It doesn't have to just be in Africa.

So i met someone last night who is probably one of the gnarliest people i have ever heard speak in my life.

This is a 21 year old girl named Cassandra, with a heart for Africa. Six months ago, she went to Sudan, wanting to work in warzones, with few plans, no translator, no guide, no partner organization. While she was there she just loved on street kids. Helping them to feel loved in ways they had never been able to experience before. 

All the while, she had a passion for the healing and transformative power of God. She had the faith that God can overcome all the things of this world. She and the kids she cared for prayed for so many people and saw Malaria healed, mute people speak, deaf people hear, blind people see. All just her, the street kids, and God. 

One day, she went to this hospital ward with the street kids where dozens of babies were lying sick with malaria. She and the kids just held the babies and loved on them and prayed for their healing. Believing that God was bigger than malaria and bigger then their circumstances, they just prayed. When the day was over, they returned home. A couple days later, the hospital called Cassandra and told her that they needed her to come back to hospital right away. When she got there, they asked her what had happened because the following day, all of the babies in the ward she had been in had gone home, completely healed.

People... this is not a story of the past or a story of Benny Hinn or some other crazy Jesus guy. This is a 21 year old blonde girl from Canada who just wants to see God restore the warzones of the world for his Glory. 

Do we have faith like this? 

Do you think that if you prayed for someone they would be healed?

Do you know that the bible says we have the power to do things GREATER THAN JESUS DID.

The miracles you can achieve with God can be gnarlier than those of Jesus.

This girl gave every day to Jesus. He lead her where to go, he told her the cities to go to and the people to care for. For months of her trip, leaders at the United Nations and national leaders in Sudan and Uganda were looking to her for advice to how to care for the children in these regions. This respect for what she was doing was so dynamic that the UN and the Ugandan government has asked her, a 21-year-old, to develop a program on how to rehabilitate child soldiers and reintegrate them into society. The UN admitted that they were failing in Uganda and Sudan, and looked to her to figure out a way to succeed. They are asking her to care for children who can hardly return to society after years of torturing and murdering people as soldiers.

This is the power we have in Christ. This is the plan God has for all of us. While Africa might not be our destination, we have this level of power in his favor. HE loves us enough to love on his favorite ones. 

Can we grab hold of this? Can we believe this?

I hope I can. I can't imagine a more important thing to strive for.

The next day.

I am terrified.

Sick to my stomach.

Nervous.

Unsure. 

Unsteady.

Overwhelmed.

Unworthy.

Small.

Fearful.

Excited.

Optimistic.

Willing to wait.

Dear Jesus, Lets Talk. Perhaps a crazy dream... those always help me out. Let me be able to say yes.

I think I got my purpose...

So you know that story that pastors will talk about when they are just not expecting it and the Holy Spirit kind of rocks their world and comes on them so strong and all of a sudden they think that God might have just given them their purpose in life and he might have just laid in front of them the thing that he designed for them to do... the thing that they were born to do?

I think that happened to me tonight.

H O L Y C R A P .

Ifyoucouldprayformehardcorethatwouldbeabsolutelyfantastic.

Shopping.

ok. so i went shopping today for like the first time in months. 

i completely over committed my life this semester so i have had absolutely no money to spend on myself... like i normally do.

well, i decided to shop a little and thank God its christmas time because i got to have my parentals purchase pretty all that i wanted to get today :)

what is interesting though, is how different my life has been with me being broke most of the time and not constantly thinking about what i want to buy next. i know this sounds silly, but its like a really big deal for me. 

in spiritual disciplines this semester, Bill was talking about living frugally and spending conservatively. living frugally is never about living cheaply. Its not about shopping at salvation army or at the 99cents store, but its about saving and spending wisely. Something i have never done. 

for me, between spending until the account is at zero, or maxing out the credit card,  i usually spend just to have stuff. Sure it works out just because i don't really have any financial responsibilities beyond my credit card payment, but not having money to burn on myself has kind of changed the way i look at spending. I have learned [a little] to manage a small budget and get what i need with what i have to spend. i feel a bit freed from the need to just spend. i don't really know how i have changed in my attitude toward spending and finances, but one thing that bill spoke about really rocked me. 

he talked about how spending wisely and spending frugally doesn't mean sacrificing on the finer things in life, but it means saving until you can get what you need. Like if you want something pricey, you just save until you can do it. I know this is like such a simple thought but it is so mind-blowing to someone who just wants now. 

I am not sure where i am going with this, but i am excited to move forward, especially as i leave school and start to establish credit and set out in my life, that this is an arena of life that i can succeed in. this is an arena of life that i can make strong so that as i grow older and get married and have a family and just live, i can have to options to get what i need. I can have the financial freedom to be comfortable and happy to the measure i am supposed to be.

so maybe this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. but i think what is really happening is the lord is starting to free me from the financial expectations i have developed from growing up where i grow up... as unreal and nonsensical as they are. financial expectations that, at times in my life, have caused me to be self-conscious, stressed, and overwhelmed. financial expectations that used to cause me to try to fit a certain image that the lord has really released me from over the last 5 years or so.  

So praise God for accurate expectations and faith that he is going to provide so far beyond what i could have ever dreamed or hoped for.