Well, this has been quite an interesting “season” as we say in church talk. Hah.
The past couple months have been really strange emotionally, and it’s all really taken me aback. See the truth is, I have just been SAD lately. I was waking up not wanting to see a single soul, and not feeling worthy or able to take on anyone’s drama or problems. I realize the only “fixer” of these problems is the Lord, so that takes a lot of stress off of me, but at the same time I like to think of myself as a pretty good “fixer” too, and that takes me on an emotional rollercoaster ride if I let it get away from me.
I cried a lot, I felt indescribably but also unreasonably lonely, and all the things that normally make me happy didn’t do anything for me at all.
I wracked my brain trying to figure out why this was all happening, and in the process went to the Lord a LOT, and prayed almost every waking moment. I spent so much time in the Bible, because something in the back of my mind (oh yeah, hi, holy spirit) was sure (and rightly so) that God’s words were going to be the only comfort I could find.
I am discovering that the whole season was a time to find comfort in the Lord….it was time to get my heart wrecked and refined by fire, and time to search deeper than I had ever before inside my soul and see what I was really living for.
The Lord did some serious cleansing of my heart, and changing it to want GOOD, HOLY things. I am literally just in awe, no words to describe grateful. This is what I have been praying for for so long, and it’s finally starting to take place in my life.
I read a book about King David and spent a lot of time thinking about the reason for “suffering”…for these times when it seems like problems and bad news just keep piling up.
Sometimes God does things to break us, to test our faith, and I think He really does it to a chosen few. I think the amount of people who go through hardship and strife and use that time to find their weaknesses and make themselves stronger is very small, actually.
I am the first to tell you that normally, as far as hard times go, I suffer through the darkness, feel sorry for myself, and once I get back into the light I just try to forget about how badly I felt. Honest truth.
But what I’m learning is that I need to be encouraged that God is intentionally working out my kinks and sanding off the rough edges. It means that there’s something worth saving underneath all of this, and God thinks it’s worth His time to fix me up. There are small and big things that the Lord can use me for, all equally important, but I need to be in the right place to accomplish His tasks with the right attitude and motives.
When in crisis, sadness, distress, etc….Going to the Lord and asking for His opinion and direction and WAITING for answers is infinitely more reliable and brings more peace than sharing my struggles and asking for solutions from people. Which is not to say I’ve not had amazing encouragement…because people are actually really awesome and bring a lot of joy to my life.
But I tend to go to everyone looking for answers to my problems when trustworthy guidance from someone who knows every corner of my heart would be much more trustworthy.
The season ended well. Last Sunday I felt the Lord clearly saying that I was released from that time, that I was no longer going to feel sorry for myself or play the victim, but that I was going to choose JOY every day when I woke up. Instead of waking up thinking about all my troubles, I was going to wake up thinking about and thanking God for all the blessings in my life, and I was going to get excited about all the possibilities of a new day and what God could do with it.
So, THANK YOU so much if you’ve been praying for me during this time without knowing what was going on…I would like to be the perfect missionary and christian, and have a brave face on all of the time, but the truth is that all of us are always growing, and there’s always something the Lord can change to help better ourselves and help His work be done on a greater level.
I’m excited about this new season of JOY. It’s been going so well so far! The drama is never ending here, and it’s worse since I’m by myself until Katlyn gets back from the States, but nothing is changing my joy.
Ugh, joy is just so deep. I love it. It’s a state of peace and trust that no matter what happens, there’s blessings at every turn and so many possibilities of literally anything and everything wonderful happening.
It’s sunshine and still waters and new hope.
I am looking for churches, organizations, clubs, schools, small groups, etc. that are interested in supporting Finding Hope here in Honduras.
We would like to open up the first floor of our Women’s and Children’s Center by the end of the year, but we can’t do that without having monthly supporters to cover our costs, which will be about $1600 monthly.
I can go anywhere in Michigan to speak about our mission and what we do here, I just really need contacts!
Would you speak to the leaders of your church, group, school, etc. and ask if they would be interested in hearing my presentation?
I also would like to do several fundraisers like a night at a restaurant, garage sale, etc….whatever you can think of, any ideas you might have or you’d like to head up, please let me know!
It’s so difficult to fundraise from Honduras, and I want to be somewhat prepared before I get home, but I will definitely need some help.
Thanks for your consideration!
SUPPORT FINDING HOPE, CLICK HERE
Subscribe to Haille’s Honduras e-mail updates
Thank you for your continued support of the journey God’s put me on! If you would like to see pictures, feel free to add me on FaceBook. They upload faster on there. If you feel led to make a donation, there are a few ways you can go about that:
1. Write a check and send to Life Church. Make check out to Life Church, put Haille Krieg in the memo line, and send to 7001 Haggerty Rd, Canton MI 48187
2. Send money electronically through Life Church’s PayPal account. You can find that here: http://www.lifechurchcanton.org/#/about-life/financial-contributions. Make sure you specify that it’s for Haille Krieg.
3. Set up an Elexio account to have an amount taken out of your bank account each month. Log into Elexio Pulse https://lifechurch.elexiopulse.com and click on the “My Giving” link to the far right, you’ll see not only your history in giving, you’ll see a large link in the upper left that says “click here to Give Online”. If you don’t have an Elexio account you will go to the above link and click on “need an account?” and follow the prompts.
All donations are tax deductible, which is one of the reasons for me going through my church. Life Church does send out donation statements for your tax purposes
A Heart Full of Mess and Lore 