Throwback

I stumbled on an entry I wrote on 11/11/08. As I read it, I was re-living the passion I felt as a young single woman who was ready to conquer the nations in the name of Jesus. I knew that my God didn’t give me the “spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline”. Looking back, I definately lacked the “spirit of discipline”. But I knew I had the spirit of power and the spirit of love because the duo kept me sleepless & begging God to send me! Somewhere, anywhere outside the US. A year later, he sent me…. to Muskegon, MI. I can look back and laugh now because I see that God’s ways are so much greater than my ways. He knew exactly what He had prepared for me that year.

I still love Jesus…deeply. I am passionate about this calling he’s given Justin & I here in Muskegon. I want to be faithful to everything He’s put before me. But a part of me does long for the passion I felt for making His name known among the nations. Only He knows what that will look like for the Thorntons. For now, this nation needs him plenty!



11/11/08 “Break my heart for what breaks yours”

“So many things excite me about the future. I’ve always had the desire to travel the world, meet people coming from completely different walks of life , experience their culture, hear about their values, dreams, desires, fears, and have my eyes opened to their needs.. There’s a whole world out there filled with people God created. People that He loves just as much as he loves me… it’s doesn’t make sense for them not to know this. I want to start praying for them more often. I know that my Father’s heart breaks for these people. People who are lonely, starving,thirsty, sick, and cannot understand the concept of love because they’ve never experienced it. I want my heart to break for these people too.I don’t want to just “feel sorry or sad for them”. At the very least, I want to stop thinking about myself long enough to remember to lift them up in prayer. I want to get to the point where I’m so burdened for their causes that I want to set aside my own wants and needs… Just in case God decides to use a nobody like me to somehow meet theirs.

I’m most excited about being able the idea of medical missions…. If I could go to any country, I choose Uganda. I read about their child abduction issues in high school and since then, I’ve felt a special connection to this country. I hope to meet Max and Christon one day, our compassion children. <3 Is it possible to love people you’ve never met? MmHmm. After finishing nursing school, I wanted nothing more than to join a team of church planters excited to introduce Jesus to the forgotten people in the ends of the earth. I started feeling this way this way my first semester of school when all my patients were either homeless or sharing homes with ten other families. While we gave their shots, hung their ivs, gave them their bed baths, they were so relieved to be at the hospital. Most of them weren’t even sick. They needed to get out of the cold. They needed food.. a bed to sleep on… warm sheets…someone to talk to them and show them that someone in their empty world cares for them!!! They had no home, no one to call family or friend. I remember feeling so grateful that I wasn’t them, but so troubled because after they were discharged, I’d never see them again. How do you begin to introduce God, and love, and new life?? I wanted to tell them everything I knew. I wanted them to know that someone created them.. And that their creator is madly in love with them…And that he gives hope and new life to those that believe and choose to have a relationship with Christ.

I get a bittersweet feeling when I think about not being able to work as a nurse. I would love nothing more than to show people God’s love in this way. To go to countries where hospitals don’t have flat screen tv’s and fluffy bed sheets. But I’m learning that there are lonely, empty, hurting people outside of hospitals, inside this country, and inside my circle of friends and family. And they need God just as much. I’m still excited about what the future with God holds. Excited that he might decide to use an ugly person like me to help build his kingdom.
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”