The Lord's Ways

I remember sending off that first email to Sharon, and then sitting back and thinking logically about the whole thing. And that's when I had this conversation with myself that ran something like so:

You know what's going to happen, Heidi.


No, I don't. What?


God is going to bring you right down to the wire on this. A few months before you'll have to leave, He'll make it absolutely apparent that you're supposed to go, and you'll have to cling to Him for all you're worth in order to have the faith to make it to Sunshine Orchards. That's what.


No way. God wouldn't do that to me. 


As I sit in front of my computer, months after that argument with myself, I have to shake my head.

The Lord's ways certainly are not our own.

But yes; in other words...

I just knew this would happen.

In all seriousness and theory, I'll be leaving for Thailand in two months. (With the exception of a few days on either end.) TWO MONTHS. That's not very far away. And with lots of things still to do, I'm starting to feel a little bit like Moses in front of the Red Sea: children of Israel behind him, screaming in fear; the sea in front, the mountains on either side, and Pharaoh's army closing in. It's not a pretty scene.

I visited home this last weekend; just returned to YD yesterday. On my way over, I was listening to Pilgrim's Progress--the second half, about Christiana. It's a wonderful story, with lots of lessons and beautiful representations of our lives as Christians. Yet, this time, something very specific stuck out to me.

It was a calm scene: Gaius, Old Honest, and Greatheart are all sitting up late around the fire, after a long day of wedding festivities for James and Phoebe, and Matthew and Mercy. Old Honest begins to nod, but Greatheart wakes him up with a riddle to be solved. The three men fall to talking of faith... and this is where my ears suddenly heard something I'd never caught before. My brain wrapped itself around something that I hadn't understood before.

Gaius is repeating Old Honest's answer to the riddle, in words "simple enough for a child to understand." As he is speaking, Honest pops up with a question: "But suppose he does not feel like it?" Gaius, with sage wisdom, replies, "He does not have to feel like it; he just has to do it." He then proceeds to say (in paraphrase) that when a boy or girl gives his heart to the Lord and begins a life of faith and submission, that the child does not need to wait to feel like he believes--he can just choose to believe; to have faith; and that's really what it's all about.

I seriously had to stop and think about that for a moment. Anything else was forgotten for a moment, and I sat, spell-bound, listening as Gaius continued on. The scene soon ended, and then they were battling with Slaygood. But the force of what had been said still floated around the interior of my car, and was in the process of making indellible footprints on my brain.

See, all my life, I've thought that to have faith, I have to be full of this feeling of trust and belief. If I have faith, I won't be scared; and I certainly won't have to say "I'm just going to choose with my brain" and not actually feel it.

Gaius, in those few words, threw down every stronghold and every barrier to true faith that I had been encompassed by for years.

And yet, those few moments in my car, speeding down the road towards home, have begun to change my outlook on life... and my take on faith.

I can choose... I don't have to wait to feel it. I don't have to feel like it. I just have to do it.

So, the departure date for Thailand is creeping ever closer.

I have two months.

Alot of fundraising, alot of legal procedures, and alot of prayer.

But God is already answering prayers.

Just this last weekend, my prayer for a computer to keep in touch with home has been answered. A family friend from church has offered to supply me with one... Something I neither expected, nor can thank them enough for. I can only smile.

One worry down. And I know He'll be taking care of all the others. No, I may not feel like it... But I'm choosing to believe it.

Faith. That elusive concept. Suddenly made real by a man in a story who isn't even real himself.

Again, the Lord's ways are certainly not our own.