On Setting Hope [somewhere]

It’s been quiet over here for awhile, as life has left me in an unbroken chain of go, go, going. I’m not sure how consistent these next weeks will allow me to maintain, but I’m here today putting pen to the paper [or keys to the screen I suppose] and it feels like fresh air.

The last month or two back on American soil has left me a little bit confused and a whole lot of broken. It’s been overwhelming and I am learning a lot about rest and trust. It’s not the time to write it out and I don’t know that it ever will be, but Jesus is here and I know he is fighting. So I am learning to rest and ease the script continually running through my head filled with to-do lists, failures and what nots with Truth.

There hasn’t been a day this week that the Lord hasn’t brought me to this passage. What patience and grace he has for us! Even when I doubt him and pull back, He is quick to remind me it is not of my strength or willing that the dead come back to life. Hmmm. Ouch?

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-11, ESV)

I’ve had to ask myself many times, even today, where is your hope set, Courtney?

And this conscious effort of warring against my hope being set anywhere else has actually provided the words I’ve been asking God to give me for several weeks now, as I am in the process of applying to nursing school and the following is part of a personal statement I was asked to submit.

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I was just on the back end of those preteen years, when I started struggling with an eating disorder. It didn’t take long before I spent more time in hospitals then outside of them.

I remember laying in that hospital bed again that year; it was Christmas and underneath all the hardness, I was just a little girl. That morning was the first time I saw her, hobbling in through those big ole doors. She was from down south somewhere and she just plopped herself down on the bed beside me, like we were best friends or something. I sat up slightly taken aback and wondering if I’d seen her here before. “What are you doin’ in here sweetie? You should be out there livin’, girl!”

I had had some amazing nurses over those years. But Miss Cynthia, she sure was something. As I cried an hour or so at the sight of breakfast, she just sat there with her arms around me. At one point she turned to me and took my cheeks into her wrinkly grip. Made me look her square those big brown eyes of hers. She told me to stop this. That she knew God didn’t put me here on this earth so that I could starve myself out of it. She told me that wasn’t up to me. And I could keep wasting my days trying—or I could live life fuller then that. She babbled on about my beauty and purpose and sweet spirit.

She fed me my cheerios that morning, like a momma to a baby girl. Little by little. I ate them too. Every bite I swallowed, nourished more then those bones of mine though. She fed my spirit something and it changed me. She fed me hope.

That’s it I think—nursing is so much more then antimony, bed pans, and IV pricks. It doesn’t begin at the start of a new shift or end pulling out of the hospital parking lot. The commitment to the practice of nursing takes all of that head knowledge and practical skills and morphs it into this joy-filled giving of self for the hope of another human being to be rekindled in the midst of great pain and discouragement. It sure isn’t easy, I would imagine. Yet, I just see such an overwhelming reward that comes with the commitment to this filed of study.

We all have more hurts and heartaches then one could imagine, and we’ve all been on the other side. A nurse is the mamma hug and words of truth when you forget what they sound like. I marvel at how far medicine has come and how miraculously doctors can heal the human body. I think some nurses go right for the soul.  

Every morning Miss Cynthia came back. She gave more then her duty detailed and ten years later, I still remember everything about her. I wish she could know I am living life with hope that far exceeds myself. If only I could let her know the impact she had in my life, the way I’m here applying for nursing school because I know there are other patients that need a “Miss Cynthia” to just be that safe place and stable voice for them too.

So I continue to dream of nursing, as it’s an opportunity for me care for others and meet them where they’re at. I believe God has really given me compassion and empathy for others in painful and difficult situations. I am a relational person and sitting behind a desk all day just wasn’t for me. Moving around and interacting with many different types of people and co-workers seems like it would fit me well. I just love helping people. I enjoy learning more about the design of the human body and how it can heal so miraculously.

…..

Someday I would love the opportunity to continue my studies in nurse-midwifery, but in the meantime the prospect of obtaining a BSN through an accelerated program, coupled with lots of much-needed experience is what I am hoping for!

I know the next twelve months will be brutal. I know my life won’t really be my own and I may often find myself on information over-load. But what an incredible opportunity it would be to spend this next year acquiring many skills and so much wisdom in how to better love, serve, and offer hope to those in need.

I am so thankful for the tough stuff I was allowed to walk through as it has led me here, to this place of knowing that hope triumphs all else. And we all need it.

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We all need hope. The older I get, the more I see the need around me and inside of me. I am so thankful that the gospel isn't just a Sunday morning song. Praise the Lord He is alive and active, continually working in us and through us that we may know Him and speak of the great hope found only in Him as well. 

**And yes, I have applied to three different accelerated BSN programs. One acceptance and two in the process. For now, I just know my commitment remains to Jesus first and where He leads me, I just want to follow [even if I drag my feet all the way back to the classroom]. 

From What Well Are You Drinking Today?

I've picked up running again and it is so good. Those cool mornings watching the sky unfold as he paints it to life for another day never cease to hand me mercies anew. The air is crisp and the trees are part of his gallery too. I worship and reflect as the dog pants at my feet. We are an orchestra down below bringing sound to His show.

In the praises and the pleas, I have been panting too, I think. And no, not just while running, though my sounds probably far out-sing the dog when I trudge up those country hills. The panting—maybe not so loud but inside the weariness and brokenness of life has gained and I identify with the woman at the well, the one who came from the dirt like me. 

Don't we all pant after water which satisfies straight into eternity? Enough of this processed stuff. Give me the real deal. I'll take the whole spring, in fact.

I spent so many years drinking from the well of midnight fast food runs and ice cream by the half gallons. Bags of peanut-butter M&Ms and trays of doughnuts which have absorbed into my body in some attempt to satisfy this unceasing thirst unmet. Hours and days and weeks of glaring down into the well of my stomach upturned beneath me. Those moments of stilled breath waiting for the number to reveal how good or bad my day—I took shots from that glass too. I've tried to fill up with cup after cup of starvation and thirsted for the miles beneath my feet, as they grow in number and frequency and drive me to more and more to satisfy just a moment. 

But they aren't the spring washing me anew and flooding me back to life; rather the sewage in which I find myself stuck. 

The satisfactions never came for long. So within days and hours, even minutes sometimes, I would  have to search for it again. Maybe some Reeses this time, with a milkshake to help em go down. I remember feeling trapped in a pit and some days I could eat thousands and thousands of calories only to throw them up, but just find myself sinking deeper into the muck and mire—and I smelled really bad. 

Part of me grew content in the sewage too—I deserved this because I was a dirty girl and dirty girls deserve to live in dirty places. Some dirty girls are too nasty to ever clean up, I remember thinking, and you are just one of those girls. 

The woman at the well is still in sin—with another man to whom she is not yet even married. Christ is bold in his revealing of her sin and we see His sovereignty through it. He was like that with me too. One day He offered to forklift me out from my sewage and He made me clean. Like, for real clean and new too.

Like the woman drinking from the well of her sixth husband, I also attempt to find satisfaction and fulness in the things that drive me toward emptiness, again and again and again.

By the sixth time you'd think she would notice a pattern or something, huh?

After eight years of being consumed in bulimia, you'd think I might have noticed it wasn't working either?

So why is it so easy for us to forget, even after He clothes us in white and calls us by a new name? I think life is hard and messy and busy. We lack eternal perspective and we are so easily ensnared by this glimpse of the world that fails to tell us it is ending. Though, sometimes we just wish it would—we want to be free that bad. Good thing Jesus sets captive free—and He offers it to us freely.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

So I ask, from what well are you drinking today? Is it satisfying into eternity?

Grace in South Asia

2nd most populous country in the world.

That's over 1.21 billion people.
Which is more than a sixth of the world's population.

Living in one country.
Out of these 1.21 billion people, 2.3% of the population are professing Christians.

Over 33 million gods captivate the attention of 97.7% of these 1.21 billion souls.



And I sit and wonder...why NOT me? Why was I born here, the land of the free? Couldn't that be me living in a slum with a choice of 33 million gods to worship, no knowledge of the one ture God? How is it that in His GRACE He is allowing me to know His Word? To know Him freely? At very little cost to me in the grand scheme of things. I mean, it's not like I consider the value of my life every time I open His Word.

I don't know why. I just know that GRACE has been lavished upon me, so what more can I do but preach the Gospel of Grace to this work-driven people. So I learn, that with GRACE, comes a weighty responsiblity to preach it.

Right now somewhere on the other side of the world, a man is waiting. He is praying and trusting in the God of the universe who places food on his table each day. He is anticiapting the month of May. For at that time, a team of beleivers from America will arrive in his small village. He knows their prescence will come with Truth and encouragement. He anticipates and He prays.

Whether we are born into the slums of South Asia or right here in the US, our sinful nature instists that we can make our way to God but GRACE says we don't have to.

I've been hunkered down in Galatians the past several weeks. Galatians Ch. 1:15-16 reads:
"But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being."

God set Paul apart from birth...called him by grace...but why?? SO THAT I MIGHT PREACH HIM AMONG THE NATIONS. Why was Paul saved? Why did God shower GRACE on Paul? Obviously, it's not like he deserved it! He did it so that Paul would be a proclaimer of GRACE to the nations...not for him to just sit in a pew and soak in it. Private relelation for public communication.

I am excited to go overseas and testify to God's GRACE in my life, speaking the gospel message through my story as I stand before the church. I am excited to interact with a body who knows the reality of working to reach God all too well. I am humbled to speak a message of GRACE to a cuture so driven by works. After all, that is Hinduism--working to earn favor in the eyes of all these gods.

Instead of striving for perfection, this is what I must understand personally. This is the messasge I will preach. Pray they will have ears to hear and eyes to see.

Beloved, you are free. You don't have to work anymore. I've got good news: He has made His way to YOU!! He is not one of 33 million gods, He is the ONE true Lord God and He has made His way to you and you dont have to do anything. No matter what your past looks like, no matter what you were struggling with at 2 o' clock this morning, the reality is this: YOU ARE FREE BY THE GRACE OF CHRIST. He is pleased with you based soley on you identification in Him.

He has  removed your sins as far as the East is from the west. He remembers your sins no more. He cleanses you of all unrighteousness. He makes you a chosen people, a royal preisthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God who once did not have mercy and now you have mercy. not based on your desire or effort, but based on the desire and effort of God. He has pursued His way to you. Mercy has come running to you and you are free by His GRACE. By His GRACE you are free--and that is good news.
As I prepare to head overseas in several weeks, this is the message God is revealing. Oh Lord, help me learn to soak in GRACE, let it flow through the depths.