Unfailing God

Though my eyes may fail me, I will follow after you

Though your promise seems forsaken, I remember the World's in Your Hands

You'll find me singing

You are unfailing God, Your love's unending

And Your Word is eternal, firm in the Heavens it stands

Eyes can't see but I feel You near

I know You're working through my tears

I trust You, LORD I TRUST YOU FOR YOU NEVER WALK AWAY

You are unfailing God, Your love's unending

And Your Word is eternal, firm in the Heavens it stands

UNFAILING GOD, UNFAILING GOD

YOUR LOVE IS UNENDING

-New Life Worship, "Unfailing God"

I find comfort and peace through this song. But I also find myself challenged and inspired. God is unfailing. His love is unending. So why do I fear? Why do I let satan back me into the corner. Why can't I be bold for my Savior? Why do I fear the unknown? Why is it so challenging and stretching for me to trust God and follow Him where He leads one step at a time. I am inspired....because no matter what satan may throw at me, my God is unfailing. He is mighty to save. He never walks away. I want to stop hiding behind my insecurities, my doubts, my fears, my lack of knowledge, and my inability to comprehend His ways. He is unfailing.

"a love that requires absolute assurance in order to act is not love...when we can say we will follow God regardless of the uncertainty, then real faith is born - for love acts not whenever a certain set of criteria has been met, but rather because it is in the nature of love to act." ~Pete Rollins

Terminal Restlessness

I cannot forget. My heart cannot be mended.

My eyes cannot stop seeing. I cannot forget.

In my experiences working at the hospice center, I have learned a new term: terminal restlessness. When I first started working there I honestly thought terminal restlessness was just a technical sounding term the nurses made up for patients we can't keep in their beds. But after about a month of working there, I finally realized it is a real diagnosis that often occurs in terminally ill patients. It causes them to never be still. They squirm around even in their sleep. They cannot be still. They cannot find rest.

I finally realized what is wrong with me. I am terminally restless. I mean I can sleep and sit still, though my mom would probably beg to differ as she claims (and I admit she is right) I have always had a hard time being still, but I can't shake this restlessness in the depths of my soul. My eyes have been opened to things in this world that I am not ok with. I can't go back to mindlessly sipping my starbucks chai tea, when I know how good the chai in India tastes (it originated there after all). Ok but on a more serious note, I can't go back to how I was and I would never want to. I can't live comfortably here when I have sat on the dirty alley way of a small leper colony conversing with "the least of these."I have seen their "houses" that are really just very small roomd consisting of a wooden bed and very few personal items where sometimes 5 people or more may live. I have grasped their disformed hands in love and I have even bandaged their deep, scarring wounds. The images are frozen in my mind and my heart is broken for them as I think of how the only "job" they can get is as a beggar because in India they truly are the lowest class. I cannot be content with the mundane of just going to work to get money to sustain my comfortable life, when I have lived with 21 kids who sleep on ten bunk beds (2 to each bed) all lined up in one room. They possess so few personal possessions. Their parents are no where to be found, they only have God and each other and yet their joy overwhelms me. I cannot forget how passionately they pray and how loudly they sing praises to our King. I cannot forget the kids who lived on the street my team lived on. Their faces are etched into my heart. I once held a sweet baby girl on our front stoop. She fell asleep in my arms and since I didn't know where she had come from, I just held her close until someone came and took her home. I cannot forget what it feels like to hold these precious, dirty, neglected kids who don't know what the arms of love feel like. I cannot forget the small room at the slums that 70 kids would cram into just to get a glimpse of Jesus' love for them through 5 inadequate Americans willing to be there. I know our white skin helped us draw a crowd as it is quite a fascination in India, but I am confident it was Jesus' Love in us that really drew those kids in. They were desperate for a taste of it. Just a handshake (Indian style of course) or a hug. Anything to tell them that they are worth something. I cannot forget the way the kids in and around the leper colony would literally fight over us to the point that we were lucky to leave everyday with our arms and legs in tack in their desperate struggle for a taste of love and attention. I cannot forget the hopeless look in the eyes of the countless beggars. I cannot forget their desperate need for a Savior to overthrow the thousands of "gods" of the hindu religion. The awesome thing is: I know the one, true Savior who is just the one to do it. I know the One who loves the people of India, His people so desperately. He loves them and He wants them back. He cares so much for them and because of that, He has given me a passion to love them too.

My eyes have seen. My feet have walked the dusty and dirty streets of India, through the city, the leper colonies, the orphanages, the slums, and even the hindu temples. My ears have heard the cries of the hurting. God has truly ruined me for the ordinary of this world. He has afflicted me with terminal restlessness, but oh how grateful I am for this affliction. I am grateful for the way God has broken my heart for the things that break His heart. I am grateful that He has allowed me to experience and see these things with my own eyes so that He could instill this intense passion in me.

I cannot forget. I do not want to forget.

***I am not saying everyone needs to leave everything behind and go to some far off land...we are all called to different things. God instills different passions in each and every one of us. He calls us all to different areas of ministry. That's how His work is accomplished because it just wouldn't work if we all did the same thing. There are important and greater works to be done here in america and I do not doubt that at all. As well as there are greater works to be done everywhere. Where God calls you personally is where you should be "terminally restless" to go. Whether it is to your workplace where you are a light to your coworkers or if it is to the farthest corners of the world. Wherever you are called live boldly in His love and glorify Him in everything...I really do think it is that simple.***

Life is Short, Love Boldly

"Love and say it with your life." ~St. augustine

In this season of my life God has been showing me just how short our time here on earth really is. We were created for eternity and our time here is really so brief. I am once again reminded that my perspective needs to be an eternal one, not just a here and now. Basically it comes down to three questions:

Am I loving God fully (more than anything or anyone else)?

Am I surrendering to Him completely in all areas of my life (and obeying no matter the cost)?

Am I showing His love to every single person I encounter (selflessly and unconditionally)?

God has been working in my heart through recent situations. It all began with a sudden and shocking death in my family. When someone I loved died far too young. It wasn't fair. He wasn't even 20. I struggled through this knowing full well that God was still on His throne, He is the Almighty One, and He will redeem even the worst of tragedies. Yet I was hurt. I wanted to be angry. I wanted an answer. But like always, the Father gently pulled me in close and whispered, "My sweet child, I hate this as much as you do. You are right, it's not fair and he was much too young. But don't doubt my love or my power. Don't you know it hurts me greatly to see my children in pain. Don't you remember how much I love you. I watched my Son agonize and die on the cross because I couldn't bear to be seperated from you for eternity. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world." These words spoke straight to my heart and continue to bring comfort. Instead of allowing Satan to claim victory in this tragedy by allowing my anger and hurt to take over, I allowed God to claim yet another victory in my life. I have decided to learn and grow through tragedy as I have only become more firm in my resolve to live everyday of my life passionately, recklessly, and fully for the GLORY OF GOD. I continue to learn more and grow stronger in my resolve as I work everyday with the dying. As a nurse's aide at a hospice center I experience life and death on a daily basis. Of course, death is a part of life. We all will die. But sometimes, when the person is young, it is hard to watch. I find myself questioning, wondering, and on the edge of doubting God's sovereignty yet again. A 27 year old with cancer, a wife and a baby....Lord why do I have to watch him die? You can heal him so why aren't you doing something?! I watch a woman in her fifties waste away as the cancer eats her up. I see the heartbreak of the families. I feel it in my heart too. Somedays I feel like my heart won't even be able to beat anymore because it feels so broken for all the hurting around me. But this, this is what God has asked of me right now. To walk alongside patients and their families in the final and often hardest days of their lives. It is a privelege to love them. To allow God in me to minister to them in His great love. It is hard. It breaks my heart daily. But the day things stop breaking my heart, is the day I will have lost it all. After all, I pray often that God will break my heart for what breaks His heart, and I know it breaks His heart to see us in pain. In this world, there is so much pain, heartbreak, and tragedy and if we let it, it will overwhelm us and paralyze us into a state of helplessness. My heart is so broken. It breaks for the families I encounter daily. It breaks for the 143 million children who have no one to love them, hug them, kiss them, or hold them. It breaks for the children forced (and sometimes sold by their very own parents) into a life of modern day slavery. It breaks for the young woman and even young girls who are forced to think that prostitution is their only way out. It breaks for the millions of people who don't know Jesus as their loving Savior. It breaks. But God, in His perfect love, holds me together. Reminding me that I can't fix it all and He isn't asking me to. He simply calls us to be obedient and love boldy, passionately, and without end.

"No one person can change the world,

but you can change the world for one person."

~George Hoffman

"Jesus had one objective in life. He wanted to glorify the Father. His attention was on the Father. He came to do the Father's will. Think of how far we have drifted from Jesus' objective." ~Ron Auch

How GREAT is our God?

You're the God of this city. You're the King of these people.

You're the Lord of this nation, you are.

You're the Light in this darkness. You're the hope to the hopeless.

You're the peace to the restless, you are.

There is no one like our God. There is no one like our God.

For GREATER things have yet to come

And GREATER things are still to be in this city.

For GREATER things have yet to come

And GREATER things are still to be done here.

Chris Tomlin, God of This City

This song has brought a ray of hope into my life over the last week. The Lord has reminded me that His work is NEVER finished. I am still grieving over the people I love and had to leave in India and I still want to go back more than anything else. But God has reminded me of this: His work is not finished. He still has something GREATER that He wants to do. God's work is never finished. He has a plan and purpose for everything we do in our lives. If we are surrendered to Him, then He will use us for his GREATER works in every circumstance of our lives. So no matter how much of my heart is still in India, I have found a little peace in God's revelation (again...haha) that He wants to use me here too. His power is just as great here in "We have it all, America" as it is in the poorest slums, leper colonies, and orphanages of India. He has shown me that by feeling so hopeless here I have been limiting His power. I can still grieve and miss my kids. I can still ache and long for the people of India that have stolen my heart (He is the one, after all, who gave me the deep love for them in the first place), but I have to surrender to God and His purpose for me in the here and now. I know that if I can do this, GREAT things will happen. It is, after all, the small things done with "reckless" love that God turns into His GREAT works.

I Am Held

"God does not leave us comfortless, but we have to be in dire need of comfort to know the truth of His promise. It is in time of calamity...in days and nights of sorrow and trouble that the presence, the sufficiency, and the sympathy of God grow very sure and very wonderful. Then we find out that the grace of God is sufficient for all our needs, for every problem, and for every difficulty, for every heartbreak, and for every human sorrow." ~Peter Marshall

In my days and nights of sorrow and in the midst of my heartbreak, I feel the Lord holding me like never before. I know without a doubt that I would not have made it through the last 3 weeks if he hadn't been my strength. His grace is sufficient. The deep sorrow I feel over leaving "my babies" in India who I love so deeply will not break me. The Lord was, is, and will continue to hold me together until I can stand on my own again. What an incredible love our Father has for us.

This is what it means to be HELD

How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive

This is what it is to be Loved and to know that the promise was

When everything fell, we'd be held

~Natalie Grant, "Held"

Hello America

I just wanted to post a quick update to let you all know I am back safely in America. The Lord was so faithful to me on my journey home with few delays and even 3 seats to myself on my second flight so I was able to sleep for four hours. I am so thankful for all of your prayers and encouragement. I will post more about the things the Lord has done later. If possible, please continue to pray for me as my body tries to adjust to the time change and the food. Pray for my heart as it is hurting, and please pray that I will know the next step the Lord has for me so I can follow Him unwaveringly.

When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

May 6

Hey everyone. I cannot believe today is may 6. My time left here is so short and it honestly hurts my heart so much. The Lord has done so much in my life and in the kid's lives. I cannot even describe to you how far I have come with them. Leaving will be the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Please pray for my heart and the kid's hearts as goodbye draws nearer and nearer. Also, please pray that I will continue to love BOLDLY for the time I have left. The Lord truly is my strength and providing all I need to get through every day.
Everyone here is doing well. Funny story: last week I got lice. It is funny because it wasn't a big deal at all. Instead, the kids picked the bugs and eggs out of my hair and then washed my hair for me. It actually felt like a massage so it was nice. Honestly...I actually feel like having lice blessed me more than hurt me. Oh how I've changed....actually...if that is what I get for taking naps with the kids and snuggling in bed with them....then I will gladly have lice for the rest of my life! I cannot describe my love for the kids....I know I say that a lot, but it is the truth.
Thank you for praying. Sorry my updates are so short, but time is limited.
I love and miss you all! Blessings

Help

Sorry I have not updated in a few weeks. Time is flying by. It honestly scares me that I have just a little over a month left here. The progress I have made with the kids here is truly only by the Lord's grace. When I first arrived here, I had to work to love the kids. Then, slowly they allowed me to love them more and more. Now finally, they have surrendered to my love and willingly and openly come to me for it. It was truly a blessing for me to be told by the pastor here that the children tell him they get love from me. I know that this ministry is important and meaningful. This is God's future army, and it is so important that they know and receive love. What a blessing for me to give that to them. I honestly cannot describe to you the love I feel for them...deeper than I ever imagined.
I have a request for all of you: This children's home is supported by only man and his family and they struggle monthly to send the support needed. I am asking you to prayerfully consider partnering with him by agreeing to support one child every month. These kids need your help. It is so important that this home is not shut down because it is a safe place that provides food, shelter, and most importantly the love of the Lord for these kids. So please, if you want to help, contact me at kellylynne23@yahoo.com I will give you further information through email at that time. Please contact me if you have any interest or any questions. I will get back to you as soon as I can, but please realize internet access is limited here. Thank you for considering this.
A few prayer requests:
-First for health, as it is so hot here, we have all been struggling. Pray that the Lord would prevent any future problems.
-Safety
-That the Lord will open the doors for me and make my next step clear after leaving here
-That the Lord will already be holding my broken heart together as I know I will one day have to leave the children I have come to love so deeply (and will knowingly break many of their hearts as well)
-Strength, patience, and grace to abound in my life....that i will do nothing out of selfish ambition
-I will continue to learn more Hindi
I am so appreciative of all of your prayers! I could not be doing this without all of you. Life is wonderful here and truly the Lord is working in my life in extraordinary ways. I love you all. Blessings until next time!

Aunty

I got a few minutes of internet time tonight as a surprise...haha. I am doing great. The kids are wonderful. I cannot believe this is real honestly. It is a dream come true for me to spend everyday just loving these precious kids. I have decided that "Aunty" is by far the sweetest name I have ever been called...I believe the only sweeter name would be "mommy." I think I melt everytime my name is called. Aunty, aunty, aunty. PRECIOUS! Everyday my relationships with the kids get stronger and stronger and even when I leave for only an evening the kids tell me to hurry back. It honestly feels like I am dreaming. The Father is truly amazing and so great.
I can now read Hindi, just very slowly. Please continue to pray for my Hindi reading and speaking. It is so helpful to me!
I appreciate your prayers so much...we all do. I love you all and miss you. Blessings!

Time Flies

The old saying, "Time flies when you're having fun," has been so true for me here. I have been gone a month now and it feels like I have been gone about 3 days. The days and weeks just run into each other as I continue to simply love. There are many struggles and I consider this crazy rollercoaster adventure the hardest and best thing I have ever done. I really have to hurry this update, but I just wanted to let you all know I am doing wonderfully! We had a really great Easter service yesterday and a church dinner afterwards. It was a great day of worship and fellowship. Truly refreshing not to think about the Easter bunny even once the whole day and to just focus on the reality...He LIVES!
I love you all and miss you. Please continue to keep us all in your prayers. They are so appreciated. I hope you all had a blessed Easter!