Open my Eyes Lord

Our visiting missionaries left this morning and I am completely worn out but have had just an extraordinary week! I know most of you probably have had missionaries come to your church and give talks, maybe show pictures of where they served. We watch, listen and then we go on our merry way unconcerned about what is really going on in the world that we can't see.

This week has made such an impact on me basically because I needed to be reminded of the suffering of the people in our world. I have traveled to several countries and have seen for myself the poverty that people live in every day of their lives. But I need to be REMINDED once again how very fortunate I am and how God has blessed my life as a woman in America.

One of the missionaries who stayed with us shared with me the great persecution that women in Africa suffer JUST because they are women: not being able to look in the eyes of a man, not letting your hair show or your ankles and not being able to laugh out loud!

But most of all,how the world needs to know Jesus. He came to set us all free. We can be here in America and be just as captive as the people in a third-world country. There are so many things that keep us in bondage.....our work, our habits, our pleasures, our friends, etc.

Please pray for our world and the things that are going on right now that will change our own world as-we-know-it. Pray for missionaries that are putting their very lives on the line to convey the love and saving grace of Jesus in places where even the name Jesus is shunned. This might even be true where you live. I love Romans 1:16 that says"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for EVERYONE who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek."

God has been so good to me this week and I have been blessed by missionaries who came to my house as strangers but left this morning as sweet friends!