Skip to main content

Today I am Thankful.

Today I am thankful.
I am thankful because I am looking back on every single moment that God has been undeniably present in my life in Costa Rica and I am realizing more and more I am exactly where I am supposed to be. 

I look back to the moment before I turned in my downpayment to come here. I remember sitting alone at a coffee shop crying because I was so terrified I would get here and everything would fall apart. I remember praying and giving this semester up to God.

I look back at that frustrating moment where we weren't allowed to board our plane to Costa Rica and how it turned into a series of opportunities that lead to me spending a weekend in the Indigenous region of Talamanca, and reading Bible stories to the beautiful little kids. -One of my favorite memories here.

I remember everybody asking me before I left how they could be praying for me and I remember telling them that I just wanted to have a girlfriend to do life with here. Thanks for praying. God definitely answered that prayer with multiple people.

I am thankful for my Tico brother Fernando. Our talks challenged my faith so much and they helped me validate why I live the way I do. I am thankful that he is searching for answers and I am praying fervently for the day he realizes that a relationship with Jesus Christ isn't a sacrifice, but a blessing. 

I am thankful for the email I got from my best friend in Texas telling me he had decided to pursue Jesus. I had never prayed for something so much in my life. (:
I remember being in Nicaragua and having my heart break for the people living in the trash dump. Even though I was only there for an hour or so, I cried when I left. The little kids all ran up to me and hugged me. I am thankful for God giving me that opportunity. It's the best memory I have so far.

I am thankful that after a hard week, God is blessing me with the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with several missionary families. This is only possible because there just so happens to be a missionary family from my parent's church in the San José area. God is good to me. I wasn't supposed to have a Thanksgiving here.

I am thankful for the overwhelming and undesired rice that I have eaten for the past 3 months. Even though I cannot wait to start eating salad and running again, I have never before realized how much food can be a spiritual thing to people. Especially when they are giving you something out of the nothing they have.

I am thankful for this month. Working at this Pani is turning out to be the hardest thing I have ever done. I have laughed at work, cried at work, and spent more of my days praying than ever before. My heart is broken for these kids, the workers, and their situation. 

Lastly, I am thankful for the people in the states, and my friends here, that have prayed for, encouraged, and loved me from so far away. I have never in my life felt so loved.
Soooo. As you all eat your turkey, spend time with your family and go black Friday shopping, know that I am thanking God for you all. I will be jealously liking all of your instagram and facebook pictures of food. Eat some extra stuffing for me. It's my favorite!

 ¡Feliz dia de Acción de gracia! Happy Thanksgiving! (: 
Psalm 95:1-6 - O Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, And a great King above all gods, In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When God Destroys Your White Picket Fence Plan...

I'm sitting at Starbucks drinking a salted caramel mocha, reading Philippians and watching the rain trickle down the perfectly large windows. Today is my favorite kind of day and although I have a million things to do, none of them seem quite as important as taking time out of my day to be at peace.  But i'm not quite at peace. At least, not at peace in the way I thought I would be.  Allow me to explain. If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago I would have told you with overwhelming excitement that after I graduate college in December I will be working as a Social Worker. Although I'm usually the type to be extremely indecisive, this plan sort of fell into my lap and it seemed perfect and beautiful and I had no reason at all to question it. But who am I trying to kid here...? If you know me at all you know that I am still indecisive and I never make a decision without considering at least 7 other options. So naturally, just as I was starting to feel comfortable w
10 comments
Read more

I'm donating a kidney to celebrate recovering from an eating disorder.

I remember the first time I decided I was fat. I was sitting in theater class in 9th grade and one of my classmates told me to hold my arm out in front of my body. When I did, they hit the skin under my upper arm and laughed as they watched it jiggle. In that moment, I gained 50 pounds. That 5'3 110 pound high school freshman died, and a hypersensitive and self conscious version of myself peaked its evil head for the first time. Although that was the moment my eating disorder (which I'll call Ed) took over, it wasn't the only thing that sparked an unhealthy view of myself. Years of comparison, losing a relationship with my father, and the decision to define my worth in the words of other people, collectively lead me to believe that I was fat, unloved, and that the worldly standards of beauty defined me. For the next 8+ years, Ed defined me. Above my relationships with people, and above my relationship with the Lord, Ed was most important thing in my life. When I firs
4 comments
Read more

How donating my kidney saved my life.

For good news to be good, it has to invade dark places." - Matt Chandler August 9th, 2016.  As they wheeled me through the double doors and into the operating room, I remember pure joy radiating throughout my body. I was not nervous, I was not afraid. The Lord had given me a peace beyond understanding and I smiled as the anesthesia took a toll on me and I drifted to sleep. Some hours later. My eyes pop open and I look around. The nurse pushes something into my IV that she says will help with the pain, but I don't feel any pain. I'm in a big open room with lots of medical supplies. I look to the right and I see a man in bed. And then I remember. I use every ounce of strength in me to mutter the question, "does he have my kidney?". The nurse smiles and says "yes" as my eyelids fall heavy and the dilaudid sets in. I wake up again. My mom is in the room. I have no idea what she's saying to me because all I can think about is the man that ha
2 comments
Read more