Monday, February 16, 2009

A God of details!

This isn't what my title refers to, but this is too funny not to mention. Today, four of our girls discovered that our human heart is NOT shaped like this <3 . [That's the best heart-shape I can make, using keyboard keys.] They literally were under the impression that the hearts inside our body looked like the stereotypical heart shape. Zurufah's mouth practically dropped to the floor as she stared at the picture of a REAL heart that I showed them. She insisted that HER heart looked like this: <3 . I think the Valentine's hearts were getting to their heads...

[Speaking of hearts, does it get much cuter than this!? Today, the 4 girls with me in the host family made belated valentines for their aunties...I will treasure these forever.]

This weekend, God showed me once again that He is a God of details. And if He cares this much about the small seamingly unimportant areas of my life, then I know He has my entire future in His hands. I pray daily for my unknown future, and so far so good as I am assured of God's faithfulness--not stressing too terribly much.

So here are the two most recent God-things:

1) I have talked with several women in the past two weeks who have raved about Beth Moore's Bible studies. I was convinced that I was supposed to start one (it was too ironic that multiple people randomly suggested Beth Moore's studies to me the past few weeks.) So I was planning to buy one this weekend in Kansas City on my day off. Well, dear Janine mailed a package to me which arrived this past Friday. It contained random books, chocolate, tea :) , etc....and a Beth Moore Bible study! It's titled "Living Beyond Yourself" and concentrates on the Fruits of the Spirit. I've already started it, and I look forward to digging deeper in Galations. Lord knows I especially need to do the week on "Patience"--just ask the kids about the countless times I say "kids! you need to be quieter!" in the costume room. Needless to say, I smiled a lot when I saw the book; I love God's timing.

2) When our team arrived Friday afternoon at our Iowa church, Taylor needed me to sort through some of the profiles of children who need to be sponsored. As I leafed through the stack of Ugandan kids, I saw a familar face: Ezera! My heart skipped a beat. I knew without a doubt that God had literally put this opportunity in my lap. I could take it or leave it. But I felt for some reason as if I'd be disobeying if I ignored it. I stared at his smiling face in the picture and knew it'd be such a blessing to sponsor a child in the choir! Over the weekend, I told Ezera I had started sponsoring him. His response was: "Eeee! Are you lying?" (a phrase all of our kids say. A lot.) I assured him that I was being truthful, that I loved him, and I was excited to do this. He hugged me as he said, "Thank you....thank you, Auntie." Was it purely coincidence that the Lord gave this opportunity--to show His love to a fatherless child--on Valentine's weekend?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ashley, this brings tears to my eyes. What a precious boy, and what a privilege for you! Sponsoring a child is usually long-distance and fairly impersonal (despite exchanged letters). How wonderful to live alongside your sponsored child and know and love him every day.

I enjoyed the "shape-of-the-heart" debate and was so proud of you that you could look at a photo of an actual heart! Remember when you were six-ish, and we were looking at a mere sketch of the human body with organs, arteries, etc.? You became nauseated. I knew then that a future in medicine was out of the question!!
Love you, honey! Mom

ashley said...

Mom, how could I forget about that "heart" memory! I thought about that yesterday :)
Thanks for your sweet encouragement whether on here or during our phone chats. <3

Anonymous said...

So I can comment now. :) yay! Oh I love reading your updates, but somehow they just make me miss you more.
I loved reading how God has worked in small ways in your life. I'm so excited that for you that you're sponsoring Ezra now... and even more unbelievable is that you actually know him!! That's so crazy cool. I would love to meet my girl someday.

I cracked up to hear about the romance between two of the kids. Wow. That's so funny and somehow it doesn't surprise me that Zurafah is involved. :)

Thanks for the wonderful updates!

Anonymous said...

Oh and PS the last "anonymous" person was AmyJoy. SOrry bout that!

ashley said...

Amy thanks for commenting, my dear. It made me smile :) Love you!