“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to love a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to one hope when you were called- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Ephesians 4: 1-6
Unity- this word appears in scripture quite a bit, however, I don’t think I’ve ever really understood the importance of unity until this week. Being that I live in a group of nine women we are constantly bonding and I’m starting to recognize what can be accomplished when we are one in Christ.
This has been made apparent to me through events such as climbing the Mombacho Volcano, praying at the hospital and even through debrief. When one of us begins to have a bad attitude or feels heavy hearted about something we all feel it. We all suffer when one of our sisters are suffering and I think that was a hard lesson for me to learn this week.
I was rather ‘spiritually dry’ this week. Not that I wasn’t getting alone time with God or hearing from Him- it’s just when I did hear from God I didn’t know how to play out His plans and when I did I felt like they weren’t unfolding in the manner He wanted them to. This really was affecting my attitude Tuesday when we went hiking. Five extremely difficult hours of climbing and it took about two hours for me to really examine myself and surrender my bitterness to God. Once I did this I could really enjoy viewing God’s creation from a whole new perspective. I mean, I was at the top of a volcano, looking over a huge part of Nicaragua.
Fast forward to Wednesday’s debrief- a lot of the girls were saying how climbing that volcano was symbolic to our walks with Christ. Difficult, at points you really don’t know if you can move another inch but that’s when you let God take control. Like I said in my last blog, I’m really have to be intentional in asking God to fill me and show me what He wants; He wants me to be patient, He wants me to surrender and be one with Him so I can also be one with this Sisterhood.
I don’t think I could stress enough how much I love this team. They are my family now and I dread the day we part and I have to go through the lesson of spiritual unity back home. Of course I have Christ based relationships back home but I don’t think I really knew how to constantly have spiritual unity within those friendships.
I’m looking forward to God continuously working in me here and continuing this challenge back home. Keep praying, God knows Nicaragua and this team need it!
