Allow me a moment...

Allow me a moment to be vulnerable with you...

This week has been a whirlwind of activity.  It's actually been a little more chill than previous weeks, but I guess the whirlwind more or less comes in with what's been happening in my mind.  It's all over the place!  First, let me preface, my mind and thoughts being in constant motion is a fairly normal thing.  But there is something about these past 3 months, and especially this past week, that has caused it to go into hyperdrive.  I'm not confident in how much sense this post will even make as my thoughts are so scattered in my brain, but we'll give it a go!

There's really one word that seems to sum up well what I've been feeling and thinking... anticipation.  Okay, so there are a lot more words than just that one the Lord has been stirring, but anticipation seems to be the root of where I'm at.

Even as I write this, it's with a song blaring in the background...
"I will rest in Your promises.  My confidence is Your faithfulness.
Faithful You are.  Faithful forever You will be!
Faithful You are.  All Your promises are 'Yes' and 'Amen'."

And there it is... more words God has been speaking over my life "Faithful to His promises".  True words.

So here I am in Mae Sot, Thailand - an 11 hour time difference from my Indiana home - sitting in one of our training centers (Braverly) on a swinging couch (yep, a swing), truly surrounded by God's faithfulness built around me.  This space came from a dream, quite literally, my teammate had - to build a space that would serve as a beacon of hope to this community, a space that would empower women with skills to grow their confidence and change their realities, a space that would speak incredible value into their lives and show them the truth of who they are and what they are capable of.  That space, as I sit here this morning, is very much a reality - a dream given by the Lord to build... a promise fulfilled.  His faithfulness.

I'm here... in Thailand... a place halfway across the world.  A place of sunshine and mountains, of languages I often struggle to understand.  A place of beautiful people, a place known as "the land of smiles".  A place that is the fulfillment of a promise the Lord gave to me so many years ago... a call He placed on my life to serve on the foreign mission field - a promise that my Indiana home was not forever but simply a season.  I'm sitting in a space that is a dream fulfilled and built, in a foreign land where the Lord has clearly led me to come and serve... a promise fulfilled.  His faithfulness.

So back to this week, and really this season, there has been such a stirring within me of promises the Lord will yet be faithful to.  How do I know?  Because He said it.  And because I know Him to be faithful, and so if He said it, He will do it.

"Plagued by Your promises
Words You have spoken
Desires You have placed in me
Faithfully You will complete

From the mountain to the valley
From the desert to the raging sea
And in the silence or the city streets
Oh Your presence always covers me...

...When I don't know what steps to take
When I don't know what moves to make
This one thing I can't escape
Your love"
(Mountain to Valley by Housefires)

Faithful to His promises He will be.  Yes and amen.  That's the truth I've been hearing in every song that has come blaring through my headphones when I sit in worship of the Lord.  That's the truth that has continued to be spoken over me and prayed over me by countless people - those who know me and those who do not.  That's the truth I continue to find in His Word as I press in and dive deep.  Faithful to His promises He will be.

This past week we hosted a team of 25 beautiful people from Bethel in Redding, CA.  They took 3 days to come to Mae Sot and simply pour into us, pray over us, speak and prophesy over us.  I'll admit, I was unsure what to expect.  Unsure what would be said or how God would use them.  Yet before their arrival, I had been praying and asking the Lord to speak into some very specific areas in my life and to use uncommon voices to do it.  Now, I've been asking Him to speak through His Word, through music, through pictures, and other ways that He often speaks to me.  But there is something in hearing the Lord confirm things through uncommon voices - the ones we just don't hear all the time, or in this case, through those who I've never met before in my life.  And this week has been a week, and these 3 months have been a season, of reconfirming God's promises in and over my life.

I'm still processing it all, digesting the truth that's been poured out, diving into the scriptures that have been spoken over me.  Tucking some words away as promises to understand the meaning of later.  But, man oh man, the Lord is faithful.  "...He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself" (2 Timothy 2:13).

So what do I do with all of this, all these thoughts that seem so incomplete in my mind?  Well, the Lord has really been challenging me to press in.  He's challenging me to pray in boldness for His promises to be fulfilled, to not skirt around them or fear the possibility or impossibility of them, but to call them out - as raw as speaking them out may make me feel, it's His promise to me and I can be confident in His faithfulness.

"When I don't know what steps to take
When I don't know what moves to make
This one thing I can't escape
Your love

When I don't have the words to say
When I can't seem to find my way
This one thing I can't escape
It's Your love"

He loves me, He loves US so much, and He loves to show us His faithfulness - to remind us that His Word does not and will not return void.  If He has spoken it, if He has promised it... He will do it!

Maybe today someone else needed that reminder too.  Maybe today or this season, you're questioning if the Lord has heard the deepest cry of your heart.  Maybe you're questioning if that desire He's placed within you, that dream you have will ever come to be.  And to you, let me simply say, "All His promises are 'Yes' and 'Amen'."  If He has said it, He will do it because HE IS FAITHFUL.  I don't know what it will look like for you (I don't know what it will look like for me) and I don't know when, but I do know that He can be counted on to fulfill His promises in your life!  So lean in, press in unafraid - or at least making your vulnerability greater than the fear that threatens to hold you back under the guise of "guarding your heart".  Let it go.  Cry it out to God - speak His promises back to Him and trust in His faithfulness to fulfill those promises.

"Lord, I receive, I receive, everything You have for me.  Pour it out Lord!"