Unique and Beautiful

Meeting here in Romania with the ladies from the villages around the Family Center in Rasa has been a unique and beautiful experience for me.  It has been refreshing to be able to recount God’s redemptive love with women who perhaps have known of Christ by the Orthodox religious system, rather than through a personal relationship of love with Jesus.  The honor of sharing with them that Our Heavenly Father demonstrated His love by giving Jesus as a substitution for our sin was sweet and precious to all. Several ladies rresponded to God’s gift of salvation and eternal life.  These precious women have refreshed me and they have really captured my heart.

Upon observation of the conditions here surrounding my meeting these women, some would ask, “Unique and beautiful, in what way?”  Unique, because I do not generally interact with women who are living in such destitute situations.  Here it is often a day-to-day task to figure out how the feed everyone in the house.  Often several generations live together and it is fortunate if there is one with income.  Living off the land is important.  Having success the previous growing season with crops is vital to the long winter season.  The beauty I find is not in the aesthetics, but the women themselves.  Often covered by a hard self-protective shell, many wear faces of despair.  One on the wonderful ways in which God’s grace has been outpoured is through the changing of the countenance after hearing the Word of God.  It is beautiful to behold.  Those who have already entered the Kingdom of God can often be pulled down by the circumstances they face.  But once God’s Word is ministered to them, they beam with the joy of knowing Him.  Truly beautiful!  And those who come to gather not yet having heard or experienced the new birth, change in their actual appearance.  Even those who have not yet been ready to give their lives over to Christ, there is a lifting of their heart and a relief seems to come to them from simply knowing there is a possibility of a change available.  Truly, a peeling off of the doubt, fear and discouragement they have known.  God is awesome in all of His ways and it amazes me that He allows us to be His Hands to deliver His precious message to them.  Yet, that is exactly why He does it this way.  Because just as Christ Himself was broken and offered up for us and our sin, so God gives us the opportunity to be broken and used as a vessel of honor  for Him.

I have emphasized with theses precious ladies the importance of learning who God is through His Word.  Some cannot read, due to inability or simply the need of glasses. But those who can, have been given a Bible and instructed to be the reader of the house or neighborhood.s.  We’ll see how they do.  The missionaries here intend to have a weekly ladies night of study and also visit them in their homes.  They have a small group who seem very interested in God’s Kingdom.  I am praying that step-by-step they will flourish in their understanding and desire for an intimate relationship with our wonderful Heavenly Father.

We also met in the home of, Adriana, my translator.  She has done a great job in explaining the gospel and has spent many months relating with and extending love to the women in her neighborhood.  She has a beautiful heart for these women.  We covered aspects of creation, the fall of man into sin, and men and women as tri-part beings who are made to worship God.  They seemed so interested in understanding these things about our body, soul and spirit – as well as the Trinity.  It delighted the ladies to realize that God is so caring to meet us in such a personal way, providing for every area of our life.  It is such an honor to be able to have confidence and surety that we can deliver God’s Word of Truth with assurance that the Holy Spirit is at work confirming His Word.

I cannot say enough about the awesome wonders of God.  How powerful His Word is to accomplish that which God intends, and that He chooses us to participate and receive such joy in doing so.  I pray you will encourage yourself in the Lord, study His Word daily, and delight in the ways God uses your life with the trails and difficulties to bless others.  His plan is that we remind others of God’s faithfulness to us and the comfort He has given during our time of need, so that we will be able to comfort others through their trials (IICor. 1:4)  As we build relationships with others, He fills us.

When someone tells me they are not a “people person” I want to remind them that unless you are willing to build relationships with others, you will never know the fullness of God in your life.  You close off the funnel from which God desires to pour His life through.  You will suffer loss for this, when you could be flourishing as a conduit of His life.  Remember, it is in the surrender, the losing of yourself for His will and purpose that we find true joy in life.  This is the blessed life.

Psalm 1 says that the woman who is blessed delights in God’s law and meditates upon it day and night. He then promises that she shall be like a tree planted by rivers of living water bringing forth fruit and prospering.  The joy is found in the fruitful prospering life of God and His Kingdom.  It is our privilege and opportunity to share this with others.  God is so good!