So I am at Lee University now and I am really loving it. I am making friends and having fun, I actually enjoy the majority of my classes. My roommates are great. Everything is just really lovely.
I am also learning what it means to be healed in really unexpected ways. God is showing up so much, it's like I can hear him directing my days and to me that is new and beautiful.
I have always felt left out in this world and different because I have had a strong and stubborn belief system that I do not deviate from, but the differences that used to make me feel broken make me feel proud now. I know who I am and whose I am and that is something most 21 year old's cannot say.
I have grown a lot in the past two years. I have had my life uprooted by God several times, three really big times and all of them have taught me different lessons. The first lesson was that my worship is for God alone and that trusting in His plans is all that will get me through some seasons. The second lesson was that even when I am far away and all alone, I am never really alone as long as God is with me. I cherish the year of loneliness with God even in the midst of being around people. He is all I had in the hardest year of my life so far. And the third lesson I am learning now is that the obedient will see God and that new seasons bring new challenges, but God is still God.
I am so tired right now from the peak of a semester but I feel so strong and so blessed. I am covered by a God who knows everything I need and a God who chose me to be where I am.
How amazing is it that God knows all we need and supplies it, but also hears our cries when we feel empty surrounded by all we need. He is all that can fill us, but also blesses us with fellowship and relationships. He is amazing.
I am also learning that this life is not about me. Many college students are in an "all about me" mentality and God has been breaking me of that so very much over the past two years. If it is all about me then how can I live for Him? How can I see miracles happen and lives transformed for His glory if I am only looking to serve myself?
Over the past two months I have been helping every Monday with Family Promise of Bradley county as a way to start the week with focus on others instead of myself. I told God I would sacrifice the few hours every week just to show Him that I would still follow where He wants me to be.
Boy has He shown up in such crazy ways.
The first week it was just me babysitting for 6 kids.
A little back story on Family Promise, the kids I watch and their families are homeless for one reason or another and move every week from church to church for 8 weeks while they work through a program and are looking for jobs and homes. I did not know any of that going into this. I just saw babysitting and figured, "Hey I can do that."
What I didn't expect was to be welcomed in by one of the families I was watching kids for and to be able to pray over the parents and kids and stand in the gap with them for a place to live. Every Monday I would come and the 10, 3, 2, and 1 year old would yell "LEXIE IS BACK!" and we would play and I was blessed to be a light and sort of stability to the kids that they didn't have otherwise.
I left the first night just crushed for them and praying that God would use me in whatever way he could to bless this family and strengthen their faith in Him.
What I did't expect was God to use this family to strengthen my faith and to bless me.
About two weeks ago from yesterday I got there like I had every Monday and the kids mom pulled me in the church kitchen to tell me some news. "I wanted you to be one of the first to know, God gave us a house, two jobs, and two cars this week, We are not homeless anymore. Our prayers have been answered more than I could have asked." I was floored! I knew that God would give them a home eventually, but I hate to admit that my faith was stuck on the "eventually" part. I just knew that God was a God who provides and I told the kids that every week. God used this to build all of our faith in His provision and miracles.
What a great God we serve!!
So now they have invited me to see their house when it is all set up and I do not see them every Monday. I am so happy to say that, because that means that they are moving forward in their God story. It means that the kids can live in a house and grow up normally and will always have this miracle to look back on. They can understand God's love.
I still volunteer every Monday. I have a new single mom who I can watch her two year old and 3 month old for. Who I can pray over and be there for. But I also can tell her without a doubt in my heart that God WILL provide for her. That He has done it before and He will do it again. That He loves her and cares about her needs and the needs of her kids.
That he takes what is broken and makes it into something Beautiful. Again and Again
I hope you all have a great week,
Lexie
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