Yesterday was one of my favorite days here so far. I spent lots of time in the village in the morning while they taught us some African dances and songs. So after lunch we told them that we would come back with our phones so that we could play music on it for them and teach them some dances. Taylor (the other girl intern) and I danced with these girls for the longest time just jamming out to fun girl music. I was truly having the most fun I had had all trip being crazy and dancing like no one was watching. This is when I really could see the barriers in my heart fall down, and see God begin to move me in a way that I had not been moved before. I went back to the house that afternoon and began to mediate on Solomans words in Ecclesiastes 3 about a time for everything and he starts in verse 1 by saying "There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavans: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, and time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to DANCE!!!" Verse four just hit home to me, every last word of it was convicting me. During my time here in Gulu I have done every single one of those things mentioned in verse four. I have wept, laughed, cried, and I have danced. I realized that it is okay that I have cried from being homesick and adjusting, it is okay that I have laughed when funny things have happened here, it is okay that I have mourned for at times I doubted the goodness of my God, and it is okay that I danced because God TELLS us to. So many times this trip I have allowed myself to be focused on other things when I should have been focsued on the cross and on the work God was doing here in Gulu. I got mad at myself for crying sometimes and for not allowing the walls in my heart to break down for my time here, but this verse has allowed me to understand that God promises us that we will suffer for him, and promises us that it won't be easy, so it is okay to hurt. In Philippians 1:29 Paul writes that we have been given the privilege to suffer for christ, the word privilege in this context is really bold to me. Better understanding this verse and this concept brings me pure joy when I suffer because I can tell myself, it should be a pivilege to suffer for Christ.
God has definitely taken my heart and transformed it. He has allowed me to be still and know that he is God, allowed me to rest in his peace, and allowed me to learn how to patiently wait for the storm to pass.
~Lauren
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