Compassion Sunday – A Story By Me

Why is it that whenever God gives me a job to do I always allow myself to get all worked up into a frenzy?

My biggest fear in the world is speaking in public.

Tomorrow is Compassion Sunday at my church and in order to present the kids waiting for sponsors I am going to have to speak in public.

Last week I was feeling excited for the opportunity to share these children with my church and was not feeling nervous at all.

But then Wednesday afternoon the child packets arrived…

Suddenly things felt different.

Suddenly I felt a huge responsibility to those children.

Within a matter of an hour of receiving the packets I began feeling nervous. By that evening, I began rethinking what I had planned to say in church on Sunday. I soon began writing down a plan and I began practicing what I was going to say over and over. Before I realized what was happening I had myself so worked up that each time I practiced, instead of getting better at what I was going to say I began to get worse.

Yesterday I thought about it some more, changed my presentation again, settled on what I thought was my finished product a few more times, and then finally ended up going to bed very late last night feeling sick to my stomach and panicky at the thought of speaking in front of the church on Sunday.

HELLO social anxiety!

Did you forgot that you don’t live here anymore??!

After a restless night, I woke up this morning with God’s voice in my head saying, “stop worrying about what YOU can’t do and instead, remember what I CAN do!”

Suddenly I realized that I just needed to chill out and I needed to give this worry to God! Nothing here has changed except I seemed to have forgotten God is the one who is in charge of all this.

I have already been in this place way too many times in the past so ya think I would have known the drill by now.

So like I have done every time I set out to talk in public, I took out a piece of paper and wrote on it the words, ‘I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.‘ I threw all my extra notes in the trash and put it all back into his hands.

Tomorrow instead of a bunch of notes in my hand I will hold his words as a reminder.

From this day forward when it comes to the God stuff, I have to remember not to spend my time thinking about what I should be spending my time praying about!

Update… Somehow I forgot to push publish on this post last night so figure I may as well finish the story with what happened today.

So I went to bed last night in peace and then woke up this morning with this crazy notion in my head that because we already have so many child sponsors in our church most likely we would not have many kids sponsored today. Yep, you guessed it I was already thinking way too much again! Thankfully I caught myself and went for a drive before church and prayed.

God set me straight and I arrived at church excited and knowing in my heart that God was going to make something big happen today. Sure enough, I soon found myself with a front row seat watching as another one of his amazing stories began being played out before me!

From our worship pastor starting us off speaking his own sponsorship story to our pastor’s Compassion tailored sermon everything went great. It wasn’t about any of us presenting the story today as much as it was about God uniting his children with one another.

27 children received new sponsors today but also at the same time 27 sponsors also received new children.

Many blessings are in the making for all those involved I’m sure.

There was never any need to be nervous or worry.

No need to second guess.

Just show up is all that was required … because just like He always does, God also showed up in a mighty big way in our church today!

If you would like more information about sponsoring a child or Compassion Sunday visit www.compassionsunday.com or contact me through the contact link at the top of this page.

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Yesterday was Compassion Sunday at my church and I am so excited to tell you that 9 children received new sponsors! I still have few children left and I would like to offer you the opportunity to sponsor a child too. Here are a few of the children who still need sponsors.

This first little guy is Melquicidec Masi from Bolivia, South America. Melquicidec is 7 years old. He lives with his father & his mother and 3 brothers & sisters. he enjoys reading and attending church activities. Melquicidec is a priority child because he has been waiting over 9 months for a sponsor. Melquicidec lives in a country where there is a high risk of child rights violations.

This next child is an older child, his name is Nalamani Tandi he will be 14 years old on June 11^th. Nalamani is from India. He lives with his father, his mother and 4 brothers & sisters. Nilamani helps his family by buying or selling in the market and caring for his brothers and sisters and caring for animals. Nalamani enjoys listening to music, running and playing group games. He attends church activities, Bible class and Vacation Bible School. Older children are sometimes harder to find sponsors for.

Next is this sweet little girl her name is Latifatou Kadifatou Sankara. Latifatou is from Burkina Faso, Africa. She lives in a country where there is a high risk of child rights violations. In her home Latifatou helps by running errands. She lives with her father and her mother and there are 5 children in her family. Latifatou does not attends school at this time and she enjoys playing group games and attends Bible class.

The last child I am posting today is little Shisto Rongkheng from Bangladesh, Asia. He is 3 years old and he also lives in a country with a high risk of child rights violations. Shisto lives with his father and his mother and there are 3 children in his home. He does not attend school yet and he enjoys playing soccer and playing with toy cars. He attends church activities regularly.

Your love and support will help these children to receive the assistance they need to grow and develop physically, mentally and spiritually. Please pray for these precious children and also please consider sponsoring one of them today. You can email me at tluvs2trvl@gmail.com and I can help you get your sponsorship started today.

Thank you so much for reading and also for your prayers for these precious children.