Sharing my heart

I feel like I have been a little out of touch since we've moved. I don't have a whole lot of extra time so I wanted to take the time now to connect a little bit. I apologize that I haven't been able to send out a lot of personal emails, but it is a wonderful way to keep in touch!

Anyway... I have been overwhelmed with all my responsibilities of wife, mother, teacher, maid but I have also been overwhelmed deep down in my heart by the things I've seen here in Wichita and things I have been reminded of. We were all given the same great commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel and something occured to me this week that I had not really embraced. "The world" also happens to be "my world" right here where I am. I think I became comfortable in small town America in my own little world and cirlce of family and friends, that I forgot about the world across the street or next door. I look back at all the opportunities I missed to share the gospel with a neighbor, not to mention the numbers of people I came into contact with out in town. Of course I cannot go back and change any of that, I can only learn from it.

My heart is heavy for the amount of "world" God has given to me here. The amount of love that the Lord has filled me with is amazing, it's definitely something I could not do on my own (especially driving in the city...haha). In all seriousness, how can we witness to our neighbors and the world without first loving them. God has a purpose and a plan for them just as much as He does for me and you. They have issues of life occuring behind closed doors just like I do. They have health issues, money worries, family strains, etc.... Essentially they are human, just like me.

If they don't have Jesus, where does their hope come from? They don't have any hope. Many of them have never even heard of the hope they could have in the Lord and many of them are running from the truth they have heard. How am I to know what they hope in? I can't. But I can love them and pray that they will see Jesus' love through me.

I serve a truly amazing God. A God of love, of peace, of joy; the kind only He can fill me with. It's only by Him that I seek to see the people around me not as mere strangers, neighbors, or aquaintances but as people that the Lord loves and has a plan for too.
~Salyna