I said "No", He said "Yes"

I Said, “no” He Said, ‘Yes” Hello world! umm…. this is not Trina Short, the all knowing and wise, Just kidding mom! No, this is her daughter Madison Short the “quintessential fire cracker,” as my mom called me in her earlier posts. I am hijacking my mom’s blog to bring to all of you lovely people another point of view of the crazy merciless and blessings that God is placing in our lives. First there are some things you should know about me, I am very ummm…..ENERGETIC, yes thats it energetic, and sometimes competitive….OK, I am always competitive. But in contrast I am a scared child at heart, I will be forever scared of strangers, monkeys, drugs, people who look scary, act scary, or even look at me with evil in their eyes. I have tried multiple times after watching ALL of the episodes of "Alaska: The Last Frontier", to get my family to move to Alaska, where there is a small population. Turns out it's really hard to live in a place where the bear population is higher than the people population. And what scares me even more than getting hurt by people, is people hurting any member of my family, including my dog. When my family started talking about doing a mission as a family, being the person to react first thinks later. I immediately said, “No” at the time I though this “no” was towards my family, but in reality in was a “no” to God. Though I didn't realize this for a while, first I had to learn who was really the boss… and it wasn't me. Sitting at the table with everyone there, my parents brought up the subject of the family mission, I immediately was panicked and tense. First my family was talking about going out of the country! Can you believe it? Do you know how many opportunities there would be for people to hurt my family? I was not about to let that happen. The more my family talked about it the more I could imagine the terrible things that could happen to us. Then almost every one in my family, except for Max, (Max and I get each other) called me out on not trusting God. Ugh I had that coming. Trusting God with my own life I can do, but trusting God with what I most love, my family, that was not easy. Time went by and I continued to ignore all talk about missions, I figured my family is too big, too poor, and too busy, for the mission life style. In high school I never went out of Fresno for a missions trip, both my older brothers went on out of state missions, though I never felt called, or was motivated. I couldn't justify going when I have friends, neighbors, school peers, that didn't know the Lord. (don’t let this fool you, that was an excuse, though at the time I truly felt that way) I was content with the work that had to be done in my home town. Another thought that I had, that effected my out look on missions, was how missionaries seemed to be very showy people, I didn't care to show people what I'm doing for the Lord, I don't do it for my reputation, its something that is between myself and God. And I believe that the meaning of Gods work, and the relationships, can be cheapened by our own image. (I am not saying I don't struggle with humility) Back to the story, my family started to raise money for the mission, and with time my families passion grew, except for mine. When I was helping my family raise money I tried to get excited…. But I wasn’t. I became frustrated, my frustration soon turned to jealousy. Jealousy for the passion my family had, jealousy for the selflessness, the trust. In my school bible study, we are studying in Jonah, yeah Jonah. The guy who said “no” to God, a coincident? I think not. In this bible study I have learned that when you say “no”, God says, “yes”. And that through my selfishness God will turn me around, put me in a fish, and teach me to trust him with everything. This is my experience reading Jonah not the first time, but the first time with consequence. Jonah 1:1-3 1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. My first response: O Jonah you are so stupid. My second response: I AM JONAH!!!!! I AM STUPID TOO!!!! IM GOING TO DIE! (kept reading) Jonah 1:4-6 4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.” My first response: I’m not that bad. God isn't going to drowned me or make me really sleeping at inappropriate times. My second response: Im going to be punished!!!!!! My third response: No this is not a punishment this is a correction, or a discipline and another chance to do the right thing. Its the right amount of fear to push me in the right direction. I am a student at Sacramento State so I was not able to attend the training with the older six people in my family. But God used this time to stir up feelings that I'm not sure existed before. I felt like I abandoned my family, abandoned a God that has provided for me. I didn't quite know what to do with myself, but after I got my homework done like a good student( I didn't really I had to stay up late Sunday to do it) I found the Hope Force international website. I was swimming in my own selfish thoughts, I didn't even look at the website before. The more I read the more I wanted to be there with my family, helping beside my family. I started out saying “no” but now I cant wait to start. My original questions about all the awful things that could have happened, changed to questions about what God could do with a family like mine.… But this leads to another problem; I am still a student. So now I am praying for contentment and to trust Him. I do not admit to it being easy to trust Him, but I am praying that He will help me. The true difference between the Madison two months ago and the Madison now is I am not using my own selfish eyes to see, I am trying to see what God sees.