His Grace is Sufficient for Me

Well, I made it to Lima. We had no problems getting here. Our flight was almost an hour late, but besides that, no problems whatsoever. All of my luggage arrived with me and I got a green light going through customs. I was met in the airport by almost my whole REAP South team ... and orange and blue balloons. Doesn't get much more fun than that!

When we arrived at the apartment, we discovered we had NO hot water. Combine this with the lack of heat in the house, and it made for a very cold evening. Thankfully, we were able to shower elsewhere and we didn't freeze to death the next morning. We spent most of the week trying to get things settled in our apartment.

During this first week I was struck by just how overwhelming everything could be. The overwhelmed feeling that I felt was unlike any other I had experienced. It wasn't a homesick feeling or a 'what have I done?' feeling. This feeling was more a feeling of complete helplessness. I discovered as we went around to stores and tried to get things settled that I didn't have a clue where I was, where I was going, where I had been, or how to get home. Now, for someone who is very accustomed to knowing where I am going and how to get there, and used to being able to drive myself everywhere without worrying about relying on others, this was difficult. But then to realize that I couldn't even leave my house alone because I didn't have a clue where I was or how to get home if I got lost was even worse. Then as I began to hear bits and pieces of info about my ministry position from my supervisor, I began to feel like I had no idea what I was doing or how I was going to accomplish what was expected of me. In simple terms, I began to feel completely insufficient and incapable. The moment that it hit me that insufficiency was exactly what I was feeling, I was immediately struck with the words of Christ that say his grace is sufficient for me and He is made perfect in my weakness. Here I was thinking about how insufficient I was (and am) and He was bringing to mind this verse. I was reminded about how perfect He is and how much strength He can provide me with because I am weak. I was reminded that He is COMPLETELY CAPABLE AND SUFFICIENT. I realized that this whole two years will be entirely because of Him because I am so completely incapable on my own that it will have to be through Him that anything gets accomplished. It is strange how realizing my complete weakness isn't disheartening once I am reminded that there is a strength that I can't explain that will be completely sufficient and will bring me through. It was amazing to realize this, but even more amazing was just how often I was reminded of this throughout the week. I have never had one verse of scripture come up in conversation more than this one did over the course of the week. I obviously needed to hear that lesson several times, and God reminded me of it constantly.

I feel so blessed and overwhelmed to think that God is so alive and cares enough to comfort me in my time of complete helplessness. I'm also still in a bit of unbelief that He is allowing me to be here in South America, right in the middle of what He's doing. While I wasn't so sure about these two years the middle of last week, now I can see that they are going to be absolutely amazing and I can't wait to see what He does during them.