As you know from my recent articles, after Ashton's death I felt like I was in a rut. I knew that I wanted to do something for God through everything that had happened to me, but I didn't know what, or how he was going to use me for that fact. I still don't know exactly how he's using me, but I know one thing... I'm going to give my all to be used by him.

I was reading a devotion one night, and it just struck me! Here it is.. it's called Shine!

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Romans 8:37

Think about a surfer and a swimmer. The swimmer sees the oncoming wave and thinks, "Uh-oh!" The surfer sees the wave and thinks, "Cool!"- two different approaches to life. Verses in Romans talk about how nothing can separate God's children from the love of God. There are things that get in the way of your prayer life, relationship, soul dancing, and your devotion to God, but there is nothing that can separate you from God's love. It's this simple fact that turns us from swimmers into wave-riders. Surfers look at the oncoming wave and get excited over the possibilities. They skim over the tops of their troubles. Occasionally, a wipeout is possible. Okay, it's likely. But they crawl back up and do it again. There will always be another wave, but the mere fact that God is with them keeps them on top of the waves and occasionally sends them into the air. Are you a surfer or a swimmer?

The surf that distresses the ordinary swimmer produces in the surfrider the super-joy of going clean through it. Apply that to our own circumstances, the severy things- tribulation, distress, persecution, produce in us the super-joy; they are not things to fight. We are more than conquerors through Him in all these things, not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. The saint never knows the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it.... The experiences of life, terrible or monotonous, are impotent to touch the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Steven Case, Everything Counts)

The realization hit me. I have been at the lowest point in my faith because of the tribulation I've faced. I completely wiped out, but that wipe out didn't separate me from God. The point is to crawl back up and do it again. To come back better and stronger than you were before, and to not let the devil hinder God's work through you. Here I am Lord use me!

Africa now is that next wave. In no way is this a tribulation, but a blessing. The chance to change the world for Christ. To get on the next wave and ride it as long as I can. I want to be a surfer... not a swimmer. And that's what I am!

KELS