breaking the silence

Well hello there.  My name is Nicole, in case you have forgotten.  I feel it is time to break the silence.

As you know there has been nothing but crickets here at the blog for over a month.  Every time I come here to write I just can't.  I am in process, as we all are.  Life is all about process.  However, I have not quite figured out how to process the process, if you can understand that logic.

I wanted to share with you the devotion I shared this morning in class.  I shared this devotion in both French and English - first speaking in French and then explaining or "translating" it into English.  My new class is a mixture of students whose French is at varying levels and I wanted them to hear my heart and hopefully be encouraged.  

Here it is in English:

Good morning everyone!  This morning I want to share with you from scripture to encourage you.

You may or may not be like me but I am one who learns slowly, very slowly.  And because I learn slowly I am prone to struggle with comparison.  I see everyone around me succeeding and feel the weight of my struggle even more intensely.  My heart quickly falls into discouragement and that is a pit that can be a very dark place.

Over the course of being here in language school I have found myself in the pit of discouragement a lot!  I have found myself in the pit so much that I have come to question why God has even brought me here.  I know that God has called me to go to Mali, which is a French speaking country.  I believed I heard God very clearly about this.  However, I have been struggling so much to get the language that I have questioned if I heard Him correctly.  Coming to language school I knew that it would be difficult but I didn’t think it would feel impossible.  I believed that if God was calling me to a French speaking country then surly He would give me the language!

But day after day of struggling grew into a very weary soul.  David writes about this in Psalm 42:5, “Why are you down cast, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”  I had to ask myself, why is my soul down cast within me?  Why am I in turmoil?  When I stopped to ask myself this, I realized that my soul was cast down and weary because I had stopped depending on God to teach me the language and was trying to do it all on my own!!!

You see, I do believe that God has called me to Mali and I do believe that He will equip me with whatever I need to do what He calls me to do.  In this case, that He will give me the French language.  However, I stopped trusting that GOD would provide.  I forgot that I cannot do anything apart from God.  I can do nothing on my own!

Psalm 42 speaks so clearly about what I was feeling and shows clearly what I was forgetting.  Psalm 42:5-8, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.  My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you…” 

I was so focused with being discouraged that I forgot that my hope is found in God!  I did not praise Him, I just complained to Him.  Instead of choosing to remember God and praise Him, I choose to feel defeated.

“Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.  By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”

            I was so consumed with feeling like the waves were crashing over me and

I felt alone in my failure that I did not remember that the Lord’s steadfast love is always with me.  I am so very thankful that even in this time that deep calls to deep; that Holy Spirit within me called out to God on my behalf and even in the night He was singing over me – a prayer for my life.

I found myself praying and crying out to God, begging him to help me learn French.  My thoughts were consumed with fear that I would never learn the language and frustration that I didn’t trust Him with this.  Psalm 27 is one of my most favorite passages of scripture.  Psalm 27:7 & 8 spoke to me strongly through this.  “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me!”  But then the next verse struck my heart.  “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’  I could identify with the first part, with the crying out to God, asking him to answer me.  However, I could not say honestly that I was seeking His face!  I wasn’t seeking His face!

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

God has taught me a very important lesson this year – Being a missionary has NOTHING to do with me and EVERYTHING to do with God.  I am called because God found a “Yes” in my spirit, He found me to be a willing participant in His plan.  God did not call me to Mali and subsequently here to France to learn French, because His plan depends on my learning French perfectly. 

My part in all this is to SEEK THE FACE OF GOD and He will give me the things I need.  Do I need to work hard and do my best at learning?  Absolutely!  But in the end God’s plans will prevail no matter what and in that I find comfort, peace and strength to continue.