Looking Through Scratched Up Lenses

Scratched up lenses!

Scratched up sunglasses!

I can't stand them! I know I should be and I really am thankful for sunglasses period...but when they get scratched it just gets on my last nerve!! And why is it that when that one first scratch appears it's right in the place where my eyeball lines up to the lense?!!! So aggravating!

I just got a new pair of sunglasses a few months ago...they were free!!! I think that's why I love them so much...Well and maybe because they are neon blue and green and have Geico written on the side AND a little gecko on the right corner of the lense. Yes, I may be crazy but they are mine and I got them free at the NC fair this year for singing karaoke with my girls... Yep, best part of the fair for me this year... we all three got a pair and if you didn't make it to the Geico truck you totally missed out!!!

But you know the best part about these shades? They are totally scratch free!!! So far, so good!! I'm doing my best to keep them that way. I love a great challenge...and believe me, keeping my glasses, whether they be these new readers I just recently began wearing or my little blue "Geico's", it's a great challenge!!

While I was in Kenya a couple months ago, I was sitting by the animal's watering hole wearing my awesome "Geico's" and began to think...I began to talk to God and I felt him begin to talk to me about seeing through scratched up lenses...Well, that was when it hit me...I realized that morning that I loved my "Geico's" so much because they were totally scratchless. I began to think how we so often keep wearing and looking through glasses that have become dirty and scratched, totally messing up the way we see things...keeping us from seeing things clearly...our vision is distorted and skewed.

Then I began to think about how sometimes we do that when we're not even wearing glasses..The "lenses of our lives" become scratched up and dirty over the years...Life somehow will throw stuff at us, unavoidable stuff, that scratches our shades...mud gets slung sometimes and some of it gets stuck to our lenses...We continue through life seeing things different, with our vision distorted, skewed, possibly blurred even. It happens. It happened to me and it's probably happened to you at some point or another...

Divorce caused a few big scratches on my so called lenses of life...distrust, fear of betrayal, bitterness, anger...
My own bad choices that later resulted from the previous scratches caused even more scratches to my lenses of life...shame, even more fear and distrust-of my own self, pain, even more anger...

I guess maybe you have some of your own...some similar...some different...loss of a loved one, loss of a job, drug addiction, etc...

So what do we do with the old shades? The old scratched up lenses??

I like to think that my God is the best lasik surgeon ever!!!! And he has unlimited free brand new sunglasses and we don't even have to sing karaoke to earn them!! How good is that?!

I had lasik surgery about 13 years ago... Coolest thing ever! No really, I sat down in the chair and 15minutes later I looked up at the clock on the wall across the room and could see perfectly what time it was! I was shocked! I mean, I had faith that the procedure was a good one, but I had no idea just how good it was. Isn't that like God sometime? We trust the procedure of him fixing our lives, but we just don't realize how good it is until we see clearly again.

So, I guess today and during this Christmas and New Year season, take time to allow God to do what he does best. Sit down in the chair and let him do the delicate surgery of fixing the way we see. I wish I could say it would be done in 15minutes, but I'm thinking it will be something he does carefully and slowly as to bring total clarity to our lives little by little. Take the shades off that may have become scratched up through the things of this life and let him give us a new pair. He will help us to stop judging others and this world  based upon our experiences and begin to see others and the things of this world through his lenses. Take his truth and paste it across our eyes and let everything we see pass through it first. Little by little, I believe we can see more clearly and judge less severely...

As we do this great exchange, give him our scratched up lenses and let him change the way we see, I pray he will be seen in us. Because we begin seeing through his lenses of grace and mercy we help others in the great exchange also. And one day, one day, instead of looking through a glass darkly we will see clearly and we will see him face to face, eye to eye... oh what a day that will be...when my Jesus I will see, and I look upon his face, the one who saved me by his grace...what a day that will be!

Because of Jesus,
Lenee

 

The day I found myself stuck in the mud...

So a little over a month ago I found myself stuck in the mud...no, really, stuck in the mud. Literally, stuck in the mud. The deep, black, thick mud of the Segera in Kenya.

It was a Monday morning and our medical mission team headed off to clinic in our bus we had named "the big green monster". The skies were so beautiful and blue. Earlier that morning I had watched the sun rise next to the peak of Mt Kenya. Stunning no doubt. Yes, I think I was the only one watching the greatest show on earth that morning. God was reiterating what I felt him saying the morning before, "You're not telling your story." I was reiterating my previous response, "I know God, you gotta help me with that. You know I don't like my story."

So, as we drove along the still muddy road from the torential rain that probably lasted only an hour or so the day before, wiping out our Sunday afternoon crusade, I said yes to God and began to share my story to the one whom I had sat beside on the back of the bus. I like the back of the bus. I always head to the back of the bus. And she just happened to be the one who decided to sit back there too that day. So, after putting up a bit of a fight in my head and heart, I stepped out and began to share my story. As I was finishing up, all of a sudden we hit a bump, a big hole... a something! I flew to the ceiling and hit my head(a week later I realized I had cut my head that morning when I thought I had a worm exiting my scalp to find it was only as scab-whew! praise God for that- the thoughts you have after some mission trips!) and landed back in my seat! Man that hurt! That was the beginning of my journey through the mud. Well, not really, just the beginning of the mud of Kenya...My mud journey had been going on for quite a while...

Once I realized we were not moving and our driver was punching the gas as good as he could with no avail, I began to think what we gonna do now? We were all asked to move to the left side of the bus when we realized the back tires on that side weren't getting much traction. That didn't work. I was at that point ready to get off and get this big green monster out of the mud. Grabbing someone else's rain boots (because mine were only ankle high) I made my way off the bus with others and began doing anything I could think of to get us out of that mess...

I began chopping down thorny bushes with a machete. Like two inch long thorny thorns. Frustration flying through every whack of that machete. We were sticking those under the tires. Then we began picking up rocks. There were not hardly any rocks!! Man what great rockless soil we discovered in the Segera that day! But what rocks we did find we put them under the tires also. And we pushed. And we pushed. And we pushed...And I fell over in the mud at some point. Yep. Now I pretty much had mud all over me. So then I began to wash myself off in the mud puddle nearby. Man, what a sight I'm sure that had to have been. But we kept on, or I kept on and encouraged, or told :(, everyone to keep on. But we kept on pushing and pushing and pushing trying to free the big green monster to no success. Sorry ladies that kept on telling all of us to keep pushing! Really, I'm sorry! I've been told I can be bossy sometimes. Guess it's true and I apologize! The green monster wasn't going anywhere!!! I was mad. I was frustrated. I was exhausted and I was spent!!! My everything had been given to freeing that monster and it wasn't enough. Did I say I was mad?

After a few more minutes we took a break and walked away. As was wondering around trying to think of another strategy, I made my way back towards the monster where Maria (our team leader and my roomie-probably the one who knows me best in the group) was looking at the issue we had on our hands. By now, an hour and a half later or more had passed and I was getting madder(is that even a word?) by the moment! And these words came out of my mouth, "I didn't come to Kenya to get stuck in the mud!" And then the tears began and I just started walking away. And walking. And crying. And walking. And crying. The team probably thought I had decided to just walk to the clinic! But me and God took a walk that day. And I finally looked to the blue skies and had my moment of surrender. I did it. I took out my white flag and waved it. And I cried and I talked to God and he talked to me. "I can't do this God! What is it?! What do you want from me? Physically I'm spent! My back is in so much pain right now! Our first day of clinic on Saturday was pure awful! Worst ever had in doing this mission stuff. I don't even know what was wrong. And now we're headed to another day of clinic, now three hours late!!! I give you everything I've got because obviously it's not my strength nor my ideas that you want or need! You and I both know the lies the enemy has been whispering in my ear...you're too old for this, you're not gonna be able to keep doing this stuff, your glory days are over, give it up, walk away...  God you know I don't want to believe his lies. You know I love this stuff! You know I want to keep on but God you gotta help me. It's gotta be your strength from now on. It's gotta be. I surrender. I surrender all. All my stubborness, all my self-sufficient ideas, all my pain, all my frustrations, all my anger. Everything. It's yours. I give it to you. If I'm gonna keep doing this, it's gotta be you. I'm done. I'm done!"

His words I felt him say went something like this, 'In your weakness, I am strong. I love you. I have always loved you and I always will. My love is not based on your performance. Let me be your strength. Let me be your everything. In me you can do all things. We are not done here and I will be with you wherever I send you and I will be your help. I will be your strength. I will be your everything. Will you let me?'

I said yes that day. Yes to my God in a way like I'm not sure I've ever said it before. There have been many days since that day I've had to say yes again, and remind myself of that big yes I made that day, then say it again. I wish walking with God was one big yes and we're good, but for some reason the enemy keeps attacking, and my flesh keeps wanting to be the strong one and I have to continually remind myself, "in my weakness, he is strong... yes God, yes" It's so hard for me to come to grips with the reality of my weaknesses, but I really believe he is allowing my weakness to be revealed so his strength can be revealed too. I just have to keep answering, "yes".

So, back to the big green monster stuck in the mud... Well, you're not gonna believe this but when I finally made my way back to the team, they were treating two really sick babies. Yep. Two different moms from two different areas were making their way to the "hospital" with their babies and we happened to be stuck right in their paths. Needless to say, I was very quiet in the moments to follow. When Maria looked up with her lively Puerto Rican red lipstick smile (yes even in the Segera! don't ever take red lipstick away from a Puerto Rican woman) and said, "Look! I just sewed this little babies foot up!", "Of course you did," was my simple response as I looked at the sweet little foot wrapped in gauze... I continued to observe the situation at hand...another baby getting a shot who had already received a breathing treatment from a nebulizer that wouldn't normally had even been on the bus that day. Actually none of the supplies were supposed to be there! All the supplies we needed were there only because Andrea (head triage nurse) decided that at the end of clinic the day before to bring the triage bag back to her room to "organize it"... don't tell me my God isn't awesome and doesn't work in ways we cannot see nor understand! He has a plan. He always has a plan! And it's always good and for his glory!!

For the next few moments, I just stood in awe at what God was doing and what our team members were doing... all I could think was 'I surrender all God, I really do.'

As the team was finishing up their care of those sweet God sent babies and telling the moms goodbye as the moms strapped them on their backs for the journey home, I kid you not another big truck came up and hooked up to our big green monster and began to tug and pull and tug and pull and out of the mud came our big green monster!!! Yes, right on time...God's time that is!! His timing is perfect. His ways are good. And by then I had surrendered all....

I learned so many lessons on that day, on that trip... this will probably later become "stuck in the mud part 1" when I'm able to share part 2 :).  Our team was amazing. Our driver, Joseph, was amazing. Our Maggie and our Kate (Kenyan leaders) were amazing, Our God was amazing. It was an amazing day that day...

As we began to make our way back to the big green, now freed, monster, we circled up and prayed. We gave God thanks for many things in that moment. All I could say was, "I surrender all, God. You let me get out here in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the mud so I could see you today. I'm so thankful that your ways are higher than my ways, I surrender it all to you God."

We made our way onto the bus and headed to clinic... which was a wooden church. Dirt, grassy, roots everywhere on the ground church... where we walked in with God and served those beautiful people who had been waiting all morning long. I have no idea to this day how we did it. Well, I do know.... I know he did it!!! We were able to serve about a hundred more people than we did the first day (that really bad day I mentioned earlier) and we did it with grace, joy and peace...the atmosphere was different and it just flowed. It just got done...not in our strength, but in our weakness he became our strength and we got it done. The people of the Segera were not the ones blessed that day. I was the one so richly blessed, each person on our team was blessed.

I bless the God whom I serve and who allows me to serve him this day, because he is simply a good God, a really good God and he let a little ole nobody like me see his face that day on that muddy road in the Segera...