Pictures of Gods Love

      I traveled with my family yesterday to Minot Air Force Base to visit my brother,sister-in-law and (dare I say) most importantly my little nephew for memorial day weekend. As I lay awake in  my lazy-boy/ bed for the weekend last night, I felt such an incredible overwhelming sense of how blessed I am with the family that I have. Granted, during the six-hour drive that should have been a four-hour drive I was wishing that my two little brothers didn't have to stop so often and that my parents didn't have to stop at every sign of civilization or have a sit-down dinner even when traveling, but I am blessed.

     Last night I got to tip-toe into my nephew's nursery and creep up to the crib and watch him sleep. He's gotten so big already. This morning I woke up from my lazy-boy bed to baby chatter and got to hold the love of my life (I make no secret of this to my fiance by the way haha), my nephew Titus. Every baby seems perfect to me, I love babies, but I swear my nephew has to be the most perfect of them all. He has the biggest blue eyes, the softest skin, the most delicate and perfect face, the most hysterical and precious laugh. When he held his chubby little hands up to my mouth with a piece of squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich at lunch today my heart melted and when he laughs at his own joke (gibberish chatter) I think he is the most hilarious comedian I have ever heard. You know that feeling when you think you can't love someone more? Yeah, I get that every time I see him. 

     I've been thinking about how blessed I am and how much I love my family and my precious little nephew and I am overwhelmed with how much my heavenly father loves me to have blessed me with the family that I have and give me one of the greatest treasures in being an aunt of such a precious little boy. When I look at Titus, my heart bursting with love and admiration, I can't imagine how God could love me any more than that, but he does. And he loves every other person like that. He wants me to love everyone like that. It's so simple but unfathomable and I fall so short. I mentioned in my support letter (which I shared in my first post on this blog) that God has been working in my heart to anguish for people and not be satisfied with superficial or complacent love but that I would ANGUISH for their souls, that I would love them desperately, that I would give anything for them. I don't love people like that yet, I don't love everyone like I desperately love my nephew but I want to and I know if I am faithful God will continue to grow that in my heart. 

     This summer I want to know more deeply how to anguish even more for the lost people of this world. I want to love them so much my heart hurts, I want to look in their eyes and fight for their salvation like I would fight against anything that tried to harm my nephew. Someone asked me once if you can love someone without knowing them. I know I loved my nephew before I ever met him. I would have given my life for him the moment I knew he existed and after meeting him that only grew - even though I still don't even know how that is possible, I loved him so much before. I want to love people I've never even met, and yes, it is possible. I want to love them so desperately I would give my life for them before I've even met them and when I finally do meet them, when God brings them in my path, I want that desperation and love to grow even more - though I won't know how that is possible either. I know I can't love like this without God and I couldn't even desire that kind of love without him and so I pray that God will grow in me the kind of desperate love he has for me and every other person in the world.

     As I write this, I try to hold back tears, because I know that somehow - I have no idea how - God loves me as desperately as I love that little blue-eyed boy asleep in a room nearby, and more. God has painted pictures of his love in all his creation and today I am overwhelmed with the picture he has given me. What picture of love has God put in your life today?

What is your mission field?

Jim Elliot, the famous missionary who was killed in the service of the gospel once said

"wherever you are, be all there."

I've been thinking a lot about this over the past few weeks and praying that wherever I am I would keep my eyes fixed on what God has given me at that moment and in this place so I don't miss the opportunities at hand because I'm too busy looking towards the next place I want to get to. I've made that mistake too many times. I've missed out on so many opportunities that God has given me because I was too busy wishing I was somewhere else. "Wherever you are, be all there."

 God has given each of us a mission: He has commanded us to spread his word, his gospel, to the ends of the earth. He has given us each a mission field: EXACTLY where you are at any given moment. Every second is a second towards eternity, every second is a second towards someone's eternity in heaven or hell, every second, every place, is your mission field. This is a fundamental concept and yet so easily forgotten.

 I arrived home, at my parents house, a few days ago, they just moved to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Montana. I've never even visited a town this small and I catch myself wishing I was somewhere else, DOING something else than killing time and doing seemingly meaningless things. But God has a mission for me even here and the more I recognize that the more I am blessed in indescribable ways. I pray every day that God's will would be done in my life this summer - wherever he chooses to place me. I pray that support would come in so I can go to California, if that is his will. I want that so bad. Questions swirl around in my head, wondering if I'll raise support in time or if I'll be somewhere else this summer, and if so where and how? BUT,in this time of waiting and unknown God is whispering in my ear "wherever you are, be all there, Jessalynn" and verses like Matthew 6:25-34

"25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifeb? 28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

God has a mission field for me right where I am at, in this tiny town in Montana - for however long he wants me here - and I am finding my mission field in some of the smallest things. I don't know how long I will be here, and there are many unanswered questions but God has placed me here for "such a time as this" and I am finding such sweet rest knowing that he is in control. Please pray for me that God would continue to draw my heart closer to him and that my eyes would forever be exactly where he has placed me.

On a side note, one unexpected blessing God has given me here is rest and nourishment for my body. It seems simple but it's amazing how getting good, consistent, sleep for the first time in probably two years and eating good food - as opposed to college food - has really rejuvenated my body and my health problems have gotten so much better. I have so much more energy and I'm realizing how much I have previously been running myself into the ground. I really am not being all God wants me to be when I'm not giving my body what it needs to be all that he created it to be. God is good. He gives what we don't even know we need sometimes.

I am so blessed to have you all supporting me.Thank you for reading, I know I can get kind of lengthy when I write haha.

One last question today, for all of you: What is your mission field?

 Love and blessings,
Jessalynn

IT Project Video

A video about the IT Project

Support Letter

To my dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I hope this letter finds you all well and full of Christ’s overwhelming love, joy and peace. As I write this letter and think about all of you that I will send it to my heart is filled with such love and joy as I remember all the ways that each of you, as my brothers and sisters in Christ, have encouraged, challenged me and brought me to where I am today. I say, along with Paul in Philippians 1:3-5, “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” Some of you I haven’t seen as recently as others, but know that all of you have been in my prayers and continue to be in my prayers.

I am so excited to be writing you this letter and sharing with you how God is working and the opportunities he is bringing into my life.

This past year has been full of changes and trials but also full of blessings and God is infinitely gracious and merciful to me in all of my mistakes and failures. I often find myself relearning some of the most basic concepts of what it means to be a Christian, but God is always taking me just one step further into what those “basic concepts” really mean and what that looks like in my life. He has been teaching me to serve him for the sake of others and not myself, to love deeper than ever before, to have compassion and ultimately has made my life and my relationships so much more full and purposeful as I learn to serve him more completely.

A truth that God has been working on in my heart recently is what it really means to love people, something I am constantly relearning as God grows me in him. He really has been impressing on my heart that it is not enough to just be “nice” or kind to people, it’s not enough to do good things or even sacrificial things for people but my heart should be in a place of agony and aguish for their souls and their eternity. Paul says in Romans 9: 1-3:

“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race.”

                I have been praying that this anguish that Paul felt, this desperation, for people’s souls would overwhelm my heart and drive me to love and serve people as Christ would. I want to anguish to the point that I would give up my eternity for theirs and that I would stop at nothing to give them the hope I have. I want a desperation to overtake my soul in a way that I cannot not ignore it. God has been working this truth and this desperation into my heart and the more that I anguish for people the more I have been driven to love and pray for them and intervene for them.

                Something that I feel God has called me to, as part of this new desperation and love he has planted in my heart, is a missions training program in Pasedena, California this summer. It’s called the I.T. (Intensive Training) Project and is sponsored by a  non-denominational, non-profit, missions organization called The Traveling Team. The program is designed to train college students for missions and to help them better understand God’s vision for the world. As God continues to call my heart to serving others for him I want to understand and know more completely what his vision is for the world and his calling on my life. I feel like the I.T. Project would be a practical step towards what God is calling me to do.

                The I.T. Project will consist of visiting different mosques and temples, evangelism and a college-level course on missions training, called Perspectives, at the U.S. Center for World Missions. It will be from June 7^th – July 26^th and will cost $2,800, as well as traveling costs (around $600) and some minimal living expenses while down there. Also an optional Perspectives Coordinators Workshop that will give me the license and material to pass on what I learn will be $200. The total – minimal - cost comes to $3,600. If you feel like God is calling you to support me financially as well as through prayer I would be ecstatic but God is also able to provide “exceedingly more” than all I ask or need and so I ask that you only give money if that is something you feel God is calling you to and not out of a sense of obligation. I would ask that you pray for me, however, while I am down there and even in these months leading up to this trip as God prepares my heart for it. Pray that God would continue to make my heart sensitive to his voice and open to whatever he wants me to learn. I can’t thank you all enough for all of your support and prayers over the years and for your continued support in this new adventure I’m taking. You are such a blessing!

May the Lord bless you and keep you,

May He make his face shine upon you and give you peace,

Jessalynn

P.S. If you choose to support me financially you can make checks out to “The Traveling Team” and send them to me, at:

P.O. Box #491

Circle, MT 59215