Grace to it!

Hello Everyone!

There has been a ton of cool things
going on here in Mexico at the Gateway (thats the name of the place that I’m
staying right now…) We have been taking Spanish lesions, learning about
organic gardening, studying theology, working on constructions sites, visiting
local prisons, hanging out and loving on Irma and reading reading and some more
reading!  When there is free time
we are almost always outside playing! There are fields everywhere and these
little ponds, wondering cows, water towers to climb, fireflies to catch, kites
to build, and we play basketball, football and 4 square almost everyday.  Needless to say I am loving every
single moment of being here!

Galatians 5:1

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore,
and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

God has really been teaching me a
lot about him and about how big and great he really is. To explain it briefly
seems so hard and so much smaller than it is but it really spoke right to my
heart…. So ill try…

One thing that has been really on
my heart is grace. I’ve heard a lot about Grace over the years but last week my
team leader Jessie did the teaching for our whole group and it was all about
grace and how very important it is. 
He shared with us about how different things in our lives hold us back
from our walk with God and how these things are chains that hold us captive. He
encouraged us to accept Gods grace and walk into the freedom that has been set
before us.  He shared a passage
that talked of God taking these “mountains” in our lives and saying “Grace to
it!” and it is removed. And he talked about how God isn’t finished until the mountain
is cleared into a plain.

Zechariah 4:6

“This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might,
nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of host. Who are you, O great
mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain.  And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of
‘Grace, grace to it!”

A day or two after Jessie had shared this it was still
really on my mind and God gave me a cool experience to really show me what
clearing the mountains looks like. 
We went to a work site that day to help build this new missions
school.  My friend Janessa and
myself set to work on leveling out this dirt mound.  We shoveled and shoveled the dirt and people would walk by
and say that it looked good and that we could probably be done but it just
didn’t feel done.  As we looked God
really reminded me of grace and the mountains in my life; he began to show me
that even the little dirt mounds that get in the way are things he wants to level
out until it is FINISHED. We used pick axes and shovels and said “Grace, grace
to it” as we worked and cleared out not only the original ‘mound’ but this
whole hill that the dirt was on top of. 
It was exhausting but it was such a tangible experience of how God
desires to work in our lives and to remove the mountains we don’t even see at
first glance.

Bottom line… God is good.