As I was planning this week’s series, I wanted to see how Webster’s Dictionary defined the word “oasis.” Here is how it was defined:
1. a small fertile or green area in a desert region, usually having a spring or well.
2. something serving as a refuge, relief, or pleasant change from what is usual, annoying, difficult, etc.
For today’s Tuesday Topic, I would love for us to share some of our “oasis” experiences. Perhaps you have walked through a metaphorical dessert and God, in the midst, provided a green, cool, thirst-quenching oasis. Perhaps you have found yourself in a season of chaos but were given a strong and peaceful refuge from the surrounding storm. These things might be tangible or spiritual in nature. I am sure each of our oasis experiences will differ greatly, so let’s encourage one another as we share about God’s amazingly personal provision and protection during such seasons.
If you would like to pose a “Tuesday Topic” question, please email it to formissionarymoms@gmail.com . Provide your blog address if you would like to be linked to, and specify also if you would like to remain anonymous. Thanks!)
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I’ll kick off the sharing by sharing the oasis experience that always jumps first to my mind. A few years back, we found ourselves unexpectedly as the only couple/family on our ministry team. There were no other believing families near enough to share day-to-day life with, so I basically had nobody in my life stage to relate to or lean upon. Our team (comprised of our family and several single staff members) also struggled through a lot of relational and other difficulties that year, not to mention that I was dealing with a very difficult baby and struggling to learn Russian. From every vantage point it looked like I was in the midst of a very large and dry dessert circumstantially, but God plopped me down on a cool patch of green amidst the hot sand and provided me with the most incredible refuge that I have ever experienced. Somehow, by the power of His spirit and His word alone, that year ended up being my favorite year in Russia thus far. It still makes absolutely no logical sense to me how that year can still stand out so brightly in my memory. He deepened my dependence on Him and grew my heart for this country as I learned to delve into relationships in my community by necessity (even despite my feeble Russian abilities). Time and time again I praised God throughout that year for how my circumstance and spiritual reality were complete opposites. It doesn’t make sense that a fresh spring can exist in the middle of the scorching dessert, but by God’s grace, sometimes it does!
I agree Ashley. The first thing that popped in my mind was when my then four-year-old was in the hospital with pneumonia. We were living in Irkutsk, and always avoided the Russian medical system for anything other than immunizations (where we brought our European doses for the doctors to give according to our American schedule!). But after three days of high fever, and a respiratory rate around 90(!) we knew it was time to get treatment.
It was a terrifyingly strange environment–nothing like what we would recognize as a hospital. However, the treatment was consistent with what our Western doctors advised. The first night, I lay in the tiny room on the sagging bed, reading my bible as my son went to sleep. And I was truly praying with my whole being, but somehow also at rest. Peace that passes understanding. Knowing that we were in the center of God’s will, and trusting that no matter what happened, He was good. I really count that among a handful of times when the sense of the presence of God was most real.
i have a dear friend here – she’s been here since we’ve arrived and it is funny how God has often used her to give me an abundance of oases moments.
i’m a words person… words is my love language… and it is how i process life, hurts, joys, fears, struggles, triumphs, etc… our first year here, i had a very difficult relationship with our only colleague – and my husband asked me, whatever i did, not to argue, debate or enter into anything potentially confrontational (i.e. defend myself when verbally attacked) with this other person. and so i kept silent – because i loved him, and that was the only reason. nearly a year later, this friend came to me… and spoke words that spoke life and courage back into my somewhat exhausted and abused feeing soul – what she and others had observed as i’d struggled through that year and that i didn’t need to defend myself b/c the Lord already had, in their hearts.
that dear lady has remained one who, when i seem to need it most, the Lord uses to water me with words that give life when all else seems parched and dying and i’m struggling to cling to hope…
“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” (Prov 25.11)