Through African Eyes

It’s been just over a week since Africa.

There’s just something about being somewhere completely unfamiliar and unlike what you’re used to that creates reflection and growth.

There’s just something about Africa that opened my eyes to how much I have to learn: about life, about Love, about God.

When I close my eyes, I can still so vividly see them; beautiful, radiant faces fill my mind. The faces of the little African boys and girls who taught me more about Jesus, His joy, gratitude, hope, and unconditional love than any preacher or seminary professor ever could.

How can one such as I, born into education, prosperity, health, a stable family and endless opportunity, have more to learn about Love, purpose, and life from those born into poverty, disease, a broken dying family, rejection, and abandonment?

Because for these little ones, the temporary riches, affections, and comforts of this world that so easily distract me don’t blur their view of Jesus.

Because it is written that blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Because when the human capacity of love forsakes and rejects, the unfailing divine Love of God is that much more real.

Because Jesus uses the weak things of this world. 

                                                 {Beautiful Esther,, Photo credit- Becca Dillon}

Sit in a room full of almost 200 beautiful little African bodies. Each one with a story. Stories of hurt, rejection, death, hunger. Siblings dying of starvation before their eyes. Parents wasting away from HIV/AIDS. Stuck in the web of poverty. Sleeping on cold, hard floors. Put out on the streets. Left to fend for themselves. Feeling so unwanted, so uncared for, so unloved. Hopelessness within them, and hopelessness everywhere around them.

Sit in this room, and hear each voice sing praises that fill the throne room. Listen to their hearts cry out of how His Love is higher than any mountain, deeper than any ocean, and wider than any continent. Listen to them speak words that cover you in conviction and leave you grasping for some genuine understanding of what they know. “I’m glad my mother died because it means that I know Jesus and His Word now”. Feel their joy, contentment and gratitude. See their love and fulfillment.

Sit in this room, and something within you cannot help but change.

Be poured into for 5 days by a 14 year old girl who’s parents have died. Be greeted by her precious smile and open arms each morning. Have her hand in yours for hours simply because she doesn’t want to let you go. Be welcomed into Africa as if it were your home. Be unconditionally loved by her as if you had known her your whole life. Receive beautiful letters of her admiration, love, care and gratefulness of you. Be called “Mum” by her. Hold her in your arms, in the dark on the dirt of your last night there, as she sobs, barely making out the words that she doesn’t want you to leave. Be loved by this girl with absolutely everything that she has, and something within you cannot help but change. 

New Perspective.

Africa has heightened my understanding of how small I am. How our love falls so short when it’s not His Agape Love. How limited my perspective is. How in need I am, and we all are, of Him. How much higher His ways are than mine. How much I don’t have it all figured out.  How much I have let my worldly and physical affluence rob me of spiritual richness.

This place. These people. These children. They have shown me more fully how to love. They’ve increased my desire to love those who I encounter today with absolutely everything within me. to love deeper. To love farther. To love more purely. To love more selflessly. To love more passionately. To hold nothing back and show them His Agape Love that requires nothing in return and is not at all dependent upon them. To love everyone I meet just as these children have loved me. To ultimately give Him full freedom to love through me.

                  However that may look.

They’ve increased my desire to run. To run harder. To run faster. To run straighter. To run farther. To run more passionately. To ultimately give Him full freedom to run through me. 

                  However that may look.

“…let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run…looking unto Jesus…” Hebrews 12:1

        

         This verse is my prayer, my desire, my encouragement from the Lord for this year. To love deeply. To run passionately. To live fully. And allowing Him to remove everything in my life that distracts, deters, or hinders Him from doing that through me.

oh, autumn.

Seasons.

Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall.

The air, full of frost, slowly turns to dew. The sun, ever so steadily extending her rays, touches creation with warm, yellow, sunshine.    

                                    Life awakens.

Leaves grasp and embrace all the cheery glow they can, knowing that soon the time will come.

Green, yellow, orange, red, brown.

Falling,

falling.

 Crisp, quiet air touches creation, blowing through trees, filling up lungs. Only the melodic meeting of the leaves with the ground below, one by one, penetrates the sweet stillness and rest.

The Master, holding my times in His hand, perfectly orchestrates the seasons throughout eternity. 


- Kelsey

From glory to glory

“But we all with open face beholding, as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

                                                                                                            2 Corinthians 3:18

Metamorphosis

            Not a mere change, not a gradual process of adaptation, not a mask, façade, or outward show; but to become something wholly, entirely and altogether new and unlike what you originally were.

New life.

            A miraculous change

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you…”

                                                                                                            Ezekiel 36:26

Just as the caterpillar cannot will itself to become a new creature, this regenerate process of finding life through the pathway of death must be orchestrated by the Creator of life Himself, a Power outside of us.

This natural process for the caterpillar happens in God’s timing, as He wills, without any necessary outside help or influence. The caterpillar merely glorifies God through its submission in being what it was created to be, and doing what it was created to do. It is in perfect obedience with God’s plan.

He designed the caterpillar to spend its life preparing for one significant moment, when it would enter death, and ultimately find new life. It was made to be reborn as something so much more beautiful, more divine, more powerful, more vibrant, more free.

He foreknew this transformation. He performs this transformation. He sustains this transformation. He delights in this transformation. He receives glory from this transformation.

“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:

it is sown a natural body: it is raised a spiritual body.”

                                                                                 1 Corinthians 15:42-44

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

                                                                       2 Corinthians 5:17

A new season of life has begun for me. Marriage, a new city, different people, growth and changes spiritually, stretched boundaries, new trials, new victories. And I’ve found it to be so significant and beautiful that it seems everywhere I go, I see a yellow butterfly flutter passed me. It’s Jesus’ sweet reminder to me of His goodness, His redemption and His faithfulness towards me; of this new life that He’s given me. It’s His sweet whisper of “Beloved, don’t look back”, but to forget ‘those things which are behind, and [reach] forth unto those things which are before” (Philippians 3:12-14).  It’s His loving exhortation for me to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). It’s His ever so necessary encouragement to me that I am His, that I am free, that I am reborn, and that it’s not at all dependent upon me or my abilities. 

I don’t fully reflect Jesus yet, and I may still stumble as I run this race towards my ever-fixed Reward, but His yellow butterflies along the way remind me that He truly has changed my heart, my mind, my desires and longings. I know this because I have the choice to turn, to stagger, and go back. He gives me that option. But when I do for even just a second, I hate it. I can no longer do the things I used to do. I no longer love the things I used to love. I am no longer immune or numb to the reality of my need for Him. He sought me first, and He continues to seek me. ‘In this relationship, He is the Bridegroom. He is my Pursuer. And He loves me way more than I love Him. I may reject Him and play hard to get, but He sets up circumstances in my life to make it extremely difficult for me to not to love Him back’. * His love beckons forth a pure and holy desire within me: to know Him, to be with Him, to please Him.

I’ve gazed upon His face, and I’ve been changed. I will continue to gaze, and I will continue to be changed. The path will get steeper, and rockier, but His reflection in my life will grow brighter and stronger.

                 

                                   

“But we all with open face beholding, as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

                                                                                                            2 Corinthians 3:18

Affectionately His and yours, 

Kelsey

 

*Furious Love

Quick hello!

Welcome!

 

Well, after a season full of changes, growth, and God’s unfailing love, constancy and faithfulness… what used to be two individual lives have now become one:)

 

After months and months of stagnant blog activity, and in an attempt to pile stones of  remembrance and to testify of His grace, power and love, the two of us are attempting to create a blog together:) Lord willing, many more blog posts will follow.

 

We pray you are edified, uplifted, encouraged, and ultimately pointed and reminded of Jesus. May we grow and learn from one another as we are changed from glory to glory into the likeness of His image:)

 

Affectionately His and yours,

The Jonas’