Pain, loneliness, family, conversations, death - all for His Name

Since my last blog, which was way too long ago many things have happened to me. I won't bore you, but I will breeze over a few that the Lord has used to work for his glory.

1) I had shoulder surgery. The surgery went well. I'm feeling good and getting better. The hardest part is not the pain. The hardest part is not being able to drive. The Lord is teaching me that it is okay to be at home. I get to read a whole lot more and I reflect on what I read. That is a grace of God because I'm not a great reader or reflector and now I have hours to do it. Another hard part about not driving is not seeing my friends. The Lord has used this to show me that too often I make my friends my god. This is so hard. I'm a people person and knowing that I've gone too far is a hard reality. God is showing me my sins and giving me new joy in things. PRAISE GOD!

2) Many of my friends went on missions trips. The prayer requests I've heard and read amaze me because they are so Christ centered gospel spreading. They have convicted me of my need to be bold. As my friends have been gone prayer has been the one thing that has kept them going. How awesome is that? Super awesome!

3) My big sister came home. My sister goes to school in Greenville SC and has only been home for about 6 weeks out of the last two years. It is such a blessing to have her home. She is home for a week. It is amazing to hear what the Lord has done in her life in her evangelism training at Leadership Project with Campus Outreach. Again the Lord convicts me of my need to be bold.

4) I have had many conversations with friends that didn't go on missions trips and I'm amazed my the maturity of their hearts. When I am with people I love to ask two questions; 1) How's your life? 2) What is prayer worthy (besides everything) in your life? That way I can know really what is going on in their hearts. I love doing this because each time I praise God for the work he is doing in each heart and the prayer requests that are given are so God honoring. Then when I go back and get feed back I see what the Lord has done in answering prayer. WHOA!

5) My grandpa died. He is the first of any of my grandparents to die. He was almost 91 years old and he was declining quickly. The death wasn't a surprise and it wasn't too painful. The painful part was knowing that he probably died an unbeliever. He didn't say anything in the last several weeks of his life and the Lord could have been doing a work in his life then. We pray that He was doing a work and we trust in His grace, but that is all we can do. The last couple years my mom has gone over to his apartment everyday and helped him eat and talked to him. She shared the gospel with him several times and oftentimes would just read the gospels to him. When she would pray or share sometimes he would grunt out of frustration of not understanding it. I remember my mom coming home one afternoon and saying that grandpa heard her talking about the gospel and he said, "I don't get it." And she just kept going over the gospel again and again. We just trust in what the Lord was doing. If He called him we will worship the Lord together someday. This is by far the experience the Lord has used the most. The night before his death my family went over to his apartment, had a picnic on his floor, and had family devotions. My dad talked about how our lives are a breath. And we listened to my grandpa breathe with great struggle. We prayed that grandpa had Jesus Christ as his savior. We thanked God for what a great dad and grandpa he was. And we mourned that he would be gone. It was an awesome experience to see my family in tears for a lost person and possibly a lost soul. I will not soon forget that. Coming out of that experience God further convicted me that I need to share the gospel now because a life goes fast and a life might go by without hearing the gospel.

I ask you to pray that my family will be able to tell my aunts and uncles the truth of the gospel. I ask that you pray I get better at sharing the gospel. I ask you to pray for yourself and those you love because you will see your prayers answered and it is awesome. God uses big stuff and little stuff to convict us of sin. I praise God for that.

Psalm 24:5
He will receive blessing from the LORD
and righteousness from the God of his
salvation

God promises to bless us and to give us righteousness and salvation. That is great when it comes to sharing the gospel.

Sharing along with you,
Greta