When You Give a Moose a Muffin...When God Gave Me a Dream

(I hope you enjoy this post- it is something I wrote while I was living and teaching in South Africa as well as a little video with some snapshots of my time there. There will be more stories, photo's and updates to come!
Blessings in Him,
Cayla)

   ...Where God was taking me when I didn't see Him...

Chapman's Peak (Cape Town, South Africa)- our team of bible teachers

     This is real. I just can't believe my life. I am 19; I am a young woman who has traveled far and loved much. I have lived in 3 countries (for some time or another). My heart has been broken; I have received healing.

     I have seen the Spirit of God move radically both in and through my life. I have seen God heal broken bodies and broken hearts. I have seen Him beckon souls to receive Him for the first time as well as bring deep healing and discipleship to those who have loved Him for years. I have seen angels and I have seen angels and I have seen demons. I was called student- and then they called me teacher: I remain both.

Every day I am learning that God is bigger and more wonderful than I could have ever dreamed. They said, “His mercies are new every morning,” and “Great is His faithfulness.” It was not a joke.

     About 4 years ago, God called me to South Africa. I said, “What?”. I wondered then, if I was hearing my own voice in my head. It seemed too big, too far, too impossible.

     For 4 years I had dreams and visions- God spoke words that didn't seem to make any sense or fit together. So, I cried, I laughed, I prayed and I waited. Most of the time I didn't understand or see what God was up to. Sometimes I wondered if He had forgotten what He had spoken, or if I had misheard Him. But, in my doubt, fear and waiting- He was working.

     Later He told me, “Cayla, I wanted to speak to you. I wanted to show you, and I wanted you to know”- but I wanted to know everything “now!” in my own timing, I wanted to understand. The problem was: the things He wanted to show me, I wasn't yet ready to see. The things I wanted to know, my heart yet wasn't in a place where I could understand. The plans I wanted to have laid before me- if He would have told me then, I would have been too afraid to receive them and I might not have walked in obedience.

I needed the waiting.

     I needed the waiting, though I often didn't like it at the time. But, because I had to obey without understanding, I learned to trust.

     It is only because I am on the other side of all of this waiting, that I can honestly say that God was at work even when I couldn't see Him. He is at work even when we can't see Him. Everything He says, He says it for a purpose. Nothing He ever asks us to do is irrelevant- no matter how small. It's just that sometimes- in seasons and moments of waiting on God- we aren't yet at a place where we can see or understand.

     I am in South Africa! After 4 years of waiting, I am literally living out the dream that God put in my heart. The very same dream that seemed impossible when I wasn't ready.

     Sometimes I have felt lonely. I have felt totally unprepared and overwhelmed at the brokenness that surrounds me. But, at the same time I have never felt so alive or so content. When God places a love for people in your heart, it is deep and unexplainable because it is His love and there is no other love like it. I have never experienced something so amazing in all of my life.

     Shortly after I arrived and started working with the people, I became overwhelmed with just how young I was in light of some of the people I was preparing to teach. I felt so small in comparison to the brokenness that I saw around me and sometimes felt even from my own heart. I did not feel anywhere near prepared or able, yet in that moment God spoke to my heart. He said, “Cayla, I don't use you based on how prepared you feel. There will be many times (in fact most of the time) that you will not feel prepared. I will work through you (and everyone), because you are willing and obedient- not based off of how prepared you feel.”

     I have never taught like I taught that night... It is those whose hearts are willing that God uses. Only He can make us “ready”.

     My name is Cayla, it means pure in heart. My parents named me that, and they have prayed it over me since I was young. Matt 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” Those were the words of Jesus.

     That is my name. This is my story. I have seen God in ways that no one can ever take away from me. They might try to convince me that He isn't there- that He doesn't exist. Or if He does exist, that He doesn't hear, doesn't care and doesn't love- but they would only be wasting their breath. I have seen too much of Him to become unconvinced.

     My name is Cayla, I am from the United States. I am saved and I love Jesus very much. I am part of a bigger story- It's author has no beginning. I'm just beginning to understand that it's when I come to the end of myself, that His story can best be carried on through me.

My end is His glory; His kingdom is my life.