andtruelovewaitseng

[andtruelovewaitseng]

F E B R U A R Y

WHAT DID GOD DO THIS MONTH?

F R I E N D S !!!! You know those times when you are told that to know God is to deny yourself?? You usually have a moment when you question everything and think… What is my benefit in all of this?. But being in Kona this last month of February I have understood that there is no loss in Jesus, sure there may be some things you think you would like to do or live but honestly, everything you experience in the company of God is a million times better!

This month I understood what my biggest problem was and why even though all my life I have known about God I didn’t see healing in my depression and anxiety issues, I honestly thought it would just be something I would experience for life and I just had to hold on to Jesus and endure when it got heavy. But I say in all honesty that today is exactly 2 months that my mind hasn’t had a single thought of wanting to hurt me, thinking I have no reason to exist, thinking things don’t make sense. And NO! It’s not living on an island, it is focusing my eyes on Jesus, my heart centered on nothing but Him.

24Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.… Matthew 16:24

It had never been so evident to me how much the music I listened to and the things I saw were hurting me. I don’t mean this in a bad way, there are many things in the world that are beautiful and bring comfort and smiles, but what I thought gave me comfort when I limited it, put it aside and focused on giving more space to Jesus, the sad thoughts disappeared, the anxiety, compulsive behaviors and fear, dissociating on a daily basis all disappeared.

This month I found the balance that my life so longed for and it was in taking charge of my life from my language to myself, my habits and what I consume and the pain that seemed to be eternal after a prayer in which I surrendered whatever it was that was oppressing me, God made my heart a new place. There will always be problems, there will always be pain, but the joy is eternal, his company is eternal, not in heaven, it is accessible from NOW.

Friends being present was something extremely difficult for me, enjoying something without overthinking or distressing myself, definitely filtering what was entering my life and what I found comfort and solace in has been the best thing. Eliminating SPECIFIC content from my life and stopping watching senseless series that took up hours of my life have been changes that although silly make me breathe better today. I always used to say that I did and consumed this kind of stuff to not think because it just seemed silly, and it was exactly that, that made my brain keep overthinking. Comparison, envy, thinking about whether my way was nice, compulsive patterns and the little self-control I started to have were supremely destructive. Now I am filled with peace.

People often say that they surrender who they are by knowing God and I feel that I have surrendered everything but more and more I am me. Before my identity was based on duplicating behaviors, I have always wanted to fit in, I have put up a thousand walls and rested in the identity and comfort of being someone “depressive”. Now the little girl who loved going to swimming lessons and playing with the pigs on her grandfather’s farm exists again. I am 24 but I feel like a little girl in Jesus every day.

Ecclesiastes although for many the saddest book in the bible is my safe place, for it reminds me that everything has a time (Ecclesiastes 3:1), everyone in this world has a time when we are lost or confused, but God has a time when he will find us all. A time to mourn, a time to heal. I used to swear that the time to heal would come even until I was in the 3rd age or in eternity or I thought about it most of my days in death, sleeping and not feeling. I am a witness now that everything has its time and my mind is no longer a sad place as I felt so much these last 24 years. God was always my support, today he is also my friend, my dad, everything in my life.

LISTEN TO THE SONG I PUT AT THE BEGINNING OFFICIALLY THE SONG I WILL LOVE FIRST FOR ALL MY LIFE!

“PUT ME ANYWHERE, JUST LET ME SEE YOUR BEAUTY”.

I am very communicative about it because the pain that weighed so heavily on me at one point was precisely what led me to want to volunteer, I never had a plan, there was never a dreamed future, in my heart there was only the desire that no one would ever feel something so ugly and sad. The pandemic limited volunteering and in my heart there was still the desire that no one would experience anxiety in such a confusing time, I ended up using an app that criticized to talk about mental health and how God is faithful to accompany in the midst of pain. Now it all makes sense, God always knew, those desires that no one would suffer are not mine, they are his heart. That is His will, that no one be left behind, that no one suffer, that all of us in Him be free, full, in love.

NOW I WILL NEVER BE SILENT BECAUSE ALL MY LIFE I BELIEVED THAT DIAGNOSES MEANT LIVING IN PRISON!!!! IT IS NOT TRUE!

ONLY ONE MONTH TO GO KENYA!

It is only a few weeks until we leave for Kenya. I have trusted God all the way and He has responded with the greatest love. My birthday was always a day of great sadness, this year I did not stop smiling, his intentionality and love through people filled my soul. God has reminded me of who he created me to be and has taken away what depression had done to my heart.

I have been on an island for 2 months now and in total expenses outside of school I have survived on a total of 300 USD, on one of the most expensive islands in the world xd. Mostly just from donations and birthday gift money. I have never lacked anything, I eat well every day. My biggest angst at the beginning of the month was paying for my lecture phase and just like that God touched the heart of one of my classmates, although I cried for fear of having to go home for not being able to afford it and thinking I was wrong, the day after this thought I was all paid for the phase.

Again I am starting to feel the same, the conversion of the Colombian peso to dollars is brutal and I cannot work here. I have done everything humanly possible and allowed in school to be able to cover my travel costs to Africa. My heart despairs for the pain of others and I just feel that I must go, I am not a solution, I am no more or less than a person. But I have experienced what it is to be free from a thought that sinks you, I have lived what it is to be afraid of everything, I know what it is to not feel capable of anything, to feel less than everything, and now to live in pure love even though the circumstances do not change and may be bad. And I want to share it with everyone, I want to tell everyone, I want everyone in Kenya to hear who has not heard it, that the love that overcomes all pain is the most real thing that exists.

Friends I have done everything in my hands, I just rest and trust in God, his will is the only certain thing and what I need and what guides my life, I don’t think he has brought me this far to go home now. However, I continue to live in the promise and this last month I decided to allow myself to learn. I am so excited every day to learn more and more about God’s love, how to communicate it, how to bring it, and how to experience it in the community. I can’t wait to be able to share my knowledge and learn even more in Kenya if God wills it. I am confident that before mid-March I will be able to raise enough funds so that I will not fall behind in payments and have to return home or have more time to make payments.

He has done it before, he will do it again, it is a miracle that I am at this moment sitting in a little wooden house looking at a mountain of black rock in the middle of the pacific, lacking nothing. I am used to do everything in my hands and strength, I was educated to live by what the creator of everything I see does. If it is his will it will be if not IT IS ALSO HIS WILL, there is no loss, a win is a win always, in God :)

Truly the most beautiful love of all life is you, Jesus! God bless you!

Ways to give?

PRAY FOR ME!

-Health

-Provision

-My Family

-My dog (has been sick for about a month)

PayPal: @gabrielantoniap

Zelle: [email protected]

Donations to the school⬇️

#Spotify

[andtruelovewaitseng]

J A N U A R Y !

What did God do this month?

I have been living in Hawaii for a month now in YWAM KONA... and it is not until the end of this first month that I realize that this whole season seems to be a great answer to many prayers I have made throughout my life to past moments of suffering, it is finally that moment I have been looking for, a moment to be okay.

I was coming out of one of the heaviest panic episodes of my life that lasted from April until the end of October. I have a hard time making sense of things as easily as others do, the simplest things are scary. There is not much talk about mental health and autism in women and even though there are some studies already today, the fact that it is not physically evident in us is a big problem, it is hard for others to see how much it hinders a normal life. 2023 was the year in which I had to embrace God the most because nothing made sense. I am not talking about problems, I am not talking about depression, I am talking about panic as I mentioned before. Panic to move, to eat, to sleep, to not find myself, to not make sense of words, to not make sense of why we breathe, agoraphobia to the maximum for months in which my mind takes everything again and again trying to understand why even my body is my body. Several months in which I asked God for a breath, a calm and a light so I could be better. To no longer be the person who stopped going to college or work for weeks because she was suffocated and scared. Help to be a better friend, a better daughter, better with my family, better to love. An answer to stop feeling like I'm surviving and really live with Him.

And as you can see in the letter before this one He answered, and brought me to the middle of the pacific to cleanse my heart of the fear I never thought I could get out of.

I came to YWAM obeying an order that God put in my heart which I doubted a lot at the beginning, I gave my life to Jesus, people, missions and community development in a very serious and real way at the age of 16 and since then it has been very difficult for me to dream, to want anything of my own. But if there was one thing I was sure of as God has been shaping my life, it was that sociology and history would be the basis I would use to really help others and beyond that to let them know about God in the most loving and respectful way possible. I knew that the next step would be my master's degree in community development, that the small ladder to change many lives by the hand of God was getting closer and closer. But I have never been able to be at peace in my mind, and how to give if you can't receive? I was forgetting the most important thing.

So YWAM seemed like a fitting step, focusing on building my foundation much more in God than in the world sounded like the most important thing at the time, but ironically my biggest motivation for coming was the farm track and the possibility of learning about crops, energy and water so I could bring that knowledge home with me.

I have learned to grow lettuce in water, grow potatoes in truck tires, make fertilizer, make calcium organically, vinegar and I have even had the opportunity to take care of piglets and plants and a thousand other things. But most of all I have learned to heal my heart, forgive, let go, rebuke and deal with my emptiness, fears and depression. I have had the opportunity to heal like never before, I have learned to laugh, I have learned to accept love, I have learned to take refuge in God, to care for others and to be vulnerable in the midst of new friendships.

LOVE IS NOT EARNED

When I came here I had no idea that the first few weeks would be about me and cleansing my heart, all my life I have sought help, therapy, companionship, a space in the church and in the bible, but in a life of college and constant jobs and a health care system where psychology is so expensive and was only being medicated seemed impossible. I have always longed to be okay so that I could be better at what God wants to do with my life in others, and it seemed that this would not come. But when I obeyed him and came to this place that he led me to, I find the time, the space, the support and even the therapy to be able to deal with all that I have not been able to heal before.

I find that safe spaces exist, that women care for me and see me, as my college friends have shown me before and my roommates and schoolmates now reaffirm. I find that men do not always have bad or hidden intentions, nor are wanting from me anything in return. I find that alcohol-free spaces are possible, that traditional and loving families can still be built. My life has been one of much love, but my reality and my country is not at all what you see here.

I have understood that God loves us with the sweetest heart there is, he loves us because we are his, he loves us because he made us, he is hurt by our pain, he is hurt by our mistakes of course, but he will never see us with eyes of rejection. His love is the only thing that prevails no matter what and therefore our only security and reality. I don't need to be perfect, do everything one way, dress one way, read the bible 6 times hahaha or even pray 5 hours a day to get his love. I don't need to isolate myself from my friends, isolate myself from my family and stay in church for a whole week to get his love. Just like Juliana has taught me, I am loved because I AM ME. God made us in his image and likeness, he loves us just as we are and in the face of our stumbles he lifts us up cleans and walks with us hand in hand.

Even in the afternoons, pulling grass from the crops, planting seeds, pruning trees, collecting moringa leaves, feeding pigs and grinding eggshells to make calcium powder among a thousand other tasks make me understand in the most didactic way possible the work that God does in the heart of each person and the seasons of both pain and happiness that are so necessary. Sometimes he will have to prune things, sometimes he will have to plant more seeds, sometimes he will have to water, sometimes he will have to transplant from one place to another, sometimes the piglets will want to eat from the big plate all at once but if they do that some will run out of food, sometimes the bacteria that produce the waste of a group of little fish although considered waste can be exactly what we need to grow food high in nutrients for humans. All his nature, original design, this planet, all a perfect example of his great love that builds.

I don't need to work and work hard to be loved. Who I am is fine and sufficient in Jesus, I don't have to change my personality or who I am to receive affection. Just as plants and animals don’t do anything but be themselves and yes maybe follow instructions and let themselves be moved by us. Just as us with God.

HE PROVIDES AND EVERYTHING COMES FROM HIM

I was so used to everything in my life happening and happening because of my family or my work. To generate savings, make plans, sell bracelets, carry candy and cakes everywhere to sell and an excel of expenses and income that I never really knew how to use and finally a notebook full of sums poorly done to get to fulfill and be able to do what God put in my life.

Every time I was presented with a new opportunity, I was redirected to something new and therefore my mind always opted to start working on whatever it was, whenever it was and make work plans with God. It is not until now that I realize how disrespectful that is, and not that it is not important and not something that should be done, but in all my life I was underestimating his sovereignty and his care over my life. I was denying help, denying opportunities and putting all the weight on my back when it was all coming from Him. Coming here has presented many obstacles, starting with the fact that I had no idea that my outreach would cost $6,000 USD and not $4,000 USD as we had thought.

My little girl swore that my life savings combined with everything I managed to save from my entire job in 2023 would be enough. But I was constantly sick all year, I had to get a thousand lung treatments, go to the dentist and a thousand other things. I arrived here confused, asking God why if this was His will the sums were not paying off and I was now practically on an island with nothing. I tried in my strength to do what I could and nothing worked at first, until I heard him remind me that I had to rest in HIM. So last Monday I vowed to stop trying, give Him my stress and just read the bible, listen and ask only Him for help with my little box of bracelets as always haha.

As always when you obey God He responds quickly, sometimes the only thing between His response and our distress is simply ourselves. That same day someone came to help me with my missed payments. Not only that, on occasions where I haven't had enough for food my favorite food or even chai (my favorite drink ahah) has appeared in my hands without me even saying anything about it. In the midst of my stress of providing for myself believing that everything is in my hands Glory prayed for me and told me that I had the most beautiful treasure in school and that was that I had daily miracles in which I could see the hand of God. Everything for me every day is a surprise, it is a gift, it is a wonder, while for many it is normal. God was allowing me an opportunity in which He would make me see that He is really the owner not only of my money and my life but that He is a father who takes care of me and will never allow anything to be lacking. It doesn't mean I will never go to work or look for options ahahahah but I understand now that all my jobs and opportunities as well as the help from my family and friends now and new people with huge hearts are and always have been God.

My heart is being cleansed, and I am working with God to fix all those behaviors I shouldn't have, to fix my speech, to be more expressive, to be more caring, to learn that resting is okay. Genuinely seeing only Him, my life is becoming more and more as light and beautiful as His yoke.

KENYA!

On this journey of believing that He loves me as He loves all His children without the need for me to fulfill an expectation and just trust Him and love Him back I was afraid to choose a country for my outreach, I thought how foolish I must be to believe that I will be able to afford this, that I will be able to live this, what a mistake I must have made in risking so much my financial life and that of my family. However, his love is so sweet and soft as cotton candy that his response to my anxiety was immediate. We were given only a few hours to choose 3 options, my limiting mind towards God began to make excuses, I checked all the countries and it turned out that I could not enter almost any of them and the only ones I could go to were very expensive. All my life I felt in my heart that I had to go to Africa, always a childhood dream, something that was a fantasy for me and my mom, to imagine myself in the place where all the animals I love are and to be able to help together with her whoever needed it was so nice. It still is in general, animals and helping have always been my joy and an expression of God's love no matter where I am.

That day then I refrain from choosing because it was not possible for me to even enter any country in Africa without permits and I thought that the school alone would not give me the opportunity for that very reason, I put as any option that the school would choose for me and the second I try to send it I think well, God is bigger than anything and he will know more than me of course he does, then I go back to the answers and added Kenya as an option just because it was always one of my dreams as a child. Days later when announcing who would go to Kenya my name is on the screen. God only needs your yes, your willingness, your obedience, I did not believe at all that I deserved and could live any of this time much less be able to go to this place, these are things that in my mind only other people experience. But it only cost me to apply on a website one night to YWAM, it only cost me to return and put me in an option to Kenya, it has always cost me to push my mind of impossibilities and knock on the door, so that He surprises me. Nothing is unreal in His heart.

I can't get over the excitement of the hearts he has in this place and in Africa in his perfect plan meant to heal and build in God and in knowledge. Knowing that my pain brings comfort, my knowledge some solution and vice versa for me. Eight year old Gabriella is just as joyful, her dream of being Eliza Thornberry and traveling through Africa talking to animals may no longer be a fantasy. A gift in the middle of her perfect plan, for little me :)

I promise I’ll update weekly and babble less, can’t ever seem to be able to be specific and have a reflection for it all lol. If it’s in your heart your help is so very much welcome, I can’t work here, I have no support from anyone in my family or friends now since US dollars are so savage to our coin they’ve given me all they could already and am counting only on Gods provision.

Love that you would pray for me for anxiety, endometriosis healing (cramps are very much uncomfortable -_- and won’t stop) and to generally just trust the lord more.

Thank you !

#Spotify

[andtruelovewaitseng]

Why am I in YWAM?!?!

How did I end up here? God moves in mysterious ways I guess, that was something I used to say all the time not in a mocking way but to explain the unexplainable until I lived the unexplainable.

After I finished sociology there were too many doubts inside me, because even though going around the world helping others and sharing God's love with them has always been all I want to do, the world puts you in this stage following thinking that made me think that it would come at some point but first I should work until I accumulate 10, 15 million and then buy an apartment, for some reason.

When I looked at my day-to-day life a steady job and missions some weekends and time off seemed like enough for a comfortable life, but yet everything was heavy, and I felt trapped. My life should be more than accumulating money and paying for things, I don't exist for this. Eventually, everything I have bought or owned I will throw away. No matter how hard I work I won't have the time or money to pay for the therapies that the Colombian autism league and Colsanitas offer me haha. An unattainable constant.

However, resting in God, this reality had to have some sense. But one day I was asked to approach the missionaries who came from Kona and show them how we worked with the children and translate and I met 2 people who turned everything inside my heart around. That day 2 people from two completely different countries that were now living on an island in the Pacific came to a whole new continent, to my country Colombia, punctually in Cota, the small town that is 15 minutes from my house. That day we then talked and shared emotions that I was also feeling, they told me about this beautiful place where they healed many wounds, and memories, grew stronger and their lives completely changed. And I think to myself is there be something else?

In my mind, it is unreal that a person who earns 2M COP per month although that is already an unreal salary to have in Colombia, can leave the country for so long and pay to study AGAIN. So that day I laugh, I am grateful, and I go on with my day and take this new friendship as a gift and a hope that God in his plan does something in all of us that disappears that uncertainty at some point. However, when I got home my mom started talking to me about how it would be very logical that after studying what I studied, after the mission trips I had been doing since I was 18 and the volunteer work I had done since I was 14 and after basically the fact that my great sense of life for studying and employment is missions, why not go to YWAM/YWAM? Why not do a training in missions? Even more so when I can have an emphasis and continue to study more and learn for community development. Honestly, it made all the sense in the world.

But it would mean having to face the reality that the comfort of a job and missions some days, my friendships, my daily life, skating, loving, everything had to stop, at least for a moment, which I have no idea how long it will last.

However I gave it to God, we prayed from May to September, we applied, we cried, we prayed again, God brought back Josh (another missionary serving full time here in Kona) and it is the last sign I need. After my application, they give me a discount of 700 USD. Then they accepted my visa, gave me permission to study without changing it, and gave me an immediate payment agreement with a PDF telling me that they expect me in January.

Nothing seems to make much sense but at the time it makes all the sense at once, literally Gabriella Antonia, you have studied and done missions and volunteered since you were 15 years old, how did you think you were going to live. So I sell my desk, disassemble my bed, sell my clothes, my books and give away most of what I have, pack what is left in two small mint-colored suitcases and with all my savings from work that I can accumulate, savings from my mom and support from my family we pay for almost my entire lecture phase, money that I never in 20 thousand years thought I could ever have in front of my eyes… and I find myself now. Training to serve full time, and studying in a research center (a farm haha) how to clean water, take care of animals, plant vegetables, and basically anything that has to do with generating food. And even though this doesn't define what will happen next I know I will go back home. It fills my heart to understand that I gained what I gained from now on if I can contribute to someone's life not only with food but with knowing JESUS. Never again will my life lack purpose :)

For this I exist and nothing else. I am not the point. I'm just helping him haha

#Spotify

[andtruelovewaitseng]

I find myself living the most beautiful love story in the world and the one I have longed to live my whole life. A story in which every day that goes by without fail explains to me more and more why I am alive with such sweet and intentional love. Sitting on a volcanic rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is when everything has started to make sense of the absurd confusion that these short 23 years of life have been.

Since I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 16, I have seen myself as a tool, a human being created only and truly to make it possible for others to have what they have not had, to comfort those who do not think they understand, to be a small and tiny coincidence in the life of someone who can help them understand that God is not what any institution or person has made them feel. A girl of 16 who knelt down when she felt most broken and empty and told the creator of the vast universe, I have nothing, I want nothing, everything hurts me… but I can walk, I can see, I can talk, I can learn, I can go, do what you want with my life because you gave it to me. There were no expectations, there was no hope, I didn't think he would respond, I didn't think my pain would go away. But he kept his part of the deal and that day I lived and we were even. In fact 2016 years ago he had already saved me, when he sent his only son to pay on the cross for all that he would soon experience and hurt me so much and all that I would have to do in exchange for MY life.

Gabriella, 17 years old, decided to leave everything behind, to give him in a letter, everything she had ever dreamed, loved, thought, even a name she had so many bitter memories attached to and the next day she decided to go to church 3 times a week, read the bible every day and volunteer in all her free time, now only being called Antonia. An opportunity to live the life that God would lead her to live as His servant.

Antonia realizes how the simplest things in life, like holding a baby, bathing a dog, painting a house, and planting a plant fill the heart more than any reputation, friendship or relationship ever will. That the Bible is truly beyond a book the safest space to turn to when she had no answers, and that the church she so refused to attend was the only place where her mind was quiet and life was beautiful. No profession, no job, no salary, no theory, over a life with my Dad, best friend, creator, and divine truth. Although with problems and ups and downs, having money, having a cell phone, having a house, traveling, eating, and studying stopped being longings and became opportunities, gifts as I call them haha.

In this little rock on the sea, Antonia falls in love double and triple with her creator as never before, seeing for the first time in her life as his servant, that she is not only seen as a servant. She realizes that in Jesus, she has every right to a future of love, joy, happiness, and dreams. Impressive revelation, because in 7 years she had not dreamed, she only followed instructions, and although with many mistakes along the way she refused to have expectations because she was only a tool at the end of the day fulfilling a task with all the love in the world.

Antonia realizes how the simplest things in life, like holding a baby, bathing a dog, painting a house and planting a plant fill the heart more than any reputation, friendship or relationship ever will. That the bible is truly beyond a book the safest space to turn to when he had no answers, that the church he so refused to attend was the only place where his mind was quiet and life was beautiful. No profession, no job, no salary, no theory, over a life with my Dad, best friend, creator and divine truth. Although with problems and ups and downs, having money, having a cell phone, having a house, traveling, eating, studying stopped being longings and became opportunities, gift as I call them haha.

In this little rock on the sea Antonia falls in love double and triple and warp with her creator as never before, seeing for the first time in her life as his servant, that she is not only seen as a servant. She realizes that in Jesus, she has every right to a future of love, joy, happiness and dreams. Impressive revelation, because in 7 years she had not dreamed, she only followed instructions and although with many mistakes along the way she refused to have expectations because she was only a tool at the end of the day fulfilling a task with all the love in the world.

Now Antonia, who is about to turn 24, understands that when her creator asked her for everything, he was really telling her that he only wanted her to trust in him. For God is all-powerful and sovereign, with a thread He weaves the perfect path and every detail, mole and grain of sand in the story of our life, what we ate, what we read, what we played with, and what caused us joy comes to life in His perfect plan.

The girl who collected and organized rocks by color, size and geological category when she had no one to play with at school lives on an island of solidified lava full of igneous rock, her favorite, red and dark, that made her think of dinosaur eggs.

The girl who read animal encyclopedias non-stop from the age of 5 to 18 and put her face in the books to imagine what it would be like to live with them, she had never seen so many birds, lizards, fish, dogs, cats and pigs living with her in the same place, every day.

The girl who always shied away from friendships with women because of anxiety and fear of rejection lives in a room with 7 women who do nothing but tell her how loved and unique she is, waiting for her every day to go to lunch, playing with her, being intentional, highlighting her quirks as the reason why they love her so much.

The girl who all her life thought of fighting to live in a utopian community where she was not prone to live any kind of abuse, where she could dress herself without having to buy and where she could feed herself without eating any animal. She lives on a tropical island where in a short 3 weeks she has not experienced the least bit of abuse, where she can get the clothes she wants for free, where she can read the books she wants for free, where she can eat vegetarian meals and not feed of of animals, where every day she takes care of pigs, plants and harvests vegetables and despite having no extra money at all somehow God makes it all able and she has the opportunity to see beautiful places.

The little girl who played transplanting school flowers from side to side made houses for snails and played restaurant with stones and worms today learns more about how to plant and harvest food, take care of plants, take care of animals, without waste, without industrialization, with respect, with love, without abuse.

But above all, the girl who cried for years without understanding why she had to live what she was living, has spent 8 years seeing how every conversation she has with someone is never empty or useless. The girl who never felt understood and was always scared has been 8 years seeing how if God must take her to the middle of the planet he will do it so that the life of someone who also doesn't understand can be consoled with her story.

NOT the story of what hurts me, the story of how the prince of peace, Jesus, can fix and can heal. My life only has value because it makes him known, but in the midst of this task he reminds me today, that just as he loves all those I reach out to, he loves me.

Enough to make a detailed list of everything Gabriella ever loved and longed for and put it in front of her without her even planning or thinking about it. To surprise her with the realization that giving her life to God is not a sacrifice, it is not a loss. It is the only real thing. :)