Some Thoughts About our Trip

Sitting here in my spa massage chair getting my nails buffed and polished, feet scrubbed and the rest of me groomed so that I can be once again in uniform compliance for work, I am stuck reminiscing. Over the past week, not once did I mind getting dirty, being judged on how I looked, worry about what outfits looked best or not. There was a running joke on how I was overdressed on the flight going and coming, but this was just because I was on the jumpseat and I have certain requirements as to what I can and can't wear in my professional work environment. Vanity is something I have always dealt with and that unfortunately has still not changed though the extravagant ways I go about it most likely must. My spending habits definitely need to be modified as well. God has made a point to cut these habits drastically when I moved out of the city but I unfortunately still have my vices. I travel so much and thankfully because of my job I don't spend too much while I do so but I still have costs and I still "treat" myself more than I should.

How spoiled I am. How pampered I am. How blessed I am. How ungrateful I can be. I wouldn't last a week in one of the towns we visited. These people... These beautiful Mayan descendant people.... They live in houses with 300 square feet, dirt floors, no doors, no electricity, no plumbing, animals running in and out of the houses, and so many other things I could never imagine living in. They live like this, and yet, they still smile. They still make it through each day. They still move on and live their lives....

For me, this trip was about becoming my own person on my personal path with God. My parents are well loved members of the church and they are highly respected. I have always been known as Ariadne's mini-me. This, I have always taken as a huge compliment because I only pray that I can be similar to the amazing woman of God she is. That being said, my own identity was lost in translation. This trip was a way for me to show that though yes, I'm my mother's daughter, I am also God's Diana.

For the first time ever, I was able to lead worship. Many of you know that I have a music degree and that I used to sing classically and operatically quite actively throughout Georgia and some other national and international destinations throughout the world. That seems like a lifetime ago. God removed me from that music world and it has been a sore subject for me since then. This past year, God has brought me back to music, but only in a way that glorifies Him, and no longer myself. For the first time ever, my stage fright (which I have a severe case of and have always had) disappeared entirely and I was able to worship freely and boldly with the beautiful group of people I was with. God shattered my fears and showed me a way to use my talent while honoring Him in His most beautiful glory.

Coming back home, preparing to start my masters degree at Asbury Theological Seminary this fall, I have realized something: as long as what I do, I truly do for God, I will succeed. As long as what I do is truly lead by God, I will have success. Even in the battle, when the storms are raging on, as long as I grab His hand, I will make it. The moment I let my pride, my selfishness, my blindness lead, I will sink.... But as long as I grab Jesus's hand, which is always centimeters away from mine, just waiting to be grabbed, the waters will still and I will find peace.

There will always be poverty in the world. Though I'm not a true missionary who leaves everything familiar behind, I am God's messenger. I do not feel God pulling me out of my home to go live in a different country and spread His word... Yet.... But, I do feel God's pull to spread His word within my everyday life. To point out that though we might feel that we are on top of the world like the Mayan civilization once was, if we do not live life by God's will, we will soon be the tragic civilization they now live in.  We must be so careful not to live greedy extravagant lives. We must lead lives of example so that those who don't quite get it can look at us and say "what do they do differently?" We must spread God's love and spread His message. Everyone can and must be saved.

Doesn't our whole world thrive on stories of heroes? Don't you see that we have our very own? His name is Jesus! He saved the whole world yet only some see it. Let's open those eyes! Let's be God's champions! Let's spread His word and change the hearts of many so that we can prevent ourselves from being a fallen land. Change is in the wind. Where do you plan to be when it blows?

2 Peter 2:4-6
For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell (tartarus) and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly.

Acts 3:19-21

Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Diana Crane