Life Without Mother

Dear Readers,

Good afternoon! I am writing this from Irving Park—a neighborhood in Chicago—where my team of eleven and I have been serving the past couple of weeks and where we’ll continue serving for a few more.
It has been a bit since I last wrote. The Lord is working mightily in my life! Not only in family relationships and in friendships but in these new relationships I’ve been building here in Chicago. (Seriously, my team members and I feel as though we’ve known each other for years rather than only the two short weeks since the first day of training.) God is so good!
Everyday He reveals something new about Himself and His great love for us. Do you ever just dwell in the presence of His grace and recognize how wonderful our God is? When we do this, recognizing the vast love He has for us in that even while we were dead and gone in our evil natures, He made us alive with Christ (Eph. 2:5), how can we ever stay silent?!? Most of the people we pass daily here in Chicago don’t know this truth. That is why we are here serving Sow Chicago Community Church here in Irving Park, supporting a wonderful man and his family who have sacrificed much to see the people of this city know the Truth. Not only did he quit his job to become a full-time church planter, his family lives on the Lord providing exactly what they need (key word: need, not want). They face rejection and persecution for what? For Christ! And he is one of the most cheerful and energetic men I’ve ever met!
How much do we willingly and cheerfully sacrifice for even our neighbors next to whom we’ve lived for years to know the same Truth that brings Life and life eternal? Do we sacrifice our resources and time and comfort? Well, the first two of those are not even ours to begin with for God is the giver of all good things (James 1:17) and He numbers our days (Job 14:5), and the last is illusionary. So why do we hold on to these things so tightly?
Comfort has been my one stumbling block in sharing the Gospel. But Beach Reach this year and countless other opportunities through which the Spirit led me have shown me that awkward conversations or introductions into the Gospel are not as scary as they seem. If anything I’ve felt more encouraged after an awkward Gospel conversation than one that I perceived as smooth. Because the awkwardness meant that God had to be at work, for there was no way that that person could have put together two of my sentences otherwise. In those conversations, I pray even harder, “Lord filter the words coming from my mouth into their ears, because I know it is Your Truth that saves, not anything I could say.” The devil still tries to convince me of the lie that others will freak out by a stranger speaking to them so I shouldn’t even try or that the person will ask hard questions or that they will be unwilling to listen. But Jesus said for us to “go and make disciples” (Matt. 28:19) and if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this trip is that often, it is building the relationships and “making disciples” that will cause our lost friends to see Christ. This is not advocating that “actions speak louder than words” and that we shouldn’t speak the Gospel, but the urgency we have for Christ should also be in loving others, living life with them, and showing by our deeds the faith and hope that we have in Christ (James 2:14-26).

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — this is not from yourselves, it is a gift from God — not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Love,
Hannah