Lessons from India, Part 2

2. God rewards obedience.
Over the past few years, God has been teaching me that obedience is not as costly as one might think. Really, it is sometimes the work of Satan to have us believe that we have soooo much to give up in following the call of Christ. I say that because at every point that my discipleship has cost me something, the reward has far outweighed what I have "given up."

In counting the cost of this trip, Daniel and I struggled with asking people for help. The Lord has blessed us financially and given us the ability to save but the cost of this trip would have required a lot of that savings. Paying for all of it unassisted would make it difficult for us to attempt such a trip again anytime soon. Our team leader, Jeff, showed us that God's plan was bigger than each of us paying quietly for our own way. The Lord wanted to teach us our dependency on Him, show us the faithfulness of others, and involve as many of our friends and family as possible in this mission. Well, I was obedient but some what embarrassed as I typed up and sent out support letters. I am so glad I did because God used this to bless us tremendously.

One example: a friend of mine has had a very difficult last two years. She has suffered financially, emotionally, and physically. I hated to ask her for anything but when I think of the word "support" she always comes to mind. She supported me when I was deciding what college to attend and what major to pursue, stood by me when I got married, kept in touch with me when I moved away 3 different times. She has been committed to our friendship even when I often drop the ball. She prays for me, encourages me, and remembers every birthday, anniversary, or occasion in my life and the life of my family. Most recently, when my Grandfather died two Christmases ago, she came to the funeral and spent the afternoon with Hannah so I could be with my family. She's the type of friend you find once in a lifetime, the 2am friend. Reluctantly, I sent her a letter.

In the letter, I mentioned that many people at past medical camps needed reading glasses and suffered from headaches because they have no access to vision care. Reading this, my friend went out and bought several pair of Target's dollar spot reading glasses and enlisted her mother to do the same. She carried them to my mother's house and on the way out of the country, I stuffed them deep into my huge duffle bag. I seriously doubted they could make it to the other side of the globe in one piece. On Monday, I dug out the glasses and was suprised to find them in excellent condition (unlike my peanut butter crackers, my peanuts, my hair dryer, most of my cosmetics, and my straightener). I added them to what seemed to me to be a huge pile of glasses in our make shift doctor's quarters. My hopes of seeing someone actually use a pair of my friend's glasses seemed a little selfish and foolish at this point. I didn't think much more about it. We saw over 1000 patients in three days and the prayer room was very busy. I would barely finish sharing with one group and look up to see another group standing there. Late on Tuesday I was sharing with a lady, something caught my eye when I looked at her hands folded in her lap. There in her grasp, I saw them--Kim's glasses.

Isn't obedience beautiful?