Testing through testimony

I was chatting to a friend recently, relating a wonderful testimony of how God set someone free from an addiction to drugs. As I was personally involved that journey to freedom, with no previous experience of how to help someone with an addiction, the only thing I could do was rely on Holy Spirit to lead me step by step; day by day and God faithfully brought freedom.

I really enjoy sharing testimonies of how I've seen God work in some really tough situations. Sometimes the circumstances are such that it seems freedom (from drugs, depression, pain, stinking thinking etc.) is impossible, but in the end, for all who are willing, He brings sweet freedom. So when I relate these beautiful life experiences, I get various responses. 

On this occasion with my friend, the response was, drugs are terrible. Yes, off course, they're right, drugs are terrible but this friend missed the point entirely. What is the point? That with God's help addictions can be broken, He is not only able but also willing to set us free*. 

Often just by a person's response to a testimony, their heart condition is revealed. In this case, my friend was focused more on the drugs and the evil of it instead of on the other much better part of the story, that freedom came and a life is changed. The heart in this instance is focused on the wrongs of this world, it is swallowed up in the bad news of life which we can find plenty of everywhere. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard what we store in our heart: keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flows the springs of life. Off course we are not to live in ignorance of the state of this world but that is not to be our focus. What we focus on we become. So when we are focused on God hearing a testimony of His goodness will catapult us into joyful thankfulness and spur us on in our faith in Him to face the next seemingly impossible situation with a sure hope. 

Sometimes people react with, that's great for you but God doesn't work like that for me. What kind of heart condition is this? It's one of disappointment, in God. Once this disappointment settles into a regular thought pattern it becomes a stronghold of the mind and leads to hopelessness. We become convinced that God has abandoned us, He does wonderful things for others and blesses them but He doesn't love us. I have personally been in this pit of disappointment, I call it a pit because it's a dark, lonely, unhappy place. The only way I came out of that pit was to:

FIRST, ask for prayer from others and confess my heart condition. Accountability is a gift available within the body of Christ. I've learned that what you bring into the light is much easier to deal with whereas unspoken, negative thoughts hidden in the darkness of the soul can cause continuous torment. James 5:16 says, therefore confess your sins one to another and be healed, for the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 

SECOND, is to realise that there's some stinking thinking going on. If we believe in a good God Who doesn't change and has no favourites, then we need to question what we are thinking and not just allow any and every thought to take centre stage on the platform of our mind. God knows our weakness and in His mercy He speaks through Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:5, 'we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion that raises itself against the knowledge of God and take captive every thought to obey Christ'.

THIRD, is to go back to the place of disappointment and examine what happened. I ask Holy Spirit to work with me and show me where I went wrong. Proverbs 13:12 says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick. It's not merely the delay in the thing we hope for that makes our heart sick. It's when we lose hope in God altogether that our heart gets sick. Jesus called Holy Spirit our Comforter and He also called Him, the Spirit of Truth, what I found is that He comforts us with the truth. That's why Jesus said, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. The truth brings clarity and peace. 

And still there are others, when hearing a testimony, that react with, that's great. They're smiling and nodding in all the right places and then I see them walk away with an emptiness. They have not allowed the testimony of God's goodness to impact them. Why? Off course there isn't just one answer to this question. But from experience I can point to one, no personal encounter with God. I'm not talking about someone who is not a believer. This is often someone who professes a faith in Jesus Christ as their Saviour; prays; reads the bible and probably goes to church regularly. But as yet has had no encounter with the Living God. 

Jesus did not only give His life for us, He lived on earth FOR us. He lived an everyday life, working, being a brother, son, student, friend etc. but He did it all by acknowledging that He could not do anything apart from His Father. His life is an example to us of what it can be like to live on earth as a human living fully out of a relationship with Father God. Jesus said, I only do what I see My Father doing. All of His thinking and doing came out of a relationship with His Father, Who is our Father. Jesus heard His Father's voice and conversed with Him, there was a relationship that involved encounter.  In this journey with a God Who is real, Jesus always points to Something greater, Someone greater, He has given us an invitation to know His Father like He did on earth, not just from a text or teaching, but from a real life personal encounter with a Living God that will change us forever. And once we've had one, we know that there is more that awaits, greater things are yet to come. 

A couple of days ago my friend and I were just about to sit down to lunch, as we prayed, I said, Holy Spirit come! We love You and we need You. And He came. He brought the sweet presence of Father God into our midst and such joy and love flowed from it. Within that, I had a beautiful vision and I saw my friend and I clothed in white robes dancing on the ashes of nearly dying fires situated in ruins. We had great joy as we danced on the ashes. God said to us, I am blowing on the fires, reigniting them and I am rebuilding the ruins, I am giving you beauty instead of ashes. That very morning, God has been speaking to my friend about being clothed in new robes, of which I knew nothing about. For my friend, who is learning about encounter, it was an incredible confirmation that God was indeed speaking and also that it was a new season of faith being reignited and rebuilding what lies in ruins (past situations of failure or disappointment being vindicated by God). What a beautiful encounter. How can we be satisfied without it.

Flushing joy

Isn't it a pleasure to be able to flush the toilet and not give a thought about whether there's water in the cistern? 

Before I went to India and Nepal two years ago I rarely appreciated a 'western style' toilet, that is one that has a toilet bowl, seat and a flushing mechanism. I just took it for granted and never considered it a luxury. It was when confronted with squat toilets (hole in the floor) that I started to be thankful for 'western style' toilets. I remember when our mission team was travelling and we would get really excited when on one of our toilet stops we found a western style toilet, I remember shrieks of delight. A friend of mine had sent me a surgical mask, more as a joke than anything else, at the start of that mission. It's the kind of mask that goes over your nose and mouth used by dentists and surgeons. When I first started using it to keep out the dust and pollution while on the road, one of my team laughed at me until...on our way to Delhi one evening we stopped at a gas station for a toilet break. The squat toilet stank so badly, I had to hold my breath but I couldn't do that for too long; hold up my trousers and balance myself over the hole in the floor, trying hard to avoid falling into it or into the stuff on the sides. I was again so grateful for the mask! And then the same teammate who laughed at me, asked, so where'd you get that mask? 

Moving on a couple of years later, and I'm in Peru sharing a western style toilet with about 14-15 other people and there's no running water. I am so grateful to actually have not just a hole in the floor but a toilet that flushes, except there's no water. When I first got to the house where I was going to live for four months taking care of 12 children, there was no running water for a week. It was just Yeny and I then and we used the water that was brought from the stream and stored in large buckets. We boiled water for a squat bath and filled the toilet by hand. It was not so bad with just the two of us. But when the children started arriving, it was different. We needed more water, more often. Cleaning teeth became a time consuming process that had to be supervised and assisted instead of something simple the children could do on their own. Then the water would eventually come on again and we'd quickly forget the hardships and joyfully get back to flushing! 

But the water would stop again and we were back to the stream to top up our buckets and bath the children. Washing the dirty clothes of at least 15 people by hand was not possible as we didn't have the amount of water needed to get it all done, so it just had to wait. Washing the dishes was another struggle, filling large jugs with water and using a cup to rinse off each item whilst trying to be wise with how much water we used. The children each had chores to do and one of them was to wash and dry the dishes, it was off course difficult for some of them to do it without running water. So I often stayed with them to show them how to do it and usually by the time dinner dishes rolled around I was ready to drop into a heap. 

One day I prayed and said God, we have no water, please help us. And He replied, you do have water, just not running water. I was struck by the reality I failed to see. Yes, we did have water, sure it wasn't coming through the taps for our convenience but we had the stream. I suddenly realised we often think, we have nothing, but having nothing actually means having NO THING. Having no water, means there is absolutely no water, no stream, no river, no reservoir. But we did have water. And though it was difficult to keep going to the stream, which was not as nearby as we would have liked, it was still accessible. Though we were not able to flush every time someone used the toilet (which made for some interesting smells) we could flush every now and then, which was better than no flushing at all. 

God was faithful in it all, maybe not in the way that I expected, but He never allowed us to be without any water. The water flowed again and even when I was in middle of my shower, standing there, shivering, praying for just a bit more water, I had peace. Whether it came quickly, in a matter of days or from the stream, there was water, somehow. 

Una mas...

I haven't written in a long while. So much has happened that it's hard to know where to start but I will refrain from trying to update you on everything all at once. Here's one story that has just popped into my mind that is definitely worth sharing...

For four months of this year I was a house-mom to 12 children in Peru. I started the mission with the kind of Spanish one picks up in Spain on work trips and short holidays. So I could say, 'una mas...gambas; cerveza; café" ...take your pick. I know what 'ensalada Rusa' is and can even manage a Catalan lisp - which outside of Catalonia is of absolutely no use. I could confidently ask and be asked, 'que tal?', (how are you?), alas my only response would have been, 'bien', whether or not I was bien. So really I had no idea how to speak European Spanish, never mind the Latin American version. 

I had a couple of days of cleaning and settling in before the first child arrived. My co-pilot was a lovely girl called Yeny, whom God had hand-picked to help me for the first two months. She was local and so thankfully could understand everything and teach me too. Yeny is just 21 and one of the most patient people I have ever met in my life. God always has the best plan! So there we were never having done this before; trying to get the house ready and communicate with each other, bit by bit, with my Lonely Planet dictionary to help. All the children had been sent to their communities for a time as the permanent house-parents were unable to care for them; due to the house-dad suffering a serious illness. So at the beginning of Feburary, Yeny and I, were expecting them back any day. 

And so it was that the cutest little 6 year old arrived, very shy and with matching dimples. Let's call him K for the purposes of this blog. Yeny and I were total strangers to him so off course he didn't take to us instantly but he obediently gave us a hug each when asked. I have to admit that little touch just melted my heart so it took quite a bit of restraint not to pick him up and cover him in kisses. That night was his first night back at the house but without his usual friends around him. But he seemed happy enough, chatting away with words I couldn't understand. That night he slept upstairs in the nearest possible room to me. Yeny explained to him that if he needed anything to call me as she would be sleeping downstairs. He was probably wondering why I didn't say much but just kept smiling all the time. 

That night we all said goodnight and I tucked him into bed. He said a few things to me and all I could do, again, was smile. I went to bed with all these unspoken words bursting out of my heart. Words of comfort, words of love and blessing, I had them all there, just not in Spanish. So I fell off to sleep, praying for little K. Then in the middle of the night, I heard this cry, over and over, 'Tia! Tia!' So I leapt out of bed and there was precious K, wobbly from sleep standing in the corridor and struggling with really itchy skin. I got some cream and led him back to his bed. As I applied the cooling cream to his legs I saw how he had been scratching himself, some parts of his skin were scabbed and some even bleeding a little. I applied some ointment too and just soothed him. He went back to sleep much quicker than I thought. I stayed there for a while just to be sure he was okay. He was so little, so sweet and already within a few hours had needed me to help him. I felt such a surge of love for this little boy then and I knew that even without Spanish, he understood that I cared for him and he could trust me to be there for him. 

I prayed over his skin that night and asked God to heal him and comfort him. He did not wake again but slept through the rest of the night and his skin has gotten better and better. So has my Spanish, or more correctly Castellano. God takes me to places where I have no ability or skill and then He gives me the ability so I can testify to His glory, that indeed all things are possible with God. 

I learned about each child and their backgrounds as time went on. Precious K came from a broken home, his mother had a new partner who didn't want K around and his biological father didn't want him either. He is such a beautiful child, so valuable, thoughtful and sensitive. I could not and still cannot understand it. But I can say without a doubt, God has a plan for K. Father God has not abandoned him but made a way for him to grow up in a new home with a host of beautiful brothers and sisters, where he is loved; taught; nurtured and valued. And I, Tia Nikita, got to be a part of that for a little while, what a privilege.

So later on as I rapidly learned more Castellano, thank You God, K and I enjoyed great conversations as I tucked him in each night. We had many laughs and cuddles and I could say to him, 'te amo mucho', (I love you very much) as often as I wanted to. 

I miss him with all my heart.