He's kicking my butt..

i am have been so challenged this week.

God is doing havoc with my heart. it seems that in every single emotion i face he pushes me to replace the "me" with "Him".. and this girl has a lot of emotion.

i have been blessed to meet one of the most amazing men. Andy and his wife and son are missionaries in north africa. in the desert. in the dark. in a muslim country. where the name of Jesus can not be said.

but it is.

and because it is.. one of his closest friends and labors in the field.. was pulled from his car and shot.. and killed...

a father of four..
a son..
a husband..
a friend..
a brother...

and in mourning there is dancing..

because a seed was planted and not held onto tightly.. it will not longer be dead.. but grow and be fruitful and multiply.

the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church..

i have never met someone that doesn't fear death as Andy.
and i wonder how can he go back? yet instead of a long life.. he longs for a full life.

i want a faith like that.

please pray for north africa. God is setting captives free.

i did not

for your knowledge..

1. i did not eat chocolate chip cookies today for breakfast, lunch, supper, and all snacks.. except for the pop ice i eat everyday in honor of abbie..

2. i did not want to beat up budget truck rental company and tell them that i will inform EVERYONE i know that their company stinks.. and we won't go into details of how i think their truck ate the zillion items i can't find..

3. i did not take my children into a members only snake infested creek area filled with crawdad things as big as lobsters while my son screamed jumping from the water with the mad crawdads and pinching oysters to the safety of the rocks with lurking snakes, chasing AWOL flippies and then allow five children to climb behind a gushing waterfall..

4. i did not lay flat on my face on my bedroom floor bawling because i miss my friends so much. i was going to use prostrate or prostate.. but.. hum...

5. i did not cry out to God and wonder what He is doing and wonder why i get me so tangled up in His story.

6. i did not mow the lawn at 8:30 AM .. and have a heat stroke.. i did not almost die until i laid down on the sprinkler.. good impressions with the neighbors..

7. i did not go to stuff mart. i did not move to the stuff mart capital of the WORLD. i am not suffocating under the control of the mart of stuffness.. i did not suffocate from my own stuff and realize that i am a consumeristic freak when i unpacked my stuff. and that was after the moving truck ate some...

8. i did not live in a pop up camper for 6 weeks and it rained EVERY single night. and here there is NO rain. None. Zippo. i did not watch my daughter plant her orange flowers which are to take 7 days to germinate grow to 12 inches overnight. green thumb..? sun sun sun + compulsive watering lack of social interaction= the best flowers in the world. in the stuff mart capital of the WORLD..

9. i did not tell you all about the most amazing people in Uganda did i..? there's emmanual from ghana and he just got married.. and he had that giddy i miss her look the whole time.. he had square shoes like bulgarians that were white.. and there was obia,whose name sounds like star wars.. but in so many ways is like a brother even though our names are really different.. and Im praying that God aligns him with a really amazing Godly wife and he had a pink tie.. and well.. tonight i had the opportunity to see some of the others that we met.. and it made me cry.

10. i did not witnesses my daughter execute the most grossest slugs in the whole world with the kitchen scissors.

11. i did not open the door to the washer at the laundry mat and watch the water gush out and for a few moments almost fill my basket and simply stand there in the heat with five little kids watching.. and consider jumping into it.

12. i did not just ramble a dozen nutos things.. did i??