In the middle of April, and smack in the middle of my pain, I got a text from a very sweet girl in Trinidad that God gave me the priviledge of sharing Christ with a few years ago. What an absolute sweetheart she is!
Over the past couple years of seeing her during our mission trip to T&T, she has avery couple months sent me a sweet little text. "How are you Auntie Amber? I miss you! Tell your family HI" And every single time I respond with a smile and tell her we are all doing well, we love you and miss you too!!
Isn't that what we do?? When someone says "hey, how are you?" We answer about EVERY SINGLE TIME "great, how are you?" No matter what is going on in our lives, we say "great". I'm not sure how I feel about this habit. I do it. You know you do it.
Sure I think we feel that we don't want others to have to hear what is really going on in our lives. It's complicated right?
We this day in April I received a text from her and again is read "Hello Auntie Amber, what's going on? How are you?"
This time, I stopped and thought *Ok God, I'm going to tell her the truth*
"Well sweetie, I'm actually not doing so well. I've been in alot of pain for months now and doctors don't know why. Will you pray with me that I will get answers and relief soon?"
SEND.
Her response ( which is still saved on my phone)
"I will be praying! Auntie Amber, Our God is a God of healing! We serve an awesome God!"
I cried.
From time to time I would pull up her response and read it over and over. YES our God HEALS and HE IS AWESOME!! What an encouragement this 11 year old was to ME!
So many of the kids in T&T are an encouragement to me! Some have FB accounts send little notes from time to time. I LOVE IT!!! I love hearing from them!
I am so thankful that several years ago we were introduced to the Singh family there and what a treasure their friendship is as well. I knew that they were also praying for me! What a blessing that people thousands of miles away were praying too!! Aloma is like a sister to me, what an encouragement!
FAST FORWARD through my visit with Mr.W in June to July.
This year, I went to T&T by myself, usually Nate and some of the kids are with me. I was with our team from church, but it's very different than it was in previous trips.
I had alot to time to pray and focus on what God had for me there.
Even in the airport as we waited for hours, I had time to share with others on our team what the last several months were all about and what God did!! I appreciated the time to share in person what HE did! I prayed that God would continue to use HIS story!
Here I was, on my trip PAIN FREE!!!!
This is something that was such a concern to me months earlier I thought how in the world am I going to do this in pain??!!
But I gave it to the Lord and trusted that even if I was still in pain, He would give me what I need to get through each day. My goodness, people serve Him ALL THE TIME in pain and agony!! Who am I to complain??
So my heart was overwhelmed with thankfulness that I was there PAIN FREE!!!
I would lay there in my bed at night and be in awe that I truly was with no pain. I was so overwhelmed!!
About two nights into out time there, I was getting really excited...the kids were coming the next day!!! It was the day our whole team gets excited about. It's all about the KIDS!!!
As I laid there that night before, it hit me....
I was going to SEE her!! I started to tear up. I get to tell her FACE TO FACE, that YES, our God HEALS! He HEALED me! And that her specific words were such an encourgagement to me! God used HER!
I started thinking back to when I first got to know her, fresh in her new faith and so eager to grow! Her family had a VERY different faith. I was concerned about that, but continued to pray for her.
Then it hit me.... Ok Lord,IF she needed something tangible to know YOU ARE GOD, if she needed something that built up her faith in You...if I needed to go through this pain, then in truth share it with her...You then choose to heal me, and now I get to tell her what You did!! Well if this is WHY...for HER, her faith...then it was ALL WORTH IT!!!
Ok, so now there were more then just tears in my eyes, I cried and cried. Praised God for His wisdom and goodness. I fell asleep dreaming of seeing her the next day!
Here they came...the kids were trickling into camp, one by one, group by group. We LOVE this day! Grabbing each one and giving big 'ol hugs. I was working in the kitchen, waiting for the word that she was here. I kept looking around the corner. My heart was sooooo excited!!
Here she is!!!!! I tried to keep my emotions together, goodness gracious!!!
She is such a peaceful thing, I didn't want to scare her to death by running her down :)
Our eyes met and she smiled. She walked over to me and I gave her A BIG 'OL HUG.
I put my hands around her sweet face and told her " I have been waiting to tell you this, so I could tell you face to face...God has healed me! I am no longer in any pain, it's gone, HE HEALED!! Thank you for telling me the TRUTH, that He is an awesome God! You were such an encouragement to me!!"
She smiled. So humble. She even said " well I didn't heal you, God did!" :)
We hugged and hugged.
God uses us big adults to encourage others. We often forget that God also uses CHILDREN to bring Him glory and build faith. I was challenged at this point to LOOK for how God uses children, I'm pretty sure we miss it wayyyy to often!
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