One Day You Will See Me Face To Face

I’ve been thinking, thinking a lot, in fact I don’t think that my mind and soul and sometimes even my spirit has returned to Canada. I think sometimes they are in Kona, often they are in Haiti, and then other times I have no idea where they are. My body is here, it goes through the motions of the day, but most of the time of the time, at the end of the day, I have no idea what I did at work that day, but I could tell you all about the revelations God is giving me.

I’ve had such a great week, and I am wondering why. Nothing extraordinary happened in my circumstances, but I am so full of joy, peace, happiness, patience, and love. This week, I stopped striving, I stopped trying to work so hard to earn God’s love, and I stopped trying to figure out every minute of my entire future. Instead, I still made the effort and the choice to spend time with God, but I let him speak to me about the day. I still pondered the future, but I let him speak to me about what it would look like. It has given me peace that surpasses all my understanding. In doing this, I have had more revelation and clarity about my future this week than I have had in the last 2 months since arriving home.

The questions I am seeking God for answers, still have a lot to do with “What the heck happened to me in my 6 months of sprinting after God?” I constantly am seeking revelation about many specific events during that time. One of the cry’s of my heart is “God please show me more about what working for your Kingdom means, please show me your Kingdom, please help me to understand eternity. God Haiti was so hard, God I suffered, God I thought working for you was glorious, but that was brutal. Why would I want to go do that again, when I can come home, live my comfortable life, yes I know it is not fulfilling, but it is easier than what I just went through.”

In that, God has taught me much. I have been blind to so many things in the past; I can’t even imagine how many things I am still blind to. This cry, I know, comes out of much blindness. Living a life following Christ, often, is faith, and often, you don’t get to see the fruit on this side of heaven. The bible is full of suffering by disciples of Jesus, and you wonder, how did they do it? And of course Jesus doesn’t want me to suffer like that; they did it, that was enough. But the thing is, although Jesus doesn’t want us to suffer, when we go against the pull of sin, the pull of the world, it causes suffering. How did the disciples do it? How did Paul have such faith, that He praised Jesus when he was in prison? How did Paul write encouraging letters to the church, telling them not to worry, when in prison? And what if the church was only concerned about its own well being, but Paul, suffering, was so humble that he still wanted the church to know the truth, despite their greediness? The thing of this is, through all of my suffering in life, I have come to know more of who Jesus is. The good things in life certainly have brought great joy to my life, and have brought me closer to God and I am so thankful for the blessings I have been given. But my deepest understanding, my closest most intimate moments with the Lord, came because I suffered, and in my suffering I turned to God, and He was there, and He is always faithful. It came from serving others, despite their greediness, I know I feel Jesus with me during those times, and it has increased my desire to serve more, because it pleases the Lord and I too fight the desire to be greedy.

God has and still does, pursue me, He shows me time and time again how He is the lover of my soul, He shows me how He is my friend, and now He is teaching me that, although He is those things to me, He also is God. He created me, He created the universe, He is in control, and I have a choice, to be obedient, or disobedient. Over the last month, God has been teaching me new depths of Fear of God.

So I struggle, what about me? What about the things that I want? What about my comfortable, perfectly predictable, and neatly arranged life?

This is where revelation comes in, wisdom, is the beginning of understanding. As God starts to show me answers to my questions about eternity. Can I row in heaven? Can I run in heaven? Will I have a beautiful place to rest my head at night? Will I be playing with children laughing and not have to watch people inflict pain on them? Will I no longer suffer with sickness? Will I always be surrounded by beautiful people praising God? Will I have everything that I have ever desired?

I was reading one morning, and something just struck me, before I knew what was going on, I was filled with tears of pain, and peace.


1 Corinthians 13:12
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”


Why am seeking all the things that I will have one day with my father in heaven?

God says to me “Alicia I know you’re in pain, I know, now that your eyes have been opened, you see not how I intended it to be, I know it hurts you, but I am God, fear me and nothing else, you shall have no other idols before me. I am God, I will make things right in the time I intend them, seek not the things of this world, but seek my heavenly treasures. As you long to be with me, I long to be with you too, I long to be with you more than you can even understand. I long to be with all my children and it pains me to be separated from them, but one day, we will all be together. Come follow me, and you will have abundant life in this age, and the one to come”.
God what can I do except bow my head and say to you, “God, you are God”.

Through my prayers God is reveling to me clarity in all different areas of serving Him, practically, spiritually, physically, and relationally. I am excited to begin to share these things, and to learn more about them.

May God Bless you with His Unending Joy!

Picture: At the home of the new mom whose baby we delivered in the poorest tent city in Haiti, on a board placed on top of earthquake rubble.

The Power of Creative Transformation

“If You Truly Encountered the Love of Christ…”

Well, it has been 22 days since I wrote my last blog, for those 22 days I have been pondering the same question; What the Heck Happened to Me in Haiti? I have come to realize that I may be pondering that question for the rest of my life; actually I could even expand the question into (which would include my 3 months in Kona, and 3 months in Haiti);

What Happened to Me in Those 6 Months of Sprinting after God?

I haven’t even had any words to describe it to people, I try, but I just can’t seem to communicate my passion to others. Now I feel the Lord has given me some words to share, so I will try to share the passion burning in my heart, in the words on this page.

I spend hour’s daily, thinking, asking God questions, about what He has done in me, yesterday the Robert Frost Poem came into my mind, so I read the poem and asked God what He wanted to show me about this poem. It has been such a significant piece of writing over time, and I didn’t want to write about the usual (not that there is anything wrong with it), “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”, however, how true is the quote compared to a walk with Christ. A walk with Christ is choosing the road less traveled, not once, but daily, minute by minute. Just because my knowledge and wisdom of the Lord has increased does not mean that I do not have a daily choice to make, in fact, I need God more and more every day, and I can’t even imagine trying to get through a day without Him, at the very thought my eyes fill with tears. Although I love this lesson, it is not what stands out to me now.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both”

Why is this standing out to me? I love adventure! And I have discovered that this life is full of it in so many different aspects. I don’t want to take one road that is forever the same, and leading to one place, I want to take many roads, that all lead to different places, different adventures, different joys, different sufferings, I want to experience everything that God has intended for me on earth. The last thing I want when I get to heaven is for God to say “Good job Alicia, I am proud of you, but, I had so much more for you”, how awful that would be. So perhaps, in one way or another, when Frost wrote this poem he did indeed mean, that even though you are headed one direction, the road less traveled, is the adventurous road. So I see my choice to take the path less traveled, which is the road living for Christ and eternity, but along that road I hope for many other roads diverged in a wood, always wishing I could travel both, but having to make a choice, never knowing if it is the “right” one, but going for it with all my heart, and trusting Christ to guide me every step of the way. To let Christ live in me, I have to let some dreams die, it is not easy, but I know that Christ will give me so much more in return. That is a life worth living.


The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost


There were many times in Haiti where I felt like I was on one of those medieval rack torture machines, where they pull of your arms and legs (sorry gross, but the only adequate comparison I could think of). After looking up a description on it, apparently it was also considered the most painful form of medieval torture. It made me laugh, because honestly, It really does describe how I felt about some of the awful things I saw in Haiti, and couldn’t practically do anything about at the time, and also the personal growth that was happening in my soul, God was weeding the garden in my heart, pulling out the bad roots, gently, but still painful. Many days the only prayer I could say was “Help me”, I put a smile on my face, and went about my duties. I was fully reliant upon God to get me through day, and now, I could not be more thankful for that painful experience. Why? Well I pray you can feel my passion as you read this next quote, I could not put words together myself, but when I read it, I thought, yes this is it, this is what happened to me when I began sprinting towards the Lord.


“A true encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation”

-Thomas Merton; taken from ‘Grace to Race: The Iron Nun’ Sister Madonna Buder (which has inspired me to no ends, and I will write much about soon).

Although, I still struggle, my body, mind and soul has taken a beating and I am still recovering, my spirit is more alive than it has ever been, and every day I am being healed and renewed. I love the quote by Sister Madonna; I like to think God is saying this to me now;

“Your body is just being redesigned, and you are going to be in better shape than ever once you heal”


With all the passion in my heart I will say…"If you Truly Encountered the Love of Christ, you would Realize That There is No Other Way to Live Except for Him".

The Sprint Continues…

What the Heck Happened to Me in Haiti?

Continuation of Sweetness of Suffering: My Heart (Written September 19, 2010) as well as many new questions.

(Also Port-au-Prince DTS promo video at end)

In the blog “Sweetness of Suffering” I wrote about suffering, and wanting to be healed, but not able or ready to let Jesus in to heal me, I then ended it with, “I have a feeling this is to be continued...”. Well today the Lord brought me back to read that blog I wrote right before I left for DTS.

I went through a very steep learning curve in lecture during DTS, I gained a very deep understanding of God's truths, I had old wounds brought up and the Lord began to heal them. Just today, in obedience to some of the Lord's promptings, I was finally able to have closure over the death of my friend Jen, which was one specific thing I was praying about before I left, and one thing God brought up over and over again for healing.

When I am suffering, and really struggling with what I think the Lord is saying, He'll often speak to me in a way that is so blunt it is actually really funny. Like today, him sending me back to reading an old prayer/blog and show me that the answer to those prayers has been completed. I can't help but sit back and laugh. My DTS lecture experience was basically a deep journey on discovering my original design, healing deep wounds that I stuffed down, answering prayers and questions that I had, and making head knowledge into heart knowledge, causing my 'inner man' to understand what the words in the bible actually mean. Being led and rocked by the Holy Spirit, being built up strong, understanding who God is, how much Jesus loves me, how only God's love can heal me and then going out to share that love with the people of Haiti.

Then I go to Haiti, pour out my love in every way I know how, then about a month into it, something happened. I don't know what, perhaps that is why I am writing about it now. I don't exactly know how to even describe it. When people ask me 'how was Haiti?', really the only thing that comes to my mind is the word 'hard'. What was so hard about it? Good question. I don't even know how to describe it, it was like walking through thick glue, every second of every day, trying so hard to make it through every day. It was like I was underwater, Jesus was my oxygen tank, and if I took Him away for even a second, I felt like I was drowning. Everything was uncomfortable, unfamiliar, stretching, challenging, painful. Then someone said to me, well, when you are underwater with an oxygen tank, you get to see things that otherwise you never would get to experience. Now that has me thinking. What was God teaching me, showing me, why was He allowing me to suffer so much? God does not allowing any suffering that there is not a greater purpose for, so God, what is your purpose in this? One thing I know is that I have developed so much more character from the challenges I underwent, which is a wonderful and important thing, I also have this new crazy love for people and desire for true Christlike relationship, which is very exciting. But I know there is more, more to what happened to me in Haiti, and I need to really seek the Lord, and find out.

This may sound weird, but since being home I have had to slowly rebuild my trust relationship with the Lord, because I was so wounded in Haiti. It has actually been pretty amazing, and now that I have deeper roots established with the Lord, it is easier this time, to trust Him after being hurt and the trust is so much deeper. The cool thing about my suffering this time, was that it was for the sake of the gospel, sure some of it still was out of my own disobedience, but I got to suffer with Jesus, and know him in a way I otherwise never would.

Looking at all the pictures and videos is awesome, because it reminds me of all the amazing moments, but I can't neglect that God allowed suffering in my life, so that I can go deeper with Him. I have no idea what to do now or what to do next.
I ever so gently hear the Lord saying to me “I am not finished yet, I who have begun a good work in you, will not relent, I created you to enjoy you, and to love you and I have not forgotten about you:”

I am also reminded of a quote by one of our speakers “It is not my encounters that have made me understand God, It is actually the hardest things I have ever gone through, and come out of.” -Amy Sollers. (Blog Week 2 – The Truth Really Does Set you Free).

So I suppose that if I didn't have wounds from the battle, it wouldn't have been much of a battle. There are things in life that are worth fighting for, yes there is a cost, but as I have learned and written before, it is a calculated cost.

Thank you Lord for always being with me.

Picture: Standing on rubble across the street from the Haiti Government Palace. Used to be administration offices ect. We filmed a promo video there for the Summer Port-au-Prince DTS which is going to be a huge blessing to Haiti. Some of my DTS teamates are returing to staff, and many Haitians we met and discipled will be students, very exciting!

Originally I thought that I would also staff this, but I am not feeling God calling me there as of now, and I am really praying into my next step. Your prayers for my next step are greatly appreiciated!

Promo Video Link <-- its sweet check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLwxWoEgI1Y