I used to say I write to escape. I used to say writing was. my superpower. But now things have changed... Now I've grown to understand... Writing is not my superpower, but God's superpower He's using through me. I write to get closer to God. When I write I invite God into that time and together we make beautiful, emotion moving, works of art.
I write to be closer to God, to heal from past trauma, to discover new worlds. God has allowed the gift of writing to change me into a strong, beautiful, dependent woman of God. Now I'll admit, I don't invite God into writing every time. Sometimes I need to escape sometimes I don't want to share. But those are the saddest times. When I invite God in to writing, it changes me. God teaches me a new technique or gives me a wonderful idea for a story or screenplay. Together God and I make a wonderful team. And that is how it should be. So the next time you're writing... try inviting God into it. It's a magical adventure, I promise. He has all the best ideas for books and movies.
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No, I'm not actually going to Paris. I wish. I'm actually creating a Spring Paris getaway during winter in Minnesota... Sounds crazy impossible right? Well I love creating and I love the impossible. I try to make it a habit of believing in six impossible things before breakfast.
Here's my plan: The five senses. Those are what you need to come together for an experience. Sight: I want to spend my day writing. I will have my phone with a picture of a French café next to my computer as if I'm sitting by a window and looking out to the Paris street. Smell: Essential oils are awesome, I'm just saying. I'm thinking some flower scent to imitate the flower boxes on the windowsills. Sound: I love French music so this is a must. French worship music and French pop music. Taste: One thinks of bread and expresso when you think of Paris. I personally don't like coffee so I'll be sticking with hot chocolate or chai tea. Maybe I'll find some nice bread and cheese for a snack. And macaroons, a must have for any Paris vacation. Touch: This was a difficult sense to plan for. All I can think of is being cozy during my mock Paris getaway and that means fuzzy blankets. Aftermath: It was incredible. I put on a nice dress and put my hair up as if I was really in Paris. At first I played some French pop music but then ended up playing accordion music like they'd have playing near a café. I had so many incredible French snack, two types of cheese, a baguette, macaroons, crepe biscuits to dip in my chai tea, and even a French style sparkling lemonade. I felt so relaxed all day. And not to brag or anything but I wrote 35 pages on my screenplay! It was truly a beautiful getaway. I would definitely recommend this to anyone wanted a vacation. It only cost me $25 in food. So where are you going on your next staycation? Guys I'm so excited for the next venture God has called me to do. It's a little idea I like to call Filming with Friends. Why that name? Because I'll be filming a movie with my friends and I want to share everything that happens. Both the good and the bad. I've already had some setbacks.
What kind of setbacks you ask? Well it's really just one. I finished writing the script for my movie and as I went to print it, I found most of my script deleted itself. Not gonna lie, I almost ugly cried. I guess that's how God tells you to do a rewrite. I took the accident as a sign that my screenplay wasn't ready and needed work. So I decided to scrap the few pages of my script that saved and start over. I've been rewriting the screenplay and found that it's already a lot better than the first. I'm excited to say that I've finished it and can't wait to start filming this week. The script has already been given to the actresses, they've read it and love it. I'll be filming the movie and the journey in a vlog on youtube just search my name Darby Rand and you'll see my channel. Go give it a like and subscribe to stay up to date on all my adventures. https://www.lensculture.com/articles/madoka-ikegami-discovering-the-tsaatan-people I have a God sized dream in my heart. One that was given to me when I was four years old and has been refined and grown through the years. This isn't set in stone, things change, God transforms our dreams to His will. But this is what gets me up in the morning. This is the dream that I'm working towards.
Far North in Mongolia, on the Russian border is a people group. They are nomads and reindeer herders. This group is called the Tsaatan people. They are an unreached people group, meaning they do not have access to the Bible, church, or missionaries. The Tsaatan religion is shamanism. What broke my heart was when I read an article, I can't remember the exact article at the moment. In this article the author talked with the village shaman. The man had said that he didn't choose to be shaman, the spirits chose him. That statement was so hopeless and it shattered my heart to pieces. Since reading that article I've found new focus in school and new desire to train for the future God has called me to. My dream is to work with the Tsaatan people as often as I can. To do this I plan to move to Mongolia and study Mongolian language and culture for 1-2 years before moving to Mörön, Mongolia which is located in the Northern part of the country. Again this dream is fluid. It changes with what God truly wants for my life. But so far this is what God has given me through dreams and other people confirming. Who knows I may open the first Christian publishing company in Mongolia and visit the Tsaatan people once a month. (Yes that was part of my dream at one time). As for now, I will continue to study at Bethany and dream big dreams that only God can make possible. Why have I dedicated my life to missions? It all started when I was four years old and missionaries came to my private Christian school. They must have said something pretty extraordinary, because the next thing I know, I'm in the car telling my mother that the little children of Asia can't learn about Jesus. I told her that it was wrong and I was going to go tell them. When my mother offered to have us pray about it I retorted, "No mom, I'm gonna go."
From that moment on, God was fanning a fire in me. Everything that happened in my life was preparing me for the mission field. And through these years, God started with a continent then placed a country in my mind, until he finally put a people group on my heart. As time goes on, the God dream gets more and more specific. So why should you follow God's call to missions? (This is for those who are feeling a tug on their heart to missions. Some are not called to missions, some are called to be senders and some are called to be prayer warriors.) God will refine the dream He's given you in time. Jesus calls us to missions in Matthew 28:19-20 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." If you feel a call to missions don't hesitate, go. Go to training, go raise a team of support, go to the field. Training is vital to the survival of missionaries. With training, the mission field will be hard, without training the mission field will be harder. I've been to the field without training, I felt unprepared and confused most of the time. It made long term missions very difficult and I ended up coming back to receive more training. All in all missionaries are being called and very few are answering. I urge you to seriously consider missions and pray whole heartedly about it with God. There are 17,424 people groups in the world... with 7,410 of those people groups unreached (with no access to the Bible, the church, or missionaries). Now is the time to finish the great commission. Now is the time to go. Will you answer the call? Are you content with your life right now? To be honest, I'm not. I've always looked to the next best thing. Now don't get me wrong, I love school and I love missions. The problem is I'm so excited about the future that it's hard to live in the moment and find contentment right here.
I've asked my mother countless times, "how do you find contentment?" Her answer always had me confused until now. She would say to find contentment one needs to go closer to God. Do everything for His glory not for the glory of man. When challenges come praise God and thank Him for the little things. In this time of waiting and working I've gotten so irritated sitting in classes that I've forgotten to thank God for the opportunity. Going to school to learn Bible and theology was impossible. I never thought that the finances would come through for me, And yet here I am taking the opportunity people would love to have. So how do you find contentment? Praise God for what you have. It's hard at first and you'll have to start small, but you have to start somewhere. Appreciate what you have and stop looking for what you don't. This is a start to finding contentment., Remember it's a growing process. Ask God to give you contentment in the moment and place you're living in. You'll see just how great life can be when you live a content life. I've just finished my second book. It is unrelated to my first but this one will be a duology. Book one is called Of Fire and Sand. When I finished it, I got a lot of questions about how I could write so much. Where did I come up with ideas? How did I find time? Well I'd like to answer these questions in this blog to help you get an understanding of my life and my writing.
How can I write so much? The answer is pain. Just this Sunday my beloved uncle passed away. It was sudden and unexpected to our family. Pain and sorrow are what motivates me to write. In writing I find hope, in writing I find joy, and in writing I find peace. I write to process life and keep my sanity. Without writing, I would be depressed and bottled up with emotion. Everyone has their thing that helps them process pain, mine is writing. Where do I come up with ideas? Ideas come from everything. Sometimes I'll have a dream, sometimes, I'll read a book, sometimes I'll experience life. But ultimately my ideas come from God. God orchestrates everything in my life and He always has the best book ideas. Every night from 9-10pm I lay awake and talk with Jesus. We'll plot through a story or invent some new world together. Sometimes we talk about stories sometimes we process the day together. How do I find time? You'll always find time to write if it's your passion. Passions are what fuels us to make time. You'll wake up earlier, you'll choose your passion over television, you'll set aside part of your day if you actually want to write. More than that, if you need to write. Once again, I write as my therapy. Some numb their mind with media, others throw clay or brush paint on canvas, I write. It's one of the best ways I know to process emotions and suffering. What's one way that you process with God? It's getting to that time of year again. The time where some start listening to Christmas music. But there are those who can't stand to hear this joyful noise until after Thanksgiving. I can understand this, I used to be one of these people. I used to want to experience each holiday thoroughly before Christmas, and I enjoy the anticipation that comes with the waiting.
This year's different though. This year has been a hard one. It's been full of stress, exhaustion, and spiritual warfare. With homework and my on campus job, things have spiraled out of control. God is the only one to keep me sane right now. In this season of life, I'm here to make a case for listening to Christmas music, even this early. What does Christmas music bring? Why is it so important to some people? Why do people get so upset about listening to it or not? Christmas music is full of life and happiness. It brings joy to those who hear it (those who want to hear it at least.) It's important because it brings good memories and good feelings. If something like Christmas music brings so much joy to a person, why do we get so aggressive towards it? I think it has to do with Thanksgiving, at least in some cases. People believe that those who listen to Christmas music early are ignoring the importance of Thanksgiving. As a person listening to Christmas music now, I'd like to explain that this isn't true. I love Thanksgiving. The reason I listen to Christmas music is that it reminds me how much God loves me. It reminds me that God sent his Son to die for my sins. So when you hear Christmas music playing already, don't get angry. If it's not for you, you don't have to listen to it by yourself. But don't hurt others who need to hear the good news of Jesus' birth. This season can be difficult for some and if Christmas music can bring a little joy into their lives, let them enjoy. If you've ever done a race without training you probably had some serious pain afterward. Don't get me wrong I was training for my mud run, and I was training hard. But then I got injured. Once I sprained my ankle I was too afraid to reinjure it to train. Luckily I was healed in time for the mud run. And of course I was going to do it with or without training.
It was an incredible feeling to cross that finish line and get the medal. But it wasn't until later that night I realized I'd injured myself again. Without the proper training and even enough stretching, I'd pulled a muscle in my leg. The strain limited my mobility and put in me severe pain with every movement. There's a lesson in the pain though. The lesson is that when we don't train our mind, body, and spirit we will eventually injure ourselves. We need to work hard to train our mind, body, and spirit if we're going to be in God's army. If we skip training, our mind will be weak, our body will fail, and our spirit won't be prepared. So how do we train for this race we call life? We train our mind by choosing the uncomfortable situations. When we're anti-social we push ourselves out of our comfort zone by going to social events. We train our body by living a healthy lifestyle. When we set our mind to working out every morning, we don't hit snooze, we get up and get to work. We train our spirit by filling it with the Word DAILY. When we make time for God in our day, make Him a priority, we are training our spirit. In this pain, I'm tired. Not just tired, but exhausted. I've been worn down and feel like giving up. I can relate to you who are emotionally spent. I've been there to, looking down the barrel of suicide. There is hope for tomorrow. Pain is temporary, it will get better. Just like our physical wounds, time will heal our mental and emotional wounds. So stand tall and start your training today. One day you'll look back and see how far you've come and say "I did it. I survived through the pain." I believe you can continue, you're stronger than you know. I had it all together. That's what bothers me. I had everything in its place. I was working out twice a day. I was doing well in classes. I had a friend group people dreamed about . Everything was perfect. I knew it wouldn't last. But gosh darn it, I enjoyed every minute of it. I was thriving. And then that moment ended...
In my mind tragedy struck when I injured my foot. The pain was unbearable and the inconvenience was annoying. What happened to my perfect life? Well in short... life happened. Our lives go in seasons, it's all about the ups and downs and what we do with ourselves while we're in them. I still have an incredible group of friends who love and care for me dearly. While I'm struggling in classes, it's not the end of the world, and I'm not failing. I'm just not getting straight As. As for working out, I'm learning that eating healthy is just as important. Of course as I say that I have a large bag of pretzel M&Ms and blueberry lemonade in my room... We all fall. It's what we do next that defines our true character. I'm not the kind of person to give up easily. And let me tell you... I was ready to give up this week. I was prepared to toss in the towel. I was done. Emotionally, Spiritually, Mentally, and Physically. Then I find out I've moved into the wrong dorm room and I have to move again. That's when something crazy happened... I started laughing. Yes laughing maybe with a few tears of sadness and frustration too. There was so much going on, I was overwhelmed and exhausted. And then this final straw happens. And here I am laughing? Yes. Because that's when I realized, that's life. You're gonna fail. You're gonna get injured. You're gonna hurt. And yes, you're gonna move. Life is crazy and wild and stressful and beautiful. It's time we stop screaming every time we get a curve ball. Now's the time to grip that bat and swing back, HARD. I may be injured but you better believe I'm twice as strong as I was, at least mentally. So bring it on life. I've dusted myself off and I'm back in the game. Let's remember to look to our side and nudge the person next to us. Because the one who seems to have it all together may be struggling for air. Tell someone you need them today. Let them know that they are valued and wanted. Maybe this way we'll save a life and help then out of their ocean of anxiety. Thank you Amber. Thank you Halle. Thank you Tasha. Thank you Mom. Thank you Jean. You reached out and caught my hand when I was drowning. But especially thank you Jesus, You saved my life by dying for me and granting me eternal life. |
AuthorI am a missionary. Currently studying at Bethany Global University. The ultimate God dream is to go to Mongolia. I believe God has called me to minister to the Mongolian nomads, they are the unreached people of our world. With over 3 million people in Mongolia, there are only around 70 churches. These churches are all in cities, thus leaving the nomads on their own. I am a missionary, this is my calling, and this is my story. Please Contact me to find out how to donate.Archives
March 2020
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