Little Steps

A couple years back I went to Romania over Christmas break and worked in some orphanages. I (being me) kept a blog for that adventure as well, and recently went back and read some of my earliest posts about fundraising.

It is humorous for me to read my Junior self talking about having to raise $2800 and how much of a daunting task that was. God was SO preparing me for this time in life where I am asked to raise more than 10 times that much! It is so neat to see how I was learning little steps of trust and seeing God provide, to see how I watched my percentage slowly rise and actually get to 100%.

It's funny how God works, uses events in our past to teach us and prepare us for the present. How He is using today to prepare us for tomorrow. As I look back on my fundraising past, I remember having to raise a few hundred for a trip to NYC, then around $1000 for Mexico, then the daunting $2800 for Romania... and how all the while God was just building up my trust, showing me that He could and would provide, no matter the amount.

And now I get to see Him show up again, only this time it's magnified beyond all my past experiences. God is so good! How precious that He wants so badly for me to know this lesson, this idea of absolute and total trust and dependence on Him, that He patiently teaches it to me over and over again! In the past it has been little steps, but as I am learning and growing, He is asking me to take leaps and bounds, and all the while trust Him.

[In case you're curious, this post was a good reminder about the need for people to send, and this one was fun to read as I can relate to it now, but just at a much higher level!]

Hurting

I miss Romania so much right now, it physically hurts. I want so badly to go back and hold the kids. To get to stumble around with my limited Romanian vocab, trying to express how I feel about them. How God feels about them. I want to cuddle and play and laugh and sing. I want to comfort them when they cry because the older kids were beating them up. I want to make goofy faces with them over and over again as they fight for use of a camera. I want to chase after them after they've thrown snow in my face. I want to get my butt beat in soccer as they all laugh because I can barely kick the ball. I want to see them running down the lane to greet us with hugs and kisses as our van pulls up to the orphanage.

I just want to be there. But that's not happening right now. So I just go back and I read. And I remember. And I pray for the little ones I grew to love, the big ones I grew to respect. I pray for their future and their present. And I pray that maybe our paths will cross again this side of Heaven.