Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart....

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5

I'm grateful that God put it on my heart to blog this entire process of His breaking my heart for Haiti because He has used it, my own writing, to remind me of His faithfulness and His plans for me.

This past week I found out that both AIM and the Rock Church are cancelling their upcoming missions trips to Haiti. And while I don't put much stock in news reports and the world at large when it comes to where it is "safe" to go if I sense God calling me there (sorry Mom and Dad, but I know this isn't news to you) to hear that two Christ-centered, prayer-led organizations that I trust are postponing trips due to risk assessment....well, I have to be honest and admit I paused.

I took a good long pause and thought about how "smart" it was to head back to Haiti in December. How "smart" it was for three girls to our own to return to RENMEN in the midst of cholera outbreaks and riots. I allowed my head to entertain thoughts of postponing my return. I entertained thoughts questioning whether my planned return was God's will for me or mine. It went so far as a conversation with one of the other girls who has booked a plane ticket that went something along the lines of well its not as if we couldn't change the trip dates and wait until June, it wouldn't be a bad thing to spend more time with families, and so on.

But, it was after sending out a prayer request, and no doubt due to the prayers I know were sent up(by the way, prayer warriors I LOVE you guys), that God spoke loud and clear and absolutely convicted me of His will for me during a prayer walk yesterday (Saturday). He reminded me of my prayer to Him, by the pool, where I said to Him that if He provided the finances I would return to RENMEN. God reminded me that I didn't pray that the conditions there would get better, that it would get safer, that there would be less risk... what I asked of Him was that if it was His will for me to return that He would show it through financial provision. And, as my blog testifies from the past few entries God provided AND THEN SOME. Without my doing ANYTHING.

When this hit me I all but started weeping (grateful for sunglasses) while I was walking... wondering why it is so easy us to forget and question that God speaks to us and shows us His will in the tangible ways that we ask for. I mean, He used a missionary to provide the finances for me and here I was already forgetting and questioning if I am supposed to go back!

So, I'm returning. Over the winter holidays, which was the vision God first gave me of returning before I had even left the first time. Actually, the first seed God ever planted in my heart for going to Haiti was to be there over winter holidays, before the earthquake ever happened, when Haiti was first put on my heart in late summer of 2009... I know, without a doubt, that God has purposed this for me. He gently reminded me of how He carried me through the first round of fear I had (I wrote an entire blog entry on "doing it afraid") . He hasn't said it is going to be an easy trip, that it is going to be without incident, but He has promised not to leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5).

God has reminded me that He has given me not a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline ( 2 Timothy 1;7). And when God says go, when you love Him, you don't question... you obey (Father please forgive me for questioning you). You trust Him without leaning on your own understanding.

He has also kept putting Psalm 91:7 in my head over and over again - though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you (I didn't actually know what the verse was but while I was praying He put the words in my head so I looked it up and now I know the reference).

And, perhaps the most touching thing that happened this week was Him moving those close to me, my mom specifically, by giving her words directly that have spoken to her anxieties and comforted her (Luke 8:50 Don't be afraid. Just believe, and YOUR DAUGHTER will be well)so that she comforted me. Bless her for wanting to protect me and keep me safe because she said she waited two days to give me those words 'cause she didn't want them to be what solidified my decision to go back. BUT, that is even further testament to God's perfect timing because the day she did was the same day I started off questioning and then became convicted of my lack of trust.

It shouldn't amazing me that God knows what we need before we do, but it still does. I'm so humbled by His goodness, and patience, and grace... that even when we are faithless He is faithful... His love is just the most incredible thing. Words really fail me here.

I'm reminded tonight of something I read by Oswald Chambers in a devotional a few weeks back:

As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord. I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me.

The purposes of my life belong to God, not me.

Dear Father, thank you for your infinite patience, forgiveness, and grace; thank you for taking me to the end of myself, and for overlooking my moments of forgetful faithlessness along the way; thank you for continually tearing down the things I believe and replacing them with THE TRUTH; thank you for filling me with a hunger than only you can satisfy; thank you for continually reminding me that YOU are always THE answer; thank you for loving me with an everlasting love.

Love, Melly

**UPDATE** and the Rock February trip is back on!!!!!! Amen!!!