This news will soon reach most of you, I’ve been accepted into the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as Mercy Ships. What this says is that I will officially be leaving Australia for good (of course the door to come back is open as long as God says so, but there is not a plan to return…)
I will remain in Australia for another 8 months and be leaving home for Singapore for a little bit before heading over to the UK and doing the 3 month intensive course. I will then be heading to Africa and boarding the Mercy Ships for 8 weeks. While I remain in Australia, I will be doing my immunisations course as well.
Now that I have gotten the facts out of the way, here’s the inner journey…
I feel that this is the first step to the rest of my life – it’s my major step in life, with this journey, I alter the way my life will go from here. I’ve been thinking about the cost of following Jesus and Luke 9 was an eye opener for me. It used to baffle me that Jesus “seemed” so harsh as to say “let the dead bury the dead”…. it seemed like He didn’t care about family, didn’t God command to honor your father and mother? Then He spoke to me – “Mel, if you think I am being harsh, then you are worshipping the wrong god.” It hit me, God will look after whatever we leave to follow Him; I’m not saying it is easy, but it is a choice to TRUST that He knows best, SO MUCH better than you or I would ever know about our own lives. He created us right down to every atom.
I was afraid and didn’t want to leave my dad alone. But God must know and definitely has a plan – a plan much better than mine.
So I wept on my knees and I said to God, “Lord, I don’t think I can pay this price, I am unable.” Then He said to me, “but, I AM ABLE.”
After walking with the Lord through every storm in my life, I’ve come to know that He has a reason for every season. There’s always something He is working in me, no matter what circumstance I am in.
I watched a movie today called Moneyball, and there was this point where Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) says that he is not concerned with just winning games, he wanted to change the way the game was played. If you watch the movie, by this point, Billy had already created phenomenal waves in the game of Baseball, he was just too short sighted to see it right then. So Pete, this genius Yale graduate who also happens to be his assistant GM, asks Billy to watch this one game with this 240 pound Ball player, Jeremy Brown. Jeremy’s fear was to bat a ball and had to run, he’s heavy and clumsy. So in this one video snippet, Jeremy bats and hits and he starts running, stumbles, falls and struggles to hit 2nd base as he was crawling on the ground and true to his fears, looks an an absolute fool; then he looks up after his fall and everyone is laughing but they’re weren’t laughing that he fell and toppled…. See, Jeremy didn’t even know his hit sent the ball 60 feet over the fence, he had hit a homerun. Jeremy didn’t even need to run. He did it and didn’t even know it.
Pete was saying to Billy that Billy had essentially changed the game of baseball with his unique sabermetric approach and the evidence was the 20 wins in a row, and he did it on a 41 million budget while big teams like the Yankees had 120 million and nowhere close to the winning streak Billy had – and he didn’t even know it.
So what do you think that taught me? It reminded me that I had to learn to watch – and see the moments where “it” has happened. The thing we’ve waited for all our lives.The dream we long to see come to pass.
This is my life, a life that seeks after Him.
I embark on this journey, with some fears, but I walk out in faith nonetheless. I trust that when I get to one point, He will guide me to the next.
