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Amanda is newly married and living in India. She is currently traveling with her evangelist husband, and assisting him with church planting in Southern India. She loves to write, watch movies, and Skype her family and friends back in North Dakota. 

2 Corinthians 12:9 – But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

I’ve never felt farther from His grace than that day, lying on my bathroom floor in southern India, sobbing and trying to catch my breath while in the middle of a panic attack. I only had thirty minutes to get up to my office and start the day. I was working as assistant director of a crisis center for abused and abandoned women and young girls. The last month and a half had been overwhelming with major issue after issue cropping up. My nights had become increasingly more restless, my mornings more nerve wracking, and my heart finding less and less joy in what I was doing.

I had no doubts that God had called me to India. I knew I had done what God wanted when I packed up my life to move here but that didn’t stop the feeling that I wasn’t fitting in. I kept trying. I kept throwing in my best effort and I continued to feel empty and a little lost.

“Well, I’m just not doing enough.” “Where did I go wrong? Did I miss something?” “Maybe this is just what sacrifice looks like here.” “God, what are you doing?” Of course these thoughts were constantly tumbling through my mind. Yet, even in the midst of my struggle, I had moments when I clearly heard God’s voice, saw him work definitive miracles, and felt the Holy Spirit’s comfort and peace. It was a period of opposing extremes in my life. And here’s what it taught me:

God gives grace for even the most uncomfortable situations into which He has called us.

Therefore, don’t assume any and all struggles you face are spiritual opposition. Sometimes, it’s the oppression in which you minister that affects your soul. Prayer and worship always soothes this pain. Other times, God may be directing you into something new and you’re experiencing a fading of the grace you had for the previous season as you desperately cling to the old situation. Pray about it and God will show you exactly what you’re facing. We quit some things just before our victory arrives and others we fight to keep when God is walking in another direction. This is what makes daily connection with the Holy Spirit so vital.

Living dead hurts sometimes.

The things that have to die in you do not want to easily vanish. And we only make our transformation harder when we attempt to do it all in our own strength. Rather than crucifying ourselves on a daily basis, it is far easier to focus on Jesus, eat the Word as much as you can, and allow the Holy Spirit to bring life to your spirit. As you do this, what needs to die will do so gradually and more gracefully than what would happen on your own.

God never asks us to sacrifice something without repaying us in ways we could never have imagined.

He’s God. He has no need of your offering or your big, dramatic act of sacrifice. God calls us to sacrifice certain items in our lives just so we make sure we’re not worshiping them. Then, He gives back what we gave one hundred times over. He asked me to sacrifice time with my family and friends in the US only to give me an excellent man for a husband and the most caring in-laws I’ve ever seen. He told me to let go of a life of comfort only to give me a life of adventure filled with His comforting Holy Spirit. He called me to give all of myself only to transform and heal the parts of me that were still broken. Throw down whatever He is asking you to sacrifice because I guarantee it will be so much better in the end.

Above all, I learned that my brokenness and my weakness was not something shameful.

Instead, it was the perfect opportunity for God to reveal His strength to me again. It was also a great opportunity for Him to reveal His strength through me to others. I had to acknowledge that I was striving on my own and getting in the way of His love healing me. I had to accept that God was calling me to something even more unknown and scary but also more incredible. And I had to realize that it wasn’t about me being strong or great or achieving something mighty, but it was about God’s power and love in me shinning His Light. It’s a lesson that I continue to learn every day and every day the Light grows a little bit brighter.

Here’s to continuing to Live Dead, which leads to the greatest Life we will ever know.

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