psalm 143:5) Please rejoice with me in the good news of prayer answered and pray with me as God molds me to be a woman empty of myself and overflowing with the fruits of the Spirit.
Love You All!!!
