"They are Mine"

سلام لكم في هذا اليوم

So tonight one of my China teammates and I were talking...we're friends on Facebook, and we're also each other's informal cheer-leading team. We pick each other up when we fall, cheer the other to keep going, and just basically do our hardest to make sure both of us end up in China. Anyway. We got on the subject of fundraising, as always. That's pretty much the most stable thing in our lives right now: the ever-present need for money so we can actually get to China.

I always seem to go through stages. I get a donation, and I'm all geared up and ready to go. Then, as weeks go on and nothing comes in, I start to get discouraged. My faith wanes. It's a sad truth. I'm not Hudson Taylor quite yet. Well, Teamie and I were kind of talking about that, about how it's easy to get discouraged.

I'm currently reading through the minor prophets, mostly because they're so optimistic and stuff. Anyway. Haggai was where I began, and since it's only two chapters, I read it all. But I was brought up short at verse 8 of chapter 2. That verse simply reads:

The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.

So here I am, getting all discouraged because I'm only at $500, I have about $4,000 still to raise, and I only have 5 months left...

And God simply plants this verse. Like seriously, that's sometimes how I feel. Sometimes I feel like a certain verse couldn't have been there before, that the next time I read through that passage, that verse won't be there because it was deliberately put there just for that moment.

That's how I felt at that moment. It was like God just said- "Woah, Kyla. Hold on a minute. What are you thinking? Are you thinking that I can't do this? Are you thinking that it's impossible for you to have your $3,000 in before May? Are you thinking it's impossible for me to give you not only that $3,000, but also the extra $1,000 you need? Are you thinking that?"

And then it was as if he simply looked into my heart and said: "It all belongs to me. Every bit of it. Every piece of gold in the world - I created that. Every silver flake - I created that. Do you think I can't give you what you need?

The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.

爱於耶穌,
~Liberty