The Beauty in the Pain...

As the missions conference at my congregation has finished and I finally have a moment to breathe and reflect I find myself overwhelmed in many ways.  I know what this year's conference meant for me.  Some of what this conference meant will remain between me and Jesus who is the keeper of my heart.  The rest I will try to fumble my way through explaining the unexplainable.  These people are my heroes and I often don't see myself as part of this group of people.  This makes me smile inside because I know everyone else feels the same way.  I thank God often that He has allowed me to run with some truly incredible people in God.

I was once again brought to my knees in the Spirit between Sunday and Monday.  Sunday morning was the flag processional.  I've carried the flag of the Israel before but this year was different.  I could tell that something was different.  When the worship team began to sing and I walked into the sanctuary I was filled with pain and joy.  Pain?  Why pain?  And a joy at the same time not wishing that the pain would leave.  The pain was a long standing ache in my heart for this tiny nation.  The joy was knowing that He would hold my hand through the journey.  When I think of what He has asked of me I am often weep because I am keenly aware of my inadequacies and yet He still looked down and chose me for this assignment.  I will never know why but I will continue to say yes to Him!  Even through this pain there was beauty.  I experienced it again with this terrible longing to be in Israel on Monday when all the missionaries receive prayer.  I was once again overwhelmed with this burden and as terrible as it feels I don't want Him to take it away because somehow there is beauty in it.  It is a marriage of two things that don't seem to belong but in Him they somehow fit together.  As a dancer I experience much of the same in the natural.  Dancers will refer to it as "good pain."  Those sore muscles that scream as you stretch but at the same time it is a good feeling.  You understand that it is a good pain.

So here I sit... utterly overwhelmed.  Tears flowing often.  Utterly crushed even, if I can use such a strong word.  But the crushing is good.  It is that crushing like in an olive press.  The oil cannot flow unless the olive is crushed and pressed.  And it's beautiful.  Through it all I fall more in love with Jesus.  The deeper I go in Him the more this beautiful pain for His people grows.  I wouldn't change it.  I only hold His hand and keep moving forward...