Remembering When...

So, I am really thankful for those of you out there that read my blog. It is fun having a blog...sharing thoughts, ideas, prayer requests...it is like an open journal for everyone to read. I enjoy it, but of course, it is way more fun when people actual READ your blog. I mean that is kind of the point, right?

I got off to a slow blogging start...really slow actually. 2 whole posts for the whole year of 2008 and 4 whole posts for the year of 2009...yikers! It is no wonder there weren't too many of you out there reading back then. I decided it might be fun to join the Goodwin Family as they have a Lazy Wednesday Walk down memory lane. Basically I just need to re-post old posts so that my new readers can read them! Fun huh? Here's the link if you are thinking you would like to join too.

I decided to start with my very first post "My Testimony." It isn't too exciting but it will tell you a little bit more about me and how we became missionaries here in Guatemala. Of course, some things have changed since I wrote that post [like having a baby!] but you will get the jist! Enjoy! I am looking forward to sharing some of "oldies but goodies" with you over the next month! :)

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Holy Place

"Llevame al lugar Santisimo
Por la sangre del Cordero redentor
Llevame al lugar Santisimo
Tocame, limpiame, heme aqui"

No, you don't need your eyes checked. Those lyrics are in Spanish. They are from one of my new favorite songs. There may already be a similar song in English. I haven't really done that much research on it. We just sang it in church a couple of weeks ago, and it totally touched me and caused me to really evaluate some things. Basically the rough translation is this:

Take me to the Holy of Holies
By the Blood of the Lamb
Take me to the Holy of Holies
Touch me, Clean me, Here I am

I was totally broken the other day while I sang these words to my Lord. I do desperately long to go to His Holy Place...to be touched by Him, cleansed by Him. But, I was broken because I remembered that in the same way that Moses had to remove his shoes to enter we also must be totally cleansed and stripped. We can't ask God, beg God to take us to new depths...to new places of intimacy exactly as we are now. He must prune us. He must purify us. He must take us through the oven of fire so that He can refine us. We can't expect to just walk into the Holy of Holies as if we are walking into Target. Doesn't work that way.

For a while now, I have been asking the Lord to purify me and to clean me...to take me into greater intimacy with Him. I recognize my inadequacies and my desperate need to be touched by the Lamb. But it isn't easy. In fact, it down right hurts sometimes. There are days I want to throw myself on the floor like a two-year old and have myself a little temper tantrum complete with arms flailing and feet kicking. I am so thankful,though, that in the same way the patient mom scoops up her sweet child (to give him/her a proper reprimand in the car), my Father scoops me up as well...sometimes with a discipline and sometimes with the sweet whisper, "I know you Sara. I know you by name. You are mine. I love you. I have not forgotten about you. This may hurt now but I have waiting for you something beyond your wildest dreams."

A lot of what is making this season particularly difficult is that I feel rather alone in it. Even though the Lord has blessed me with a whole slew of wonderful friends and family, due to time, distance, internet problems, etc. it makes it hard to be in constant communication with them. Even with my hubby who sleeps in the same bed with me, it is hard for us to find the time with two kiddos to have real heart talks. So much of this season I have had to just go at it alone. For a girl used to externalizing everything, it has been hard. I want to talk about it. I want someone to help me, to encourage me, to walk with me. But, I believe God needed me to Himself. I don't know about you all but sometimes I can be hearing so many voices all around me that it makes it next to impossible to listen to the Lords. I read this today in my trusty "My Utmost for His Highest" (never gets old no matter how many years in a row I have read it). It is kind of long but take the time to read it, I think it will bless you too...

"It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us...If you are rightly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the sublime height where no one ever thinks of noticing you, all that is noticed is that the power of God comes through you all the time...It takes God's Spirit in us to make us so absolutely humanly His that we are utterly unnoticeable. The test of the life of a saint is not success but faithfulness in human life as it actually is..."

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