I am a whore, I do confess...

This is going to be long and way over due, but I promise it's worth your time to read!

Today was our first flag football game for intramurals and I had to wrap with tape, a bracelet that one of the girls from the slums in India gave me. After the game, I took off the tape to find the bracelet had broken to pieces. I immediately began to cry. It was a piece of India that hasn't left my side since I've come back to America. And as I sit here typing I can't do anything but cry, and the only reason I can think of is not because a 10 cent bracelet broke or even the fact that I am no longer in India or the fact that no one understands or cares about what amazing things God did this summer in my life...all I can result with is, like Christ, "I am not of this world." That being said, I just want to be as close in relationship to Christ as possible during my time here on Earth. The last day of ministry in India was one of the worst days of my life, but also one of my best....

I went to preschool in the morning for the last time and said our goodbyes to our teachers and my 5 year old class I still can't get off my mind. After lunch, Sam and I went to say goodbye to our friend Sue (from previous blog) and to give her a Bible. We visited with her and her family for a few hours until we had to go meet some friends. In order to give her the Bible without her husband seeing we had to give it to her so her husband wouldn't see. So I asked her if the girls who worked for her were there so I could say bye to them. Sue took us to say bye to them. They didn't realize it was our last day and had wanted to give us something, so they gave us their earings and then walked out to buy us snacks. While they were outside, Sue's husband came in and in broken English spoke "dead man" and "10 minutes." Soon after Sue ran in and told us a man just died outside in the streets! My first reaction was to go pray over him and raise him from the dead...and I wish I could tell you I was obedient in that, but I wasn't, I was a selfish whore. Sue grabbed our hands and drug us outside to a crowd of people and pushed us to the front of the crowd. There, three feet in front of me lay a man, dead, on the dirt street of the slums, his widowed wife lay over her dead husband screaming over his chest, crying out for one of her god's to save her. Her god's can't save her, but mine can. And my God was telling me to kneal by him, lay my hands on him, and pray life into him in the name of Jesus. I used the excuse of I am already late and I don't know what is culturally appropriate. So in disobedience I held my hand out where I was and prayed in my own comfort. Soon, Sam and I walked back to eat our snack from our friends, say our last goodbyes as me cry, and walk away. The whole time I was hearing the Lord repeatedly to tell me to go pray over the man, the whole time I disobeyed.

The whole time I was grappling with how I had been disobedient. God wanted to show me something big! He wanted to use me, maybe even to raise a dead man, He had something huge in that, and I disobeyed even though I knew that He was going to provide. Why, why do I fear such Earthly things. Things fo this world are not worth fearing. The Creator is the only One worth fearing. As I beat myself up and tore myself up over my choice in disobedience, the Lord only comforted me. He told me, "Alison, I don't need you to do what I am going to do in Birla and in those people. Because of your disobedience, I am no less glorious and because of your disobedience their salvation is no different from what it was. You did not mess up my plans. Yes, I wanted to use you and bless you be being a part of that. You were disobedient, but I am not disappointed! You heared my voice Alison, and you recognized it. i am proud of you for that. It is working progress. Now you know my voice and now we will work on obedience. Alison, you are my beloved daughter with whom I am well pleased!"

I am just so overwhelmed with the love the Lord has for me, that He would make so much out of nothing, that He would love me dispite my imperfections and my faults. Instead He sees how I turn my back on Him and it just makes Him want to be that much closer to me. He loves me more than I could and will ever know. But I want to strive every day to know more of that love. As I was sitting on the bus listening to the Lord, I heard the song we had been singing with the kids all summer long: "Mercy is falling like a sweet spring rain. Mercy is falling all over you. I receive your mercy, I receive your grace." His grace and mercy fall down on me like the rain in monsoon season and I gratefully receive all of it. I will never be good enough for God, but I will always be deeply, intimately, and passionately loved and desired by God!

My thoughts flashed back to earlier that week while I was listening to Wedding Dress. It says "I am a whore I do confess. Could you love this bastered child, though I don't trust you to provide? With one hand in a pot of gold and with the other at your side, because I am so easily satisfied." I say I am yours, God, yet I don't trust You, I am afraid, I am selfish whore, and my actions say I care more about worldly things than things that will last (You). I would rather stick to what I know (earthly things) being easily satisfied than to give you my whole self. I no longer want this to be true. That day on the Arabian Sea, my heart was ripped to peices by this sinful heart of mine, but redeemed by the blood of Christ as He poured out His grace and love on His beloved daughter.