heal the broken & break the proud

If you only follow this blog, not my facebook/tumblr/pinterest, you're probably wondering about my wedding.  And I'm going to tell you all about it and show you pictures soon, but this is more important.  The wedding was the best day of my life, but what I need to tell you about today is life long and eternal.


I've been interning at the pregnancy center for the last several weeks.  Lots of observing sessions, envelope stuffing, sitting through parenting videos, etc.  Today I got to be the counselor and was observed by my advisor.


I love my internship.  I am 100% dedicated and passionate about everything the pregnancy center does.  I was skeptical going in.  I was scared that I was going to be judgmental or intimidated.  I was nervous.  But as I've watched people and learned the swing of things, I've fallen even more in love with my job.  It's incredible.  It's the most humbling thing.  Sometimes I think it's even more humbling than doing work with orphans in Africa or prostitutes in India.  Because these girls, I could have been.  If I would have made one wrong move in the 10th grade, I could have gone into a different group of friends and had a totally different life.  I could be 19 with two kids.  I could be a 21 year old smoker with an abusive boyfriend trying to get an abortion.  I could be 15 taking honors classes on the varsity basketball team with a positive pregnancy test.  I could be single 34 and pregnant for the 8th time.  I could be.  [Those are just examples, not actual people I've met.]


Today, for my first client ever, I had the most broken girl my supervisor said I would probably ever have.  She said it would only be easier.  I guess they broke me in good today.  I left the center heartbroken.  My spirit was so heavy I felt like vomiting.  They say carrying others burdens is a weighty task.  That couldn't be more the truth in this field of work.  


I got to share the gospel with this girl - a girl with no religion who had never really heard the real gospel.  A hurting, broken girl who knows pain and suffering more than most.  I got to tell her that Jesus loves her and forgives her.  She knows she's sinful and dirty.  She didn't need me to remind her of the law of God that she has broken.  So I didn't.  I told her about God's grace and mercy and love.  His Father love, His Daddy love that this little one did not have.  


I left the pregnancy center upset and heavy-hearted.  I drove straight to the bible study my husband and I go to on Thursday nights.  I wrapped myself in my husbands arms and told him I wanted to cry for this girl.  The night went on.  We shared a meal with the body of Christ and this bible study, then we opened the Word; and wow was the Spirit there.  We studied Mark 10.  We have this incredible way of studying the bible through observation, interpretation, and application.  The section we worked through tonight was "The Rich Young Ruler."  I'm sure everyone can recall that story.  The rich young ruler asks Jesus how he can have eternal life, Jesus tells him to sell everything he owns, he leaves unhappy.  As we talked through it, I had some major revelation.  


Whenever a broken, sick, injured, hurting person came to Jesus, Jesus healed them.  I could give you a thousand cross references, but I'll just tell you to read any of the gospels and you'll see it.  


However, when this rich young ruler who had "never" broken the Law came to Jesus, Jesus broke him.  He was humbled, his "spirituality" was shattered. 


I've never understood evangelism like this before.  We don't have to shove sin in the broken's face to convince them to repent and follow Jesus.  We have to love them and show them our Father's love.  We have to tell them the good news!  But the proud have to be broken.  We have to show them the Law and help them to see that they are not a saint, but were born a sinner because of the Fall.  


Heal the broken & break the proud.


Give them all Jesus. 


Amen.

Dreams

I'm going to be a wife in exactly 11 days.  Tomorrow I can check the 10 day weather report in hopes of seeing that our beautiful outdoor hiking trail wedding will indeed be a beautiful outdoor hiking trail wedding.  Recently all Kevin and I's conversations have been consumed by wedding plans.  A constant influx of checking lists and making lists and starting crafts and finishing crafts and going to the store and going to weddings and hoping that we'll be able to carry all we've created in Oklahoma back to Virginia on the airplanes.  


It's frustrating. Although I'm so stoked to have my teeny tiny dream wedding, I'm more stoked to be married to my best friend for the rest of my life.  The wedding day is nothing compared with the happily ever after.  


Thankfully, we had some friends bail on our double date last night, and we were able to invest the entire evening into our future, post wedding. 


Kevin told me about a crazy idea he had and his fears of us "settling" in America.  Let me show you some pictures of us in our element:

You guessed right!  Our element is INDIA.  

I'm not going to tell you our tentative plan that involves India just yet, but you can know that we spent hours yesterday dreaming about our future there.


We also spent a good portion of last night planning for the immediate future, after the wedding.  When we get back to Virginia and finally get to move into our apartment, it is going to be fun to decorate and organize our living room in a way that will be best for housing the small group that we plan to start.  We are so excited to have the Lord use dour home as a place of redemption and gospel sharing to take place.  


And there will also be ample time spent staring at God's beautiful paintings in the sky out of the kitchen window.

Kevin and I have a thing where we read books aloud to each other, every single day.  Yesterday we were blessed with so much free time, that we were able to read Mark Driscoll's book Real Marriage to each other, taking turns, for well over an hour.  There is much controversy surrounding this book, but Kevin and I have both taken a ton from it and the Lord has taught us a lot through Driscoll's words.  


I get to walk down the isle in 11 days, into the hands of my best friend, and I couldn't be more excited to begin the next chapter of my life as the newlywed wife of Kevin James Knight.

1 Thessalonians 1:3

“constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of loveand steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father,”

I pray that the future ministry I go into will be marked with those attributes.  This morning I was reading a book and it was talking about what one thing is you want to do before you die.  Would you care to know what my one thing is?  I want to invest into a prostitute, going into the brothel she works in and flooding the place with the light of Jesus I carry within myself.  I want to pour my love and Christ’s love into this woman.  I want to pay her debt and lead her by the hand out of the doors of the brothel and into my home.  I want to wash her feet and give her the bread of the Eucharist.  I want to see her fall in love with Papa God.  

The gospel isn’t easy.  It’s simple, yes, but it is not “easy.”  The gospel takes awork of faith, much labor of love, and steadfastness of hope.  Work, labor, and steadfastness are not easy little things.  They take time, effort, prayer, and passion.  Christianity is not easy, but it is totally worth it. 

As the Lord leads my future husband and I into war-torn nations and persecuted villages and redlight districts and the realities of hell on earth, I know and trust that it will take our work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope to see victories in Christ.  I can barely wait to see the love of Christ prevail across the earth.