a lily among thorns: Birthday Surprise. It's Nicole! part 1

Hey Friends. I am so excited for you. Fun, enthusiastic, and sweet are just a few words to describe my friend Nicki. However, it's her contagious love for Jesus that draws others to her. I pray you may be blessed by today's post. Here is part one of a two part series Nicki has titled: Hope Story.

[photo credit]

A Hope Story

Despite the fact that so much appears to be so very wrong with this world, all is very right with God's plan for it. Where I see a world full of hatred, selfishness and tragedy, He sees people in desperate need of His love. Where I see families that have been torn apart by wrong decisions, He sees His sons and daughters in desperate need of His grace. Where I see a needy village in the eastern side of Uganda helpless, desperate and both physically and spiritually hungry, He sees a people that are in need of the hope that can only be found in Him.

I'll be completely transparent with you. Sometimes it’s quite difficult for me to grasp the concept of people not eating a single meal for the day before they lay their head down at night. (I'm grumpy if I even miss having my lunch.) Or, how some kids go to sleep next to goats and chickens because they've been ostracized by their own families due to some treatable illness they may have. The fact of the matter is, this is real and everyday life for so many around the world. These lives that precious in God's eyes, just as much as you are to Him.

One evening in a time of prayer, I was really struggling with God. As always, He wins, but I love that He even allows me to talk to Him the way that I do sometimes. This evening in particular, I was having the classic case of the "but whys". But why this God and but why that was all that was spewing from my mouth and draining from my heart that night. It wasn't until I finally shut my mouth and left Him room to speak to me that He gracefully just answered me, and with a still quiet voice in my head, I heard, "You tell me why, Nicki. I'm asking you the same questions."

I literally sat for a couple moments as I so graciously had just received a spiritual slap in the face. You see, just the week before I had returned from a missions trip to eastern Uganda where I witnessed so many of the real and everyday life stories of tragedy, abandonment, hunger... and the list goes on and on. I was battling so much with why these things are going on and how so many were just in desperate need of HOPE. They need a hope in knowing that God has not left them orphaned and widowed, but that they can trust in Him, who will protect them. The same hope in knowing that the God who created the universe, who flung the stars into the night and who knows them each by name, has a purpose and plan for their lives and will provide for their every need as they put their faith and trust in Him.

So the question begged to be answered, "Why Nicki?" With so many problems in this world and the amount of solutions there are, why are these things still going on and what am I doing about it?

I was reminded of the passage where God set a beautiful example of not blaming the victim or even the circumstance, but instead He shows that we are called to take action to help those in need of His hope, love, and healing, ultimately for His name to be glorified.

John 9:1-3 "As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him."

click here for part 2. I promise you, this story of hope will get a whole lot better!!!