Because that's my King...

Sometimes I need reminders....today, I just needed this reminder.

Transparent: easily seen through, recognized, or detected; open; frank; candid

I wish I could sit down and dump my heart out before someone and just ask him or her what it all means. I wish there was an expert on it...someone that could look at all the pieces and tell me how they all fit together. I wish someone could tell me what it looks like in five, ten, or fifteen years.

I'm here...in the midst of an all Western European conference with ABWE...and I feel like I am falling apart. Not because I am homesick or missing friends and family over the holidays. Not at all (sorry Mom...). I'm falling apart because once again I feel this overwhelming burden that I can't explain. Once again I feel the Lord getting ready to completely ask me to step out in faith. I know it is going to be harder this time than the last. Last time I knew what He was asking...and this time...He's just asking me to blindly follow...not knowing where, when, or to what...but to surrender wholly without any inclination as to what He's going to ask of me.

He's asking me to trust Him with all the things that I love. The people here....the fact that I absolutely love living in a different culture and part of the world...the part of me that thinks the Portuguese language is quite possibly the most beautiful language I've heard...and the joy that I get being completely bombarded and surrounded by it...left to try to figure out bits and pieces of it...
He's asking me to simply surrender to Him all those desires...not knowing if I'll ever be able to permanently have or enjoy them...and to simply follow Him... wherever He leads.


So once again I'm here. Trusting God to show me what all this means in His time. Trusting that the desires He has placed in my heart can be fulfilled either by Him or in some other way that I can't see. Believing God is who He was...and forever will be. Once again stepping out of my boat.

As hard as it is to blindly follow...I'm excited. I know that this is when God leads, moves, and directs.

I'm here, Lord...
Speak, because I'm listening.
Here I am, Lord...
Send me.
I'll go.

"Do they see Jesus in me?"

"Is the face that I see in the mirror the one I want others to see?
Do I show in the way that I walk in my life the love that You've given to me?
My heart's desire is to be like You,
In all that I do,
All I am.

Do they see Jesus in me?
Do they recognize Your face?
Do I communicate Your love and Your grace?
Do I reflect who You are in the way I choose to be?
Do they see Jesus...
Jesus in me?

Well it's amazing that You'd ever use me...
But use me the way You will.
Help me to hold out a heart of compassion and grace,
A heart that Your Spirit fills.
May I show forgiveness and mercy,
The same way You showed it to me.


Do they see Jesus in me?
Do they recognize Your face?
Do I communicate Your love and Your grace?
Do I reflect who You are in the way I choose to be?
Do they see Jesus...
Jesus in me?

I want to show all the world that You are the reason I live and breathe...
So You'll be the One that they see...
When they see me.

Do they see Jesus in me?
Do they recognize Your face?
Do I communicate Your love and Your grace?
Do I reflect who You are in the way I choose to be?
Oh do they see Jesus in me?"


This song came to my mind this week. It's a song I used to listen to often in high school, but I hadn't really thought of it much since then. As I was overhearing my students talk about different teachers and the things they remembered about them...I started to wonder what they would remember about me. The words to this song came back to me. It's a scary thing to have students watching your every response...your facial expressions...your interactions with colleagues...and I keep wondering if they see Him. Can they see Christ? Do they see me respond in a way that imitates Christ? Do they see His compassion in me? Do they see His holiness? Do they experience His forgiveness through me?
Or are they just seeing me, Erin Wahlstrom? What a waste if they are... What a tragedy if they can't see a picture of my Savior in the everyday moments of my life. What a waste of a life that was created to radiate and reflect Him...

Oh Lord...don't let me waste my life on me. Fill me, use me, change me, transform me...until there is no trace of who I used to be without You.

Nothing can separate....

Nothing can separate me from God's love.
Nothing.
Not trouble.
Not hardship.
Not persecution.
Not a famine.
Not nakedness.
Not danger.
Not a sword.

Nothing.

Not death.
Not life.
Not angels.
Not demons.
Not the present.
Not the future.
Not any power.
Not height.
Not even depth.
Not anything else in the entire created world.

Nothing.
Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.

Not a language.
Not an ocean.
Nothing.
Not a time difference.
Not a cultural difference.
Nothing.

His love knows no limits.
As He has known no beginning and no end....so is His love.
Steadfast.
Eternal.
Unchanging.

Every second in every minute of every hour in each day---His love to me is constant.

And nothing- nothing- will ever separate me from His love.

"Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol Him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord." --Psalm 117

You didn't say that it would be easy...
You never promised a perfect path, free of hurt, free of difficulty, free of conflict.
You promised a Light.
You promised a Presence.
You promised a Helper.

You didn't call me to ease and to comfort...
You never called me to sit back and relax, or to know the latest trends and fashions.
You called me to take up my cross.
You called me to suffer with You.
You called me to die to myself.

So here I am, Lord.
Hard-pressed, but not crushed.
Perplexed, but not in despair.
Persecuted, but not abandoned.
Struck down, but not destroyed.

Here I am, Lord.
Ready to start a new day.
It might hold more...
More things that make me feel worthless...
More situations that make me feel crushed...
But I will not lose heart.
For these things draw me to You.

You, who by Your grace define my worth.
You, who in Your love restore my brokenness.
You, who take the least, the frail, the feeble, and the weak,
and make them strong.

So here I am, Lord.
I am nothing...
But I am Yours.

Little by little, inch by inch...

So I just have to say... today was my best Portuguese day ever.
Let me clarify. When you read what little actually occurred...you will realize how far I have to go. Nonetheless, today was HUGE for me.
That being said, let me explain.

Laura and I decided that we both want to learn how to cook. So, we've been taking turns cooking meals. We usually sit down, plan out the meals for the week, and then make our grocery list.

Well, my goal is to make one new recipe each week. This week, I decided to make French dip sandwiches. I made my list, looked at the things I needed but had never seen or didn't know where to find at the grocery store...and then I emailed some missionaries to help me know what words to look for in the meat section. I jotted the words down on my list and headed to the store.

I saved finding the meat for the end. I hate the meat section. First of all, I really am not much of a meat person...especially when I see it before it's been cooked. Secondly, the meat section here is just very different than at home. I have never walked through the meat section at Walmart and seen former pets staring back at me...I'll just put it that way. Thirdly, there is the distinct, overwhelming smell of dried cod that, while barely tolerable throughout the store, is ten times stronger near the meat. The first time I walked past it I began dry-heaving. It's that strong. I have now reached the point where I no longer have to hold my sleeve to my nose. I think now I just walk past with a pained expression upon my face. My goal is to one day look happy to be purchasing meat near the hanging slabs of cod. We'll see if it ever happens.

As I braced myself to enter into the dreaded meat section, I began to scan the labels to find a beef roast. When I finally found the meat I needed...I realized there were two kinds that had the words I was looking for. They both looked VERY different. While I probably could have just grabbed one and made it work, a deep part of me was terrified that it might be meat from a previously mentioned pet...or just an animal that I would rather not try...so I started to look for someone to help me.

Just that moment a lady walked by with a large crate of meat to restock the refrigerators. She saw me standing there staring at her inquisitively and came over to help me. I started with my standard apology for not knowing more Portuguese and then asked her in Portuguese, "Is this beef?"

To which she replied, "lskjdfoeiiwjaofjeowiejowijf" (didn't catch a word of it)

I decided to try another approach. "Is this from the same animal?"

Bingo.

She explained that they were both from the same animal, but the reason they looked different is that one was "cleaner" and "purer."

It's stupid, really. But being able to actually form a question and understand the response was WONDERFUL!

Then, later this evening Laura and I were wanting to purchase coffee but could only find the beans. We don't have a grinder, but I remembered that usually they can grind the beans for you. I remembered the words "you can" and "make" from a song we sing in church, the word for ground, and slammed them altogether in a probably horrendously constructed sentence---but the lady understood.
It's such a thimble full compared to the vast ocean of what I need to know...but the thimble full felt quite satisfying today. :)

"But at seven and twenty, she thought very differently from what she had been persuaded to think earlier..."

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately...
Thinking about the past decade or so of my life...the decisions I've made...the direction that my life has taken...
Reflection can be a painful thing. There are parts of my life that I wonder if could have turned out differently if I wouldn't have been quite so hard-hearted at the time... or so incredibly afraid of being vulnerable...or just so scared of taking a risk.
I know, of course, that God has a plan for my life...every part of it. I know that those things have pushed me to be who He wants me to be. They have broken my heart so that God could reshape and refashion it for Him...
But sometimes I wonder.
I wonder if my history will make sense in my future.
I wonder how God is going to work out a million desires that tug on my heart.
I know I have watched Him do it before, and I know I will watch Him do it again.
But right now...I'm wondering.

God knows where I've been, where I am, and where I will be.
He knows who I was, who I am, and who I will be.
He knows...
I know in part...He knows in full. He sees my beginning and my end, and He knows every detail of the story in between.
So I'm praying for eyes that don't see the circumstances that confuse...
and for a heart that won't hear the questions that bemuse...
Instead I'm fixing my gaze on the Author of my Life
and setting my heart upon the Lover of my Soul.

Somehow He knows how the puzzle that is my heart fits together...