Is it December yet?

Hello all. To be really honest this has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. I don't think that I understood what I was stepping in to before I got here. Not the physical part of this, or even the emotional part. I've learned that I'm on the frontline of spiritual warfare. It's become clear to me that I've been under attack this past week, or really since I've been here. Tuesday night I learned that my first cousin was in a head on collision with an SUV. They airlifted him to Grady Hospital. If any of you know Atlanta, you know that Grady is where they take the really bad trauma cases. To be honest I panicked. I called all of the people in my immediate support group. I wanted to come home. Real bad. Have I conveyed how badly I wanted to come home? Well long story short my cousin will be fine. He will be soon or has already been released from the hospital. It's seriously by God's hand that he is alive. It's a big relief to me and my family. Thank you so much to all of my friends who prayed for him during all of this. I'm convinced that's a part of why he's still alive.

One of the hardest parts of this is how I've handled the stress of all of this. I've allowed all of the joy that I had about this trip to be taken from me. I'm so emotionally spent right now. I don't have much to offer anyone right now, much less the ability to minister to someone. To top it all off, I've been a HUGE jerk to Ginny. She has had to put up with so much of my crap this past week or so. I've been unfair and I've made our relationship pretty miserable during this time. Ginny, I'm truly sorry for how I've treated you. You haven't deserved it, in fact you deserve so much better than what I've given you. I know you've said that you forgive me. I just wanted to let everyone know about it, where they can keep me accountable in the coming weeks. I love you and I'm very thankful for you. Please allow my actions to realign with my heart. Be patient with me. I know you will, that's why I love you. Thanks Gin.

All of this makes me know that I'm supposed to be here. Why else would I have been attacked so relentlessly? I'm going to post part of an email that Troy sent me. I hope you don't mind Troy. It really surmises what is going on here:

As I was thinking about your situation, the thought occurred to me, "why is this happening?" The answer that came back in light of what I know about you, was that this is the first of many trials for Robert. You see you have a call to work in international missions on your life. This comes with many sacrifices. You will miss the birth, death, marriages of many that are close to you. Remember our reading in Luke 14:25-27. I like it especially in the Message.

One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sister--yes, even one's own self!--can't be my disciple. Anyone who won't shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can't be my disciple.

You may find that being away from Ginny, this accident with your cousin, your grandmother's health are all tests of your commitment to follow the call on your life. They all come, and you cannot serve God overseas and be with 'the family' at every crisis and celebration. I too, am the one looked to for stability in my family. I felt a great weight of responsibility when all hell seemed to break loose on my family after I left. They kept calling wanting me to sort it out. In the end I had to say,"no." They needed to be away from me as much as I needed to be away from them. You see when I was taken out of the picture, they had to depend more on God and each other to get through the crisis. I needed to be released from the pressure and I needed to release them to God. Some heavy but necessary lessons that I see potential for if you are willing for God to teach you.

I really think that last line is what He is doing here. As much as He worked on my character this summer He is back at it again. It took losing Ginny to realize that changes needed to be made. I think that this week has been another wake up call. A call to radical character molding. There are many areas that need reshaping in my life. I think that this trip will serve to be the catalyst and hopefully the beginning of the process. I just ask a couple things of you people out there that read my blog:

1. Please pray for me and my team. We are under attack and we need to be blanketed with prayer.
2. Pray specifically for the areas in my character that I'll be letting go of. The big one right now is forgiveness. I'll update as more surface.
3. Pray that I'll be more Christ-like in my important relationships. Ginny, family, and friends. So pretty much ALL my relationships.
4. Pray that this will become fun again. Until this week started I was having the time of my life here. I need that feeling to return.
5. Be patient with me.


Thanks so very much for supporting me through all of this. I need you guys to lift me up right now because I'm really down. I know that this will work out for the best. It's just hard to see that right now. Well, it's bed time here. Homework day tomorrow and off to the pub after that. I'll post as much as I need to, so look for updates soon. Leave some love.

-Robert