To the Mon and Back

So, as I'm writing this, it's the last full day that I'm going to be in Nepal - the day after, we fly home. Before I left Vancouver, six weeks seemed like such a long time but it's crazy how fast the time has gone for me. I've learned so much about myself and who I am in God, I'm constantly praising God for hand picking me to go on this trip and be His hands and feet here in Nepal, reaching out to His people that He loves so desperately. This summer has been amazing for me and I've been trying to think of a word that can describe it... after praying about it, I've realized that this summer has been a summer of grace for me. God's grace is undescribable and as I'm sitting here writing this, I'm thinking about His grace and that I don't deserve it, I can't work to achieve it, through God's love for me, He has given it to me. Coming into this summer, I set myself up with such high expectations of what I was going to do this summer, of how many people that I would reach out to and lead to Christ. The standards that I set for myself are always high and if I don't at least meet them or exceed them, I feel like I've let myself down. After a couple of days of ministry and feeling very frustrated and discouraged, I went to God in prayer and just cried out. Now that I'm at the end of the trip, I've realized that the standards that I've set for myself, I can work as hard as I can but sometimes I won't meet them and now I've realized that that's O.K. God has set the standard's high for us but now matter how hard we work, we're not going to meet them - we don't deserve His grace but He gives it to us anyway. Looking back on this summer and not having led anyone to Christ, I've realized that I'm O.K. with that. The people that I've come across and met this summer, I was meant to meet them - God always has a bigger plan and a purpose.