inspiration

In about a month and a half, a mission team from our church will be heading over to Kenya.  They will carry with them letters from our sponsors here to the children and youth at Mama Hellen's Rehabilitation Center.  Trey and I have led and participated in multiple missions to Kenya, and we sponsor a young man there named Nicholas.  Each time the time comes for us to write a letter through our sponsorship program, we take turns crafting the framework, and then the other adds their suggestions until we have a mutual piece of our hearts on paper to send over to the other side of the world.  This relationship means so much to us, especially having had the opportunity to meet and spend time with Nicholas.

This time around, it was Trey's turn to write the draft of our letter.  I thought he did a beautiful job of incorporating parts of our own lives into this most recent piece of communication.  So many times we offer encouragement, ask questions, tell a little about what's going on in our lives, and quote Scripture.  But this time Trey also found value in sharing the quite spiritual nature of each of our physical conditions over the past couple months (to opposite ends).  I wanted to share that part of what he wrote as a reminder that through our stories and our circumstances, whether times are good or bad, and whether or not on the surface they appear to be merely physical, God is shaping and growing and molding our hearts to draw closer to Him and to glorify Him—and even, possibly, to impact someone else.  This is our greatest hope for Nicholas.

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Emily has always been in great physical shape and has recently decided to train for running a half marathon… 13.1 miles.  She has never done that before but has found a great group of other Christian women that have helped motivate and inspire her and even run with her.  The race is on March 18th (which will already have happened by the time you get this) so hopefully and God willing, she has completed something that she never thought she could do.  This is a great example that with God’s help, support and guidance, along with surrounding ourselves with the right people (good Christian friends that can inspire and influence us in a good way) we can accomplish things that we never thought we could do.

Trey recently had some injuries from exercising.  Both of his hamstrings were hurting him.  He was on crutches for 6 weeks!  It was a very difficult time.  He often wondered why this was happening to him, or, if God really cared about him, why He would cause him so much pain. Why wouldn’t God just heal Trey?  But eventually, Trey stopped questioning God about why this was happening to him and started trying to see what God might want him to learn from this situation.  It caused Trey to really think about things like: being thankful that he can walk, stopping to appreciate the little gifts that God gives us, and how he really does need to work on his relationship with God so that he can fully trust God with anything and any situation.  Trey is doing much better now and has grown a lot through this difficult situation.  He realizes that sometimes bad or difficult things that happen to us can be good for us because they can help us grow as a person and grow in our relationship with God if we choose to seek Him no matter what.

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Nicholas is definitely one that I am running this half marathon "for."  I have faces in my mind while I'm running sometimes, and his is definitely one of them.  Every single boy and girl at that Center has overcome so much.  Their stories of redemption are beyond inspiring.  And we have a God who is right there beside through any one of our challenges—not promising easy but to always be with us.  How could we ever ask for more?  He is everything we need...