by Gina Colburn | Aug 16, 2016 | Uncategorized
I have talked about it…
I have wrestled with it…
I have prayed about it…
I have denied it…
I have thought about it…
I have avoided it…
I have loathed others who had it…
I have sought after it halfheartedly…
But today I am committed to it…
I want to share but not yet. And I know that is vague, and leaves you wondering then why even write about it at all if you aren’t going to share. Because I need to write. Writing is part of it. Being open and honest in this space is a glimpse of the new thing.
For far too long I have wanted this and have avoided the hard work it takes to achieve it but now (knocking on 40 and empty nest) I must get it. But to get it I must let go of every expectations and to do list and be silent. (Silence is not easy for this “life of the party”, extrovert, I need people person) But silence is what it is going to take.
Psalm 46:10 “He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Do you know what Be still means? Let go. I am letting go of some things. I have to in order to make room for this new thing.
I am learning to let go and peel away my hands that so desperately want to control and there I find trust, or lack there of.
So today the only thing I am holding on to is Jesus. I have thrown everything else up in the air and ask Jesus to guide me, prepare me for this next chapter of my journey with Him. I am excited, I am terrified, I am vulnerable, I am waiting and I am for the first time in a long time confident of this step. No more just talking about it… the time is now.
So for the sake of my family, my walk with Christ, my sanity and the calling he has placed on my life… I submit to this new thing. And at the end of this process I believe I will be a better wife, mom, pastor but more importantly Daughter of the King.
by Gina Colburn | Jul 29, 2016 | Uncategorized
Fredrick Beuchner writes “The place God calls us to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
I read this quote in a book I read Kisses from Katie. This book spoke directly to my heart and left me open, raw and convicted. This book outlines the true story of Katie Davis who had 18 years old leaves the comfort of her middle class family in Tennessee and heads to Uganda. Where Jesus calls her to love and live her life. Being his hands and feet.
She promised her parents it was for just a year then she would return and go back to college. As she talks about leaving Uganda for the states her heart was torn in the comfort of what she had always known and the people she loved and the love and calling she felt for Uganda. Home was no longer where she had been but home was where God was calling her.
Now enter my own story… I have had this book on my reading list for literally two to three years. I took it with me last week for a quick trip back to “Home” Kansas City. The place I have lived most of my life. The place I got married, had 4 amazing children and my extended family lives. The place I first heard God’s calling on my life, the place where so many memories are and friends reside.
I started the book in the airport on the way and I finished it in the airport on the way home. I am sure that everyone around me as I finished that book and big tears streamed down my face thought I was emotionally disturbed. (there might be some truth in that statement but that is blog for a different day!)
My heart was torn. You know torn with all the good things I have and the reality of millions of children are dying from treatable disease and hunger every day. Torn because as much as I love Kansas City and the comfort I find there it is not my home now, I was a visitor in my home town, just passing through. Home is the place that God has called me. He didn’t call me to Uganda like he did Katie Davis, which seems more like Christ work, feeding, clothing, healing and educating orphaned sick children. He called me to the Lehigh Valley to be his hands and feet. It really is the place where my deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.
The mission has never been more clear. Our Lehigh Valley might not look like Uganda where she serves but there are thousands of people who do not know my Jesus. Time is crucial. We have to be intentional. I have to be intentional. I have to be bold and courageous. I have to put my will down and pick up HIS WILL! I have to be crystal clear on what it is he is asking me to pick up and what he is asking me to lay down.
You see my heart might be torn at times at where exactly home is but that is just temporary. My citizenship is not here on this Earth, it is in Heaven. And there are people who need Jesus who are in my circle of influence and my one and only job is to Go and make disciples. Jesus left us with the great commission. There is no Plan B! We are the plan.
And I let my comfort and my own will keep me from doing and being all that he has called me too. And as I finished the book, and tears streamed down my face. A story begin to play out in front me. A lady from what I am guessing an African country, speaking broken English trying to board her plane. She had a carry on bag, but this carry on was bigger than what they allowed you to carry on for free, so she was going to have to pay $45, they did not accept cash. She opened the suitcase showed them there was nothing but clothes, nothing dangerous she said. The gate agent said She could not travel with that suitcase unless she could pay. She begin to cry while everyone just stood there watching her. Finally, I stepped up and paid the $45. She turned to me and bowed thanking me and saying Bless you. And I was reminded again of how often there are needs all around us and we just stand watching or worse yet turn away, when we have the means to help the need. Jesus didn’t meet needs because he investigated them thoroughly to see if they really were needy or scamming the system. He simply met the need.
I am confident I will never see this lady again here on this Earth, but her face and her eyes are embedded on my mind. I hope that someday when I see my Jesus, I find her face among those who are there.
So today I wrestle with what is My will and what Is God’s will. I wrestle with what the best next step is for me, my family and the church I lead. I wrestle with what is my American Dream and what is God’s dream for us. I wrestle with expectations. I wrestle with my own sins. I wrestle with my own failures. I wrestle with the hurts of those I left behind. I wrestle with schemes of Satan to destroy families, mine included. I wrestle…
And I rest. I rest in Jesus “the author and perfector of my faith”. I rest that he who has called me will not leave me. I rest in his faithfulness. I rest in that one day I will see Jesus face to face and my prayer is that on that day I hear his words “well done my good and faithful servant!
by Gina Colburn | Jul 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
Thirty Two weeks… Twenty Two hours of labor… Colton Thomas made his appearance. 5 Pounds 3 ounces 17 inches long. I remember the long night awaiting his arrival. Praying that the steroids that they gave me would be enough to help his little lungs. Hours after he arrived, the doctors and nurses found themselves working with a baby that was dying. 6 times he coded, 6 times they shocked his little heart. Finally stabilize enough to transport to the Children’s Mercy Hospital. The Doctor following the ambulance because he was sure by the time they arrived the baby would be gone…
Days turned into weeks as little Colton lay lifeless on life support. The NICU has labeled little white boys as “wimpy white males” they have the lowest survival rate of any preemies. There were days we just didn’t know if he would ever wake up. I remember vividly one day standing over his bed with my hand beside his and crying out to God to heal my baby. Tears ran down my face and one by one they would hit his naked little back. He didn’t even flinch. In that moment I remember asking the Lord for his will to be done in Colton’s life. If it was his will that he live that he would… and if it wasn’t that he would hold me. I prayed life into him and ask God to grow him up into a Man of God that would change the world someday.
Colton a few days later decided he would wake up and fight. His little body begin to grow and heal. And within a couple of months he would join us as home.
Here we are 18 years later, preparing to send him away to college. I thought by the third one it got easier. That somehow your heart is prepared for the fact that your precious littles are grown and ready to fly, all the while you pray they remember their roots. 3 children in 3 years. Colton is preparing to join his siblings at IWU next year… and I am preparing for a few more tears and a lot more praying.
Chapters are being written so fast it seems that we don’t always get time to enjoy the story. I can’t go back and hold him but I can hold on to the many memories I have. I can look forward to see what God will continue to do in his life. I believe that God did save Colton for a purpose. And today my prayer is that he finds it and walks boldly in it. To say I am going to miss him, is an understatement. His laugh, his sense of humor and his hugs.
In Deuteronomy it says The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” I know that the Lord himself has gone before Colton. He knew exactly how his little life would begin and he knows every step there after. Colton I pray that you will be a Kingdom Builder and Culture Changer. Use your gift and talents for His Kingdom to bring Glory to God your father who saved you for such a time as this.
by Gina Colburn | May 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
Its been a little crazy the last few weeks. However, I feel like I now substitute the word “crazy” for “busy” these days. In just a few short weeks, my third child will graduate from high school. That means for the past 3 years I have hugged my grown children and threw a party to celebrate their accomplishments and send them on their way to college, to adult decision making, to the freedom of being.
Life spins on… Summer is coming… family decisions to make, and life to live. The thing about time spinning on, is that some days the spinning seems to fast and the moments go to quickly. This week, I was with a family, and unless a miracle occurs, one of them will lose the battle to cancer. There were tears, hugs, laughter, questions, prayers, more tears. Life has a way of catching us off guard. We can’t control the number of breathes we take, but we can control how we handle the moments we have. We can enjoy each day, no matter what it brings.
I was just telling a couple of my kids that we have a choice to make. We can be vulture or a humming bird. One flies around all day looking for the dead, the decay, the bad laying around, while the other flies around all day looking or the beauty and the sweet. We can choose to see the good around us. That doesn’t mean we don’t acknowledge that there are bad things going on, we just choose how we want to live and what our focus will be.
And some days I am the hummingbird. I can see the good, smell the sweet… and other days the vulture… the dead and decay seem to be all around me. And I want to give up. I want to retreat. But something brings me back…
I ask Jason this week why is it with all that has happened to us in our 21 years of marriage, why do we cling to each other instead of leave like so many others. What made us…us? It was a rough day, followed by several rough days in a row. Our hearts were broken for situations we have no control over. Life is messy and spinning and I found myself asking questions and writing it out. ( Jason gets all the blogs that never make it to public view)
On that day my feelings were stuck in my throat. I kept choking back the big tears that threaten to spill down my cheeks. And yet there were a few that escaped and cascaded down my face.
Failure seems so terminal. You know? Its like it has a death sentence. And yet I know that isn’t true. I look around and I see failures, my own, those of people I love, those the media makes news… Failures happen. It is the lessons learned in them. My own failures are still teaching me lessons, sometimes I wonder why I haven’t learned the lesson yet, and other times I see that I am learning and growing because of them.
I listen to a man for cry out this week, that he didn’t want to die, I still hear his cries. I see his face. I feel his hand grasping mine.
I do believe in grace and grace that is never ending. I believe that God forgives…always. And I believe that he loves us. I believe that he is faithful to forgive us and welcome us when we breathe our last if we confess our sins and honor him. My faith has questions just like everyone else. I don’t always understand His yes’s , His no’s and His wait… But I don’t have to understand… I just have to trust. (which goes back to my word for the year!)
Then there are days that I fear if most people could see inside I would be exposed as a fraud. That inside is messy, fearful, doubtful, a little girl looking for the safety of her Abba Father.
I seek God, and I know he isn’t hiding, and yet some days it feels like he is. Friends are not a few minutes away to go and vent, cry and seek together. What is familiar is gone, and vacations seem like a dream.
And 20 years of ministry with all of its stories, the good, the bad, the heartbreaking, the hurtful adds up in my heart and I wonder why would anyone sign up for this? Its heavy and overwhelming.
And here in the midst of it all, I feel like I am drowning… slowing at first and faster sinking deeper and deeper, not being able to catch my breathe. I see brighter days but only through the lens of my failure and will I ever be able to overcome. So here I am… at desk…filled with more questions and doubts than I have had in a long time and I surrender… again!
And maybe that is where it is at… the surrender over and over. The laying it all down when I pick it up. When I try to fix when I should just be trusting. Maybe its in the tears that trickle and some time stream down my face that shows God is still working on me, and that my heart isn’t hard towards him, and he is still molding me.
Maybe its in the worship song, that brings me to my knees with no spoken prayer…just tears being collected by the heavenly father who promised to never leave us or forsake us.
Maybe its in the clinging to my husband, when everyone else leaves. Maybe that is it, I conclude to Jason… that we know that deep down God has us… and we cling to us out of our desperation for more. More of Him, less of us! More of what he can do, less of what we can do. More of his grace…because we need it! More of his wisdom…
SO maybe at the end of the day that’s it… its the good the bad the ugly and the beautiful that makes us equipped to do this thing…
In the middle of our mess….
by Gina Colburn | Mar 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
Let me tell you a little bit about a place located in Allentown, PA. It actually sits in Upper Macungie Township. One of the fastest growing townships in PA. Allentown is the fastest growing city in PA. This place has been doing ministry for 102 years in Allentown. (more…)
by Gina Colburn | Mar 3, 2016 | Uncategorized
I was reading this morning the parable of the Vineyard worker found in Matthew 20: 1-16. Jesus is telling the story of a man who owned a vineyard who needed workers. So he went to the marketplace to find workers. He hired them through out the day and promised them all a days wage. (more…)
