Saturday!

This past weekend at church, people kept asking me "When do you leave?"
I responded "Saturday!"  Yes, as in THIS Saturday!  How time has flown by.  My countdown is no longer in months or weeks but days.  So much has happened in the past few weeks, it really seems like a blur.  For the most part, I have experienced only excitement.  But last week, I was overwhelmed with anxiety.  I don't usually watch the news, but for whatever reason I tended to hear a lot of global happenings last week via radio, popping up on my computer, etc.  I made sure I wasn't flying near Ukraine so that was fine.  I am not flying near Israel, so that was fine.  Then, the plane went down in Northern Africa, and I freaked a little bit.  My stomach felt like it was in my throat the entire day and I thought, "Can I really do this?"  I was driving across Anderson when the song "You Make Me Brave" came on by Bethel.  The bridge hit me:

You make me brave
You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves
You make me brave
You make me brave
No fear can hinder now the love that made a way


I realized that nothing is out of His control and even if we fly through a storm, even if we fly near these areas, there is no such thing as chance.  He has called me out beyond the shore into the waves and He is sovereign.  He makes me brave - to the God who controls the wind and waves, what's holding up a little airplane in the air?  :)  I felt a peace come over me, a trust.  No matter what, I am in Jesus' hands and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  Safety is an illusion - staying here even though it would appear safe in a worldly sense would not be where God has called me to be and therefore the scariest place to be.  Still kinda scary to think about though.

Then Sunday, we sang a new song at church - "Broken Vessels" by Hillsong.  Stop, go download it now ...
okay, now the second verse is incredible.

You take our failure; You take our weakness; You set Your treasure in jars of clay.  So take this heart, Lord.  I'll be your vessel, the world to see Your love in me.

That is my prayer for this trip.  I have no idea what to expect and feel really inadequate as a fairly new PT venturing across the globe.  I am afraid to come up against things I don't know how to deal with; I am afraid of doing things wrong or just not knowing the best way to treat people in a 3rd world country.  But that second part:  "So take this heart, Lord; I'll be your vessel, the world to see Your love in me."  That is where life is found.  That is what I was made for.  So, here we go.