The Truth Is the Truth

I've shared tidbits of our life here, but I realized that sometimes I overlook the things that God is teaching me in my personal life. I've always heard that the one serving cross-culturally changes more than the people in the land, but now I know it's the truth. Change is not comfortable for me, but I do want God to do it.
When we moved here my father had already been diagnosed with progressive prostate cancer. The first two years were full of ups and downs as some reports would be good and some would be bad. Treatments would work and then stop working. I knew we were where God wanted us, but yet my heart ached that I couldn't help my family more.
People would call or email and tell me that there was nothing I could do there that I couldn't do here. That statement was true...prayer was the only battle weapon I had. But that didn't mean it was easy for me to hear or believe at the time until God got a hold of my heart. Satan began whispering to me that I didn't need to believe the messengers because after all they couldn't possibly understand my particular set of circumstances. None of them had been halfway around the world while their parent was terminally ill. I knew everyday that if things went downhill quickly I couldn't get back there fast enough. I found ample reasons to discount everything that was said to me--until God taught me important lessons.
He taught me that He was the One Who called us here, and He would take care of everything. He taught me that if I continued to think that no one could possibly understand unless they had been in the exact same position that I would miss many nuggets of gold that He was sending my way. If I chose to not believe because of who the messenger was, I would always be able to find a reason not to believe. The Truth is the Truth not because of who we are but because of Who He is.
When God began teaching me these things I began to realize how often I did this sin of unbelief in other areas too. So with His help I've begun looking at things from a different perspective. And because I've told other people about this new line of thinking, I've been held accountable by it. I want to be a believer of the Truth. I don't want to go through life discounting everything everyone says--if we do that we'll be able to discount everything because none of us are perfect nor the same. God was sending encouragement to me, but I was choosing to stay in a pit--certainly not where God intended for me to be.
So now you can hold me accountable too. :) It's tough putting your life on the web, but if we don't share what God has been doing in our lives it doesn't help anyone else.