Wherever you are- be all there. -Jim Elliot

I cannot decide if I am a terrible blogger, or if there are just not many things to blog about during support raising. As an extremely motivated and active person, support raising has proved itself to be fairly difficult. While I am a person who thrives off of schedules and productivity, support raising is unpredictable and at times, appears to be very unproductive. So far, our journey to raise financial support has been greater than either Mitch and I could've ever imagined. God has blessed us financially through wonderful supporters and he has also placed us in a church where people are reaching out to us and pouring into our lives. We have experienced an overwhelming amount of people who not only support our ministry and encourage us, but are genuinely REALLY excited about our ministry. Excitement is contagious and Mitch and I have definitely been caught up in it.

Normally, it is about this point in a journey in my life that I realize that I am missing a huge lesson that God is trying to teach me. It is at the moment that I am so caught up in my own life, the success of support raising, getting involved in the church, wedding this, wedding that, when it hits me like an train. So naturally, that train came rolling around the bend just the other day.

I have come to learn that being engaged is the best tester of your patience; or so I thought. As much as I have struggled with being incredibly impatient about marrying my best friend, I have found that the impatience that I have for finishing support and reporting to USM is eating me from the inside out. Although God has been slowly pointing out this monstrous sin in my life, I admittedly have been justifying it by telling myself "you are impatient to go serve God on campus; thus it is not impatience at all! but dutiful excitement." (pitiful, I know). However, when God fully shows you your sin unveiled, not only are you unable to justify it, but you cannot even look at it straight on.

At my home church, we sing hymns from the trinity hymnal during our worship. Underneath the title of each hymn, there is a short verse that describes the key point of the hymn. As I sat in church yesterday and turned to the hymn number printed in our church bulletin, the verse at the top of the page caught my eye.

"Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?"

1 Chronicles 17:16

Who am I that God should even give me the opportunity to go into ministry? Who am I that God thinks that I am capable and worthy of being His disciple? Who am I that I have the audacity to tell God that I am too impatient to wait any longer to report to the USM campus? Alone, I am no one and absolutely nothing; what a humbling and shameful moment. 

It was then that I looked up at the hymn title, Amazing Grace. 

"...tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

and grace will lead me home."

Through grace, God has brought me to this ministry. Through grace, God has brought me to this time of support raising. And it is through grace that God has given me the opportunity to learn the patience to be wholly satisfied wherever he has me.