A Stone of Rememberance....

I just want to say how grateful I am tonight. God has started speaking to me....or maybe it's just that I am finally listening. He has given me some hope.

I am so blind to who this great God is...the only One who ever pursues my heart. His never wavers....even when I am faithless...He is constantly faithful.

Yesterday, I decided to email someone whom God allowed to impact my life severl years ago. He and his wife were the very first people I met at Denton Bible. I was under his leadership for a few years...and to this day I know God used Him to teach me what it means to truly be a servant leader....what discipleship looks like. To love those you lead so much that you might not just impart the gospel of Christ.....but your very life.

I happen to exchange an email and I just felt moved to be honest with him and ask him the age old question...how do you know God is calling you to something?
He wrote back and told me of the book Visioneering..by Andy Stanley. He offered to let me borrow it....but I knew at my lunch break I would run by Barnes and Noble....just to see if it was there and read his recommended chapters. Well...I got there...and wouldn't you know it...there was one copy...just waiting for me. I sat down to read...and I couldn't put it down. I knew I had to buy it.
The book has really been an amazing encouragement to me in this very confusing and frustrating place. I haven't felt a book speak to me like this in awhile. It's a book that you have to chew on....write a little..and even pull out your Bible and read the stories for yourself.

The book is about being aware of God's vision for your life. At one point he states..."Find me a believer who is no longer faithful to the cause of Christ and I will show you a man or woman who has no vision from God, no sense of divine destiny. Such people have either lost it....or never had it."pg.58
Yikes....for sure didn't want to be the one who never had it...that scared me. I know I am His...and He must have a plan for me. So I decided that I had lost it. I started trying to remember a vision He had given me...and at what point I had lost it.......and then the pieces came together...

Several years ago....God began burdening my heart for the Fry street area of Denton....it's like the Deep Ellum of Dallas. I used to just drive down the streets and pray over them the last few years of college ....it did feel a little weird at first...but the streets were always full of interesting looking people and it was as if God was saying... look at them....in their eyes..see how lost they are...how much they are in need of Me.
There is one street that I would always go down to get to Fry street...it has tons of big houses...and one night I thought to myself...how cool if I could have a huge house like that....not just for me....but for girls to live in. I had no idea....what kind of girls..at the time I was volunteering with the highschool ministry and thought maybe troubled teens. I just kept driving down those streets on random nights...praying for that area. I remember even journaling about it as one of my dreams...not really thinking it would happen...but just so God would know I thought it was something cool. It wasn't until about three years later...after I started serving with the college minstry..that I started praying for a small group to lead....as I was praying God literally placed the girls in my path...one even had a broken down car after church one Sunday....I told her I couldn't fix her car....but I could take her to lunch. It was at that lunch I threw out the idea of the small group and asked if she would like to be in it. She actually knew of a few other girls....and there formed our group. In our group there was a student who was passionate about greek students....I encouraged her to pursue it...to start a Greek Ministry ....I even visited her Bible study....and I remember thinking...wow..that is so neat that she has that kind of vision..passion for a group of people. It's so great for her...I could never minster to sorority girls. I know nothing about that. It was about three years later that God used her to connect me to the postion as a sorority house director. I told her she was crazy at first...but it was as if God quietly asked...why not? Never in a million years would I have ever thought I could have or would have done that. It was after my interview that I remembered my journal......and how I had wanted a big house full of girls...then I remembered all the nights I would drive down the Fry street area and pray...the sororoity houses are just around the corner of Fry Street. God allowed me to love and serve the girls for three years and He raised up girls to lead a Bible study...He sent an awesome couple with Campus Crusade for Christ to come along side and help and train in ways I never could. I am truly amazed....and at the point where I was weary....and honestly started to take too much of it on my own shoulders....He pulled me out.
I know there is a lesson to learn in this.....Andy mentions this in one of the chapters..... how we can so easily forget who did the work...and who gets the glory. Very insightful and something I need to meditate on.
I can not even tell you how encouraging it is to write this...to remember all that God did.....and it was nothing I could have done.
I have felt frustrated at God for not speaking...a bit like I have been on the bench....and wanting God to tell me what is next...but before He can...I need to take this lesson to heart. I am prideful and I slowly without even realizing it....lost my dependence on Him in several different ways over the last two years I was there. I see my need to come back to Him in complete dependence.

As of now....He has only given me a single word. I know this is where some frustration has come from...and why things haven't made sense. I have been trying to figure out how to apply this word.....make it what I think it should be....when I have no idea where or what.... and now I for sure realize from reading this book....I am not in control of the how. I am so very thankful for His faithfulness. I see that it's ok that all I have is this one word.....I see that I need to press into Him....PRAY so much more....become more dependent on Him...as I once was. It means setting aside my flesh and the things it wants.... to seek Him first...then all these things shall be added...and in time...when I am ready... He can reveal more.
He knows I have bills and debt...He knows I can't stand this place...the mundane ...but He cares more about the state of my heart and preparing it for the next place...than my comfort. He is the only one who truly knows the deepest desires of my heart and the greatest and best way to fulfill them to bring Him much glory. So...I'm going to finish reading and underlining this book.....and keep asking Him to break my heart that I might learn how to depend on Him.