Battles of remembrance

Hi ladies,
I am anxious to share and hear from each of you as God continues to reveal His heart to us!  I have already shared this with some of you, but it is hard to express the battle this is going on in my heart now.  It is quite an adjustment returning home from a life-changing mission trip.  There are lots of questions (mostly about myself, my way of life, my priorities), countless prayers (God please remind me of my purpose here, my family, my kids...), and a letting go that has to take place.   

But most of all every day I have to fight to redeem the acts I have done in faith for Christ's glory.  The enemy would like nothing more than for me to think that going to Ghana has not/does not make a difference for the Kingdom.  The time we have there is so short, and we do so much during that time that much of it is a blur.  Now that I am in the midst of processing through the trip: what I saw, what I heard, what I experienced, I must claim those memories for the glory of God.  It isn't just for me...it's for God's glory and His purposes for me to REMEMBER! 

In Scripture God puts a high importance on remembering...that is why He gave us the Holy Spirit.  Jesus said He was sending us a Helper to..."remind you of everything I have said to you."  God spoke to my heart countless times during the trip, and I am desperately longing for those powerful Words to be redeemed!  I am reading Joshua right now and after the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River on dry ground, God told them to pick up twelve rocks from the riverbed and set them up at their first camp as a remembrance.  This is what He told the twelve men appointed for this task, "Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you.  In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD.  When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.  These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever." (Josh. 4: 5-7)

God is telling me to "take up a stone" of remembrance from this trip to Ghana and place it down firmly in my "camp" as a testimony of what He did and what He is going to do in my life, in Ghana, and in the World.  I was actually able to share with Ella about my stone of rememberance today.  We were looking at pics on Facebook of the trip. One of the team members had posted a pic of me praying in the clinic.  (Alicia and I prayed in the clinic most of the week.)  I held Ella on my lap and told her that I was praying for people who came to see the doctor and get medicine.  She said, "I want to hear you (praying)."  I said, "It's just a picture, sweetie, you can't hear me.  But this is what Mommy said."  I told her very simply the prayer I prayed over the woman and her daughter. It was a victory as I laid down a stone of remembrance in her heart and mine, claiming what the Father had done in and through me.

The battle coming back from Ghana is not just to "adjust back to life as usual", but to claim victories for the Kingdom in my own heart and tell others about what God has done!  And that is what God calls each of us to do, no matter how small the victory...We must CLAIM the victories and PROCLAIM the mighty things He has done!  II Peter 2:9.  We must go forward in victory and on to future victories for Christ's glory. I pray only that I am faithful steward of the blessings He has already given.

Giving thanks to God for each of you!
Andrea