Today was a long day at work, but also an absolutely amazing day. I was pondering on the behaviour of the women I work with today. Basically, I got this job a year and a half ago by this amazing miracle, and yet I wondered why the Lord put me here, because I thought to myself, "Well Lord, this isn't exactly what I saw for myself." But He very quickly opened my eyes to the women I work with and I can't explain it, but I was bombarded with an immense love for them when I saw their pain and sufferings. So I excitedly partnered up with God as I set for my mission field 5 days a week. But lately, there was such a softness and response from the women that is completely out of their character.
I have cried in prayers for these women, I have fasted so that the Holy Spirit will water the seeds I have sown in their lives, I have desperately sought God to fill me with Him so that He may overflow on to everyone around me as I go about my work days. All those mornings I have arrived at work before anyone, skipping through the empty rooms with prayers and songs of praise asking God to flood my workplace. I have so wanted to see the One who set me free, be the One to impact and move the lives of everyone around me. And today, I saw but a glimpse of that.
There has been a change in the hearts of the women around me that is not behavioural or something I have done, I just knew something deeper and more powerful was at work here. I was ready to break down and cry from the sheer thankfulness and joy I was experiencing. That these women, broken and shattered of hope, may not realise it, but were responding and being stirred by a God that is absolutely crazy about them. They were responding to Him... in softness, and a hint of hunger, behind their tired eyes was hunger.
I have ached for the Holy Spirit to move and impact the very surroundings of my life, and so faithfully, and so beautifully, He has. He is there, at work, orchestrating something so beautiful as He moves in power, agreeing with even someone like me, a Kindergarten teacher in her mid twenties! Seriously...
On the flip side, there are some people who still look at me like "Oh, that Jesus freak who thinks a good time is spent with her nose in a book," But that's okay. *Shrugs*
At the same time, I am grieved. There is a price to pay for passion.
I miss my brother. I miss him so much. We are like twins, despite him being older. In my teens, although I lived with my parents, he basically raised me. He was the mother that nurtured and the father that protected all in one. We have a secret language and odd sense of humour that has everyone else confused. Even his ex-wife never understood our conversations and eventually gave up trying to understand what we go on about. We're not affectionate siblings... but we had our own way of showing our love.
I don't like the way he looks at me now. I don't like the way he always defends himself when ever I see him, even if I haven't said anything. I hate how one moment I see a side of him that really misses me, and next I see a man intimidated by me. My older brother used to never even remotely be intimidated by me. I am trying to love him with this new love I have come to know, and it only seems to set up more walls between himself and I. It hurts.
Even my own brother, who knows me so well, who always fought for my safety, tells me he barely recognises me anymore. I know God has transformed me so, and I know it scares my brother... that by giving up my life, by giving up control, I gave myself over to a change. The things people do to keep their false sense of 'control'. He has backslidden, but even he knows, and I know, the Lord is asking him to surrender all, and it is a leap he is too afraid to take.
There's a price to pay for passion. But I have to trust that this sting is for a little while. If God can turn my life upside down, the least likely of my family to be saved, then I would be insulting Him if I said he couldn't do wonders and miracles in the lives of my family. And not only my family, but I want to see this world shaken, moved, I want change. I so desperately want change. I want a great regeneration in the hearts of the broken, I want restoration to the broken in spirit. I want revival. I want more of this new life I feel I have only but tasted. O God, please move before us like never before.