Remember the other day? Remember the Shepherd's advice to Much-Afraid that I shared with you on Tuesday? In case you don't remember...and are too lazy to scroll down, it was the Shepherd who gave Much-Afraid the advice not to paint pictures of fear on her imagination? In typical Jodi-fashion as soon as I wrote that post I was confronted with a choice. Would I give in to fear and frustration, or trust in His unfailing love? I admit it...I gave in.
Tuesday and Wednesday Brian and I were trying to make decisions about plane tickets and transportation for our group to China. We have made contact with a person in Henan Province and we are excited about the chance to work alongside him and encourage him in his work. However, for those of you who know me and are also familiar with international time frames...often the two do not mix without the Lord having to teach me a lesson. I was extremely stressed about making the decision to book flights without confirmation and approval from our contact (who we hadn't heard much from in the past two weeks--well really we had only a quick email from him that said he'd be interested in working with us...but that was it). I began painting pictures of fear. Imaginations of being stranded in Shanghai for all three weeks without knowing anyone there...visions of not getting our train tickets to Henan...ideas of frustration and anger because things weren't working as we had planned. All of these ideas were going through my mind...being painted on my imagination and creating fear.
Wednesday was the biggest rollercoaster ride yet...and for one who generally likes rollercoasters, this one was not an exhilarating ride. Up and down...up...up...waaaaaaaaay down...and so on throughout the day. I would get excited while reading about the culture and then I'd remember all of the decisions we'd have to make. Anxiety and anticipation were fighting in my spirit all day long. I allowed it to consume me.
Thursday I simply tried to forget about it. The problem with that was our travel agent found better deals and kept emailing us options. The best option was we'd fly into Shanghai and then take a train to Henan. Problem with that is...everything we read told us that we'd have to have a contact inside China to get the train tickets unless we had five days to wait. We didn't have five days. We barely had a contact...in fact we weren't 100% sure. So last night as Brian and I chatted about whether to buy the plane tickets or not, we decided to step out on faith. Yikes! Buy the tickets and if anything needed changed we'd do it in China. DOUBLE YIKES!
This morning I was reading in Psalms: "I will trust in your unfailing love." Indeed, I had to trust that God would take care of the details. TRUST. This morning there was an email from our contact in China...he said the flights we'd arranged for were great and he'd take care of the in-country travel. Yikes! turned to a slight smile as I shook my head, confessed my lack of trust and faith, and said a prayer of thanks.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
It is so fun to keep up with your life (and in turn Brian's life) through your blog. Thanks for starting it! I wish we lived closer so we could spend time together and not have to depend upon technology! But since we don't . . . I'm thankful for this avenue of communication.
Love ya!
What a great testimony of faith, Jodles! I'm so glad you wrote on my blog...my hard drive crashed last month so I had lost my connection with you. It's good to see you again!! :-) I'll keep praying for your trip. Oh, and Turkey misses you, too!!!
Post a Comment