This is gonna be a long one

I spent the weekend, actually a little over 36 hours at Ocean Shores with the rest of our staff and volunteers in our YL region. It was a great weekend. I knew even a month ago that i wanted to go to this. That i was supposed to go. I knew that it would be significant in my life. And it was. I had been emotional Thursday night before we left. I think I cried for half an hour before I went to sleep. I found out later that it had been partly due to PMS. Its been 10 months since i experienced that, and i guess i forgot what some of my symptoms were. Sorry if that is too much information! So I felt very raw and emotional before we even left. Felt like I was wrestling inside myself. I started questioning if I should have even been there. The keynote speaker was John Franklin. He is in charge of the Western Division in Young Life. If you are not familiar with Young Life, it is huge. International. His job is to oversee the whole Western half of the US pretty much. That's a massive job. So he spoke to us in 5 different sessions. I will refer to him as........John. I felt like he was who i was there to hear. One of the things I have been wrestling with is who I am as a Young Life leader. This is my first year as a volunteer after being on staff for 5 years. So I was excited for that getting started this year. Then the year barely starts and we find out about Esther being sick, and then losing her. So I show up to this event feeling like I do not know what I am supposed to do. Feeling conflicted, heartbroken, lost, awkward, vulnerable, insecure.......etc. I saw so many wonderful friends who hugged me and said they loved me and were so sorry. I also saw so many that didn't even say anything. We even made eye contact. I guess I could have initiated, but didn't have it in me. So that made me feel even more insecure. There were 2 sessions of seminars that I also didn't feel like I could sit through. Couldn't ingest information about how to execute Young Life practices because I didn't even know who I was in the middle of all these emotions. What am I supposed to do? So i left. I got a coffee and walked around Ocean Shores. I love looking at little shops to find things you wouldn't find at a department store. Since having Esther I look for stars everywhere, because her name means "star". Anything with a star on it, and especially have been looking for a garden stake with a star on it to put by her grave. I did find one but didn't LOVE it. But i did find a beautiful star car charm to hang from my rearview mirror. I LOVED it, so I bought it. I walked around for awhile then went back to the convention center before session 2 of seminars began. The one i was interested in was packed and i didn't feel like sitting on the ground so i left again. I sat outside and watched the seagulls flying around and pooping as they fly. I was thinking, what in the world God? Those animals are so strange, they can just fly and poop as they go...... I was feeling all the mix of emotions that i explained earlier, and mainly feeling so lost. So i said, God I feel so lost. He told me to open my Life Journal. They had given Team Leaders each a life journal, and it has a pretty intense reading plan. So i did, and i opened it to that day, which was Feb. 5. One of the readings was Psalm 15, so i turned to that. I wasn't impacted by that as much as Psalm 16 which I had studied in a Beth Moore bible study that year before. He spoke so clearly from one verse to the next. This is what He said through His word,

"because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." Psalm 16: 8

"You have made known to me the path of life; you fill me with joy

in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand." Psalm 16:11

"Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory......

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever." Psalm 73:23 & 24 &26

I felt the Lord say, "Monica you are not lost. I know you feel lost, but I am right here with you. I am before you, and I know where you are going. I am not only with you, but I am holding your hand. Trust me and take one step at a time." I was so comforted by this. I love that God wants us to come to him with everything and let him minister to us and meet us right where we are. I was finding it hard to see the pregnant women and the women with young babies. I found myself asking everywhere i turned, "why do they get there babies? Why couldn't I have Esther? I thought I had already worked through that, but alas i was there again. I realize now that I was feeling vulnerable and insecure and i know the devil would have loved to devour me this weekend as I was experiencing those things and letting them take me down. But He did not devour me because God is the victor! I was battling, but God was fighting for me and he always wins! As i read HIS word, he again spoke to me through these verses.

"Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;

you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen

for me in pleasent places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." Psalm 16: 5&6

Wow! Ok Lord, not only did we lose Esther, but it is part of what you have assigned to us. It is part of my inheritance. When we did the Beth Moore study on Inheritance, she fleshed these verses out. Everything that happens in our life is part of our inheritance, now and for eternity. God will redeem the bad and use all, and give all of it as our inheritance. We have a good God. A faithful God. He has good plans for us, even through the bad things if we give it all back to Him to redeem. So my inheritance is made up of everything that God assigns to me. He makes no mistakes, and He has made my lot SECURE. The boundary lines of MY property are EXACTLY where he has placed them and my inheritance is delightful and beautiful! It may not seem like that all the time, but I believe it because God says it right here. I can't go around asking why everyone else got their babies, but their inheritance is their inheritance. God has their lot planned out and is using the hard stuff in each of their lives and has their lot secured. But mine is mine, and not theirs. Theirs is their own, and not mine. This verse has a new meaning to me now too. And because I know God loves me and Brian and I know that He is taking care of me and Brian, I know that our inheritance IS delightful, even though losing Esther was not delightful. Because He is God, He can do something new and beautiful. That is our hope. God is why we have hope. He is our Hope.

Needless to say, after wrestling through that with God, that evening was also significant. At one point during the worship time, the leader stopped and said, There is someone here tonight.......now whenever i hear those words i think, "am i that someone??" but this night i knew that I was one of many, i am sure. But she talked about not giving in to the lies that the Evil one tries to tell us. Lies that we have maybe believed for a long time. But that God is Greater, and Stronger, and Bigger (the lyrics of the song we had been singing) and is breaking even now those chains that have bound us up, or are binding us. I just started crying. I sang the words moments before, but did I really believe what I was singing? I think that is part of the battle. I could feel the battle going on. I did believe God, but then I didn't. So when she was talking, I just cried and told God I did believe He was stronger, and bigger and Greater and Higher than any other. Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, and if our God is for us, who can be against us!!! I cried as they continued singing and then began I Surrender All. My friend next to me just put her arm around me and sang as I cried. It was so beautiful. I tried to sing but couldn't, so i hummed. But again, i told God i surrendered all to Him. I was refreshed and knew that Satan had been defeated...........again. I was wrestling, but God won.........again, he always does. It wasn't until the next day, but I felt a heaviness had been lifted, chains had been broken. That night John talked about giving our life away for kids, for Jesus. When we lose our life, that is when we find it. And I knew at that point, what God wanted me to do. As I have wrestled with what I am supposed to be doing now, feeling like I am in no mans land, God spoke very clearly to my heart. "You feel lost, but you are not. Give your life away and then you will find it." I have felt that I am fighting between two worlds. My grief and dealing with that, and also Young Life, my passion. Almost as if the two have to take place separately. I realized this weekend that I think part of my healing will come as the two mesh together. Isn't that what life is? Not that things are good all the time and so we can go on ministering, but when things are hard and painful, we back out of the picture. No. John talked about God using us in our brokenness. And i feel broken. It is easy to lead when life is great, to pour out on others and to invest in others. Easy to rely on myself and what I have to offer, but right now I don't feel like I have anything to offer. So as John said many times throughout the weekend, give God a chance. Ask him to lead you and empower you by His Spirit and watch what He will do. I believe my personal ministry is going to change. Because it will be less and less about me which is the best! I think back to the Treasure we carry being in jars of clay, to show that the all surpassing power is CLEARLY not from us. Fragile, breakable jars of clay. That is me. But the Treasure inside me, now thats where its at! Jesus is what I want to take to kids. What I get to take to kids. He is who will change their life. Not me. Sunday morning in the last session as John was talking, i very clearly heard Jesus say, "Monica, I gave you your daughter, and took her back home and she is safe with me now and forever. You don't have to worry about her eternity, it is secure. Now go take care of my other kids." Okay.......

".......whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

Matthew 10:39