Thoughts

One Body

I made it to Conakry!

Even though I got in yesterday, it feels like I’ve been here for a week. There’s so much I could write about. God has really been showing His hand in my journey so far, starting as soon as I left. The flight was pretty smooth, and I met a few friends. My seat-neighbor Kelsey on the way to Paris worked for the humanitarian organization International Rescue Committee and was on her way to Cameroon to do economic training. My seat-neighbor Rosie and seat-behind-neighbor Natia on the way to Nouakchott and Conakry were both Mercy Ships volunteers as well! It was just really encouraging to hear from people who were in similar situations and equally eager to reach out and just share a moment. 

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by Jasmin

Harvest

Today was my last day of work. For the last three and a half years, I worked at Duke’s clinical microbiology lab doing infectious disease testing. I started a few months before graduating university; it was my first “real life job.”

When I first started, there was so much to learn and so much to take in. I loved it. I tried to take every opportunity to absorb everything I could. As a new person, my only duty was to learn so that I could better serve later. 

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by Jasmin

On the Altar

I received an email from Mercy Ships asking if I could head out to the ship two weeks earlier than my scheduled start date. It wasn’t a small request; I already booked my flights, I had travel plans with my family before leaving, and I still need to pack my apartment and move out. On the other hand, I would already be done with work, and money is just a material thing that will fade when we move to eternity. 

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by Jasmin

Born again

5 years ago today, I was born (again).

On 15 September 2013, I was baptized; I accepted Christ and joined God’s family. And each year on this day, I think about the journey that He took me through to get there, and the journey He took me through since then.

By the time the opportunity arose, I already decided to take the step. I planned on inviting my friends and family to celebrate with me and my church family, and even to use it as a springboard for conversation with others. God had other plans. 

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by Jasmin

Holy Water

Swimming is an isolating sport, of sorts. While it is an individual team sport, unlike most other competitive sports, you don’t really see or hear how you’re doing until the race is already over. When the starting gun fires and you leap in the water, you’re transported to another dimension that mutes the world around. You might grasp traces of another’s presence in the distant lane over, but for the most part communication with everyone else is severed. 

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by Jasmin

Am I convinced by Christ?

This is the August 30th entry from Oswald Chambers’s devotional, My Utmost for His Highest (classic language).

 

Not withstanding in this rejoice not, … but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

– Luke 10:20

Jesus Christ says, in effect, Don’t rejoice in successful service, but rejoice because you are rightly related to Me. The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service, to rejoice in the fact that God has used you. You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with Him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, He is pouring rivers of living water through you, and it is of His mercy that He does not let you know it. When once you are rightly related to God by salvation and sanctification, remember that wherever you are, you are put there by God; and by the reaction of your life on the circumstances around you, you will fulfil God’s purpose, as long as you keep in the light as God is in the light.

The tendency to-day is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make usefulness their ground of appeal. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure that ever lived. The lodestar of the saint is God Himself, not estimated usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that Our Lord heeds in a man’s life is the relationship of worth to His Father. Jesus is bringing many sons to glory.

by Jasmin