The Most Important Yes

So a couple of days ago, it was our first  "engagement" anniversary - it was a whole year ago that Josias got down on one knee, on the equator, and asked me to marry him.
I shared the memory on my facebook page and commented that it was the "second most important yes of my life". However, after posting it I began to think and I realised that, even though Sunday the 16th of November 2014 was the day I officially said yes to spending the rest of my life with this man, it wasn't when my heart said yes.

My heart said yes 5 months before that.

5 months exactly before I had the ring on my finger, the 16th of June, Josias and I were sitting in Parque Carolina in Quito (the largest man-made park in South America apparently) and Josias told me that "he liked me a lot" and we began talking about the possibility of a future together. For some time before that, I had prayed and committed myself to not go out with anyone who wasn't my future husband, and so for me, saying yes now was saying yes to a whole lot more than just casual dating. As much as I was very much attracted to him (an attraction I began trying to ignore since we met, on my 21st birthday in May), and knew that he was the type of godly man that I wanted to marry, I was scared.

I had only been in Ecuador 4 months, I was here as a missionary with a lot of people to answer to and be held accountable to, I had consciously prepared myself for being single and not worrying about men for the 2 years I was going to be serving and had previously decided that communication in marriage was difficult enough without adding in cultural and linguistic barriers, so my preference was to marry somebody from my own country. That's what my brain was yelling at me anyway.

However, amidst all the doubt and fear (of which there were a lot), as I looked at this man who I'd only really known for less than two weeks, in my heart there was a quiet but persistant peace, and as the day went on, that quiet peace began to drown out all the panicky doubts running about in my conscious. I began to feel that, despite being on different continents and living in totally different worlds until 4 months ago, I knew this young man already; my heart recognised him from my many prayers and heartfelt longings from years before.

So the next day, on a bus to Latacunga to go and meet up with a missions team from the States, when Josias asked me for the second time if I would be his girlfriend, despite the continued presence of incertainty and fear, knowing that I would in reality be saying yes to much more than that, that persistant peace somehow fought its way quietly through to the surface and I said the second most important yes of my life.

When I look back at it now, knowing how stupidly in love I am with Josias and feeling absolutely certain that he is the best man for me, alongside whom to live this adventure of serving God together, I also see how easily I could have missed it all. If I'd let my common sense and doubts overtake that quiet peace and direction from the Lord, I would have missed out on the second biggest blessing of my life.

As I've been thinking about this "second most important yes", it has also reminded me of the most important yes of my life, a yes to God; a yes to repentance and humility in accepting that without Him I am a hopeless sinner in need of grace; a yes to Jesus and the life He has to offer me; a yes to a life lived only for Him (I'm still working on that some days!). As I've been thinking, I've realised that my two most important yeses actually have a lot more in common that I might have first believed.

In the same way I had to take a leap of faith in saying yes to Josias, saying yes to God also requires that same leap. In the same way I was bombarded with doubt and fear about what may happen if I potentially said yes, there are also doubts and fears that can try to grip our hearts as we contemplate a life with God. However, in the same way that there existed that small and almost silent peace in my heart that told me saying yes was the right decision, so also God softens our hearts to hear Him and His Holy Spirit quietly tells us that it is all true: that we really are hopeless sinners who one day will face eternal judgement for our bad decisions and that there really is a loving God who sent His Son to die in our place and who rose from the dead, forever defeating sin and death. And in the same way my heart recognised Josias as the man I had prayed for and longed to be with, so too our hearts recognise the loving Creator God who made and designed us to live in divine fellowship with Him.

However, just like I would have missed out on this wonderful marriage with Josias if I had given into those doubts, so we too miss out on the greatest relationship we could ever have if we allow our human thoughts and doubts to overcome that small, still voice of the Holy Spirit and cause us to reject what our hearts know to be the Truth.

But if we do take that leap of faith, and we say the Eternal Yes to God's proposal, we land on a small and narrow path on which we find love, intimacy, acceptance, forgiveness and the One whom our soul loves, and as we get to know Him more and more, as we see His faithfulness at work in our lives every day, the stronger that faith becomes and the doubts slowly fade away into nothingness.One day, when we the church, His bride, are seated at the marriage feast of the lamb, we will be living no longer by faith but by sight.

Now that I'm married to Josias, I can't believe I ever doubted that he wasn't the one for me. Sure, the Ecua-Wife Life isn't always simple or easy, and I had to make a lot of difficult and some extreme decisions to get here but I would never, ever give up my marriage with Josias. One day, when Christ comes back or I'm taken to be with Him in glory, that's exactly what it will be like, only infintely more, and I'll be infintely thankful to God who helped me to say the most important yes.

Can't Complain!

If only this statement were true. We often use this phrase as a response when somebody asks us how we are, how our life is, and what we usually mean is that- generally speaking- our lives are just how we would want them to be: no problems. Good health, good job, happy family... so we can't complain.

Except we do. We always manage to find something to complain about.

In the last month, God has been convicting me and speaking to me about my complaining, or rather the reason behind my complaining- my lack of contentment in Him. That isn't to say that a relationship with God does not bring contentment, it does, and it's a contentment that the world cannot offer us. And that is exactly the problem.

When I take my eyes off the Author and Perfector of my faith, in whom I find my hope and my contentment, and instead focus on my life and my circumstances, I'm going to be disappointed, and I'm going to be disappointed for two reasons:

1) This world will never, and was never designed to bring me contentment. In its current imperfect state, inhabited by imperfect people, this world will always let us down; there will always be something we can find to complain about.

2) My heart will never, and was never designed to find contenment by living in this world. Even if it were perfect and my life were perfect, because of the imperfection and sinful nature of my own heart, I would still come up with something to complain about.

The thing is, our life and its circumstances will always offer us plenty of things we could complain about, and unfortunately our hearts just lap up the opportunity to have a good old whinge (that's your Scottish word for the day, it's kind of in between complaining and whining). I don't know so much about men, but us women (generally! and without the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in our lives) just love to have a good whinge together and complain about what's going on in our lives, it's like our "factory setting" to find things to complain about!

However, the whingey life is not a happy one, and it's not the life God wants for His children. We were created to have divine fellowship with the Creator and that realtionship is the only thing that will bring us real contentment in this life; experiencing the supernatural peace that comes from totally trusting in and depending on Him, instead of the constant disappointment and discouragement that comes from putting our hope in the things of this world:

Eternal Perspective OR Earthly Perspective (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Friendship with God OR Friendship with the World (James 4:4)

Life OR Death (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

It all comes down to the same thing: when we choose God, to delight ourselves in Him and live for Him with complete abandon, obeying His commandments and serving Him unconditionally, we are choosing LIFE- and I'm not talking about simply going to heaven after we die physically, I'm talking about the abundant life that Jesus came to give us (John 10:10).

However, if our hearts "turn away" (Deuteronomy 30:17) from God and we find ourselves distracted by the things of this world, even the most simple and mundane things, investing our time in energy in them instead of in our realtionship with God (i.e creating idols for ourselves - and YES that is just how easy it is) then we will find ourselves discontent, disappointed and discouraged: we perish (v18).

Complaining, in and of itself, is not the problem. It is more a symptom of the discontentment that comes when our hearts become distracted from loving God and simply living for Christ, and instead of keeping our eyes fixed on Him we begin to focus on our lives and our problems, the things we would change if we could and wandering hopelessly in the Land of "If Only..."

Living in Ecuador, I could come up with lots of "reasonable" complaints: I'm very far away from my family, friends and church in Scotland, I'm having to not only learn how to be a wife and take care of a house but I'm having to do it in another culture and another language too, I don't like getting honked and whistled at by strangers just because I'm white, blonde (by ecaudorian standards) and have green eyes, I don't like having my phone and purse stolen on a crowded bus,  I don't like being squished up against strangers in a bus that so full that literally no more people can fit in, or being in a supermarket or international chain and be told that they've run out of change... you get the idea. However, if I focus on these things and spend all my emotion and energy on wishing that things were different, I'm going to be miserable- being honest, I sometimes have been these last few months. But not matter where I live, that is not the attitude to have.

Wherever I am, my citizenship is in Heaven (Philippians 3:20) and God is my dwelling place (Psalm 90:1), and it is in knowing and being confident in that, that I find my contentment; taking the difficult or undesirable circumstances of my life and giving them to the Lord, depending on Him and trusting that He will use them for His purposes and His glory, and learning to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Simply put: choosing God.

Whenever something frustrating happens, whenever I feel sad, I have the choice to dwell on that and complain and feel sorry for myself OR to choose God, to give it to Him and remind myself that nothing can rob me of the eternal blessings that are mine in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:3) and be content in Him.

So, what if the next time somebody asks us how we are and we reply "Can't complain!", what if we were so satisfied in Christ that it was really true?

As of yesterday, God has been challenging and convicting me about my contentment (or lack of) in Him. There are so many things in this life that seek to distract us from the God who fulfills us and steal the contentment that comes from Him- we need to work to keep our focus on Him, and not our lives in this world. "The Lord is my shepherd, I SHALL NOT WANT." His very existence in my life satisfies me and he takes care of whatever real material need in my life. No matter how "reasonable" our desire or want of something may be, we are called to find our contentment in our Lord and "give thanks in all circumstances" - He will provide, our job is to trust Him in the meantime and be thankful for everything He has already given us. "My soul will be satisfied..." #thankyouLord #alamptomyfeet #convictionofsin

A photo posted by @amyf101 on Oct 27, 2015 at 9:07am PDT

The Next Chapter

One of the beautiful lessons that God has taught me, and that I'm continuing to learn and appreciate, is that He is the Master Author. He handles our lives and writes our stories with such grace and care, interweaving our stories with those of others, all for His glory.

In my own story, I now find myself at the start of a new chapter in my adventure with God. The first chapter was my childhood and high school years, a time of grace when, even when I was coasting and lukewarm in my relationship with God, He kept me tethered to Him and in His sovereignty brought me into the next chapter; a chapter of growth and of calling after moving to Edinburgh for university where God would radically change the course of my life, (at least from my perspective anyway, He always knew what the plan was!) and put me through a lot of faith-building experiences. Then came the next chapter, a chapter of stepping-out of character shaping, and the sweet beginning of surprise love with my beloved.

And now I'm here, married and in Ecuador once again, with a whole lot of seemingly blank pages before me. It's new, un-chartered territory, and I'm sure there are lots of new adventures ahead for Josias and I as our stories join together.

It's for this reason that I've changed the presentation of this blog. I'm still a misionera, and will be wherever I am or whatever chapter of life I'm in. But this is my new normal for now, a young wife living in Ecuador with her student husband, taking one day at a time, walking by faith, combining our two cultures to form our home and family, and leaning on the Everlasting Arms.

Here, I hope to share some of the the things that God teaches me along the way, the little every day insights that come from divine fellowship with Him, and also what it's like living the Ecua-Wife Life!

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

So, I am obviously terrible at updating blogs regularly. 

I have now been in Ecuador for over a year, which is incredible in itself. I never, ever could have predicted or imagine the things that were going to happen in this last year, or indeed the last...4 years actually. I'm beginning to see a pattern emerging of the way God works in my life: by surprise! I've come to the point where any plans that I make, I am learning to hold onto very loosely as God seems to always have a better (suprise) idea up His sleeve. Just like ol' Rabbie Burns said, "the best laid schemes o' mice an' man gang aft agley". However, God's plans never do.

Who could have ever guessed that when I was crying over not getting to Cuba and because I didn´t understand what God was doing, that He was actually setting the stage to answer my biggest prayer and dream in my life: to have a husband who I love, who loves me and- most importantly- loves Him. Josias is all I ever prayed for and more and I feel so blessed to be marrying him.

However, more things have happened this year apart from all the romance and excitement! To summarise, here are some videos I've made over the past year :)

My first 6 months:

Christmas Service:

                                      

Months 6-12:

                                     

Church Anniversary in February:

                                     

God will fulfill His purpose for you (Psalm 138:8), and for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, all things work together for good (Romans 8:28). 

Rest in His faithfulness and find comfort in His love.