misguided

on tuesday night i sat, surrounded by women to my left and men to my right, as the story of a woman unfolded. her story began in afghanistan with her capture by the taliban and ended with her conversion to islam. and as i listened my heart grew sadder by the moment, here was a women so lost, so confused, and so misguided. multiple times in the evening she said that she used to be a practicing christian which to her meant going to church twice a month. she had convinced herself that was even on the fanatical side of christianity! and when asked how her relationship with God changed after she converted, she replied that it hadn't really. the only difference was that she was able to pray for herself more now. her story in many ways was quite remarkable. it was amazing how misguided her own experience with christ was, how incomplete, how far from the reality of a life truly changed by jesus and how ultimately different from an intimate relationship with God looks like. and she has blended bits of christianity and islam together to create a moral code to live by. and her story is also quite unremarkable in many ways because she is the stereo typical conversion story- a person misguided by their own religion in search of something greater finds it somewhere else. my heart is heavy with the thought of so many that experiences are the same. not misguided and thankful for:

* that Jesus is the truth, the life and the only way!!!

* lots and lots of answered prayer this week- i am astounded at God's mercy :)

* a great evening with hannah and rachel, eating, talking, laughing :)

its been a busy week with lots of future planning being done. i'm getting excited about the teens coming this summer as i've been working through details with their upcoming trip. i've also been doing a lot of my own future planning. there are some exciting changes coming up and while i can't share them with you now please pray for me as i plan and pray and trust God with my future. and pray that i won't be misguided at any step during the journey :)

a local scene . . .