That New Tattoo : Deeper Than My Feet Could Ever Wander

In this blog post, I promised a blog about my *then new* tattoo.
Here it is...

Deeper than my feet could ever wander ...

What does that even mean? I can't walk more than a mile without complaining about some major back pains, so for me, "deeper than my feet could wander" wouldn't be very far at all. But that's not what the song means is it? No, no. It's far more than literal. And like the song, my tattoo means far more than what meets the eye.

When I came home from the World Race, I spoke at different churches and every time I told a story about our final debrief. I'd never heard the recently-made-popular song, Oceans by Hillsong United until the night my squad sang it during worship. I looked around at my squad passionately singing and I thought, "Man, I've gotta get this song, apparently." I later downloaded it and listened to it over and over and over on repeat as I lay in my hot, sticky, bunk bed waiting to fall asleep.

The next morning I woke up early to go with friends to a surf lesson. If you know me, you know I'm deathly afraid of sharks, deep water, and dark water. Even if the water is a foot deep but is dark, no ma'am - it ain't happening! However, it never occurred to me that in order to surf I would, in fact, need to go IN the ocean to find waves. The lesson on sand was cool but not exciting enough. I could not wait to catch a wave and it never struck me that this might be a little scary. Not until I was in deeper water, laying horizontally on my surf board, anyway. My surf partner, Erin, was going first so our instructor was helping her get ready for her first wave while I managed to float off to no-man's land on my own.

With the shore to my back and the horizon in front of me, panic set it. Although the water wasn't deeper than I am tall, I couldn't see further than an inch under it and, as we've just discussed, I was not okay with that. I starting thinking, "What would I do right now if sharks surrounded me? Would I scream? Would I move? Would I die right here on this surf board from a heart attack?" Call me dramatic but I was one scared little beginner. All I could see in front of me was a very large, vast ocean with God-knows-what swimming beneath it's surface. I began to pray for protection against sharks, and eels, and mean fish, and everything else I could think to name in my prayer.

Seconds later, my instructor came over, we started my lesson and I never saw a shark, THANK GOD. I'm obviously still alive to tell you this story. But that night at squad worship, something happened. It was that song. We sang it again. And this time, because I'd listened to it on repeat, I could sing some of the words...

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

I closed my eyes and began to picture oceans deep. I saw myself back on that surf board. I can still picture all of this like it happened yesterday. 

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

At debrief our hostel had an amazing view of the beach. The reception area had a large porch that overlooked the beautiful green plants which were growing down the mountain towards the shore (pictured above). This is where our squad met and worshipped together. At night, we would stand on the porch, facing out toward the open air and because it was rainy season, we often sang to the sound of fresh rain and watched the sky light up in the distance with silent, soft bolts (pictured below).

In those final days and moments as a squad, life became surreal. The past 11 months of our lives had been the definition of a roller coaster. They were full of some of the most horrific, scariest, dissatisfying, challenging, brilliant, life-giving, life-altering, life-establishing moments that we'd known. Eleven months before this night, we all had some type of relationship with Jesus - good or bad, we had one. But at that point, in July 2013, standing on the porch of a hostel in Costa Rica, I watched 49 other young people cry out from their gut for Jesus to take them further than their faith could ever dream up; Where their trust is without boarders.

And in that moment, it got real.

Three weeks after that I would be moving back to Costa Rica to do things I'd never been trained to do. To walk through things I had not walked through before. And I would do it all without the 49 other people I'd just spent a a year of intense community with. I didn't know how it would look. I didn't know how it would feel or if I could even do it well.

But I knew this...

If I stay on the shore, I can do it all myself. When my feet are on dry land I'm fearless and independent and I can even be quite successful there. In fact, in the places my feet will stand, I probably don't need God.

So I sing. I cry out. I beg. For a new place.

Because in dark waters, everything is unknown. It's where feet fail and fear surrounds. So why request to go to that place?

For in the new place, I will fail. I will need Grace. I will need my Guide.

And it is there that His power is revealed. There is the place His glory shines brightest.

It is the new place that faith is just that ... faith.

When I posted this picture from debrief, the caption read "Can I just live here?" 

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and You won't start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine


Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine

the tattoo I promised to blog about ages ago 

Provision : Not the Prosperity Gospel - Part 3

April 3rd ... I started thanking Jesus for the small ways He's helped us lately.

Thank you Jesus for sending Mrs. Lena by my apartment this morning who gave me a free ride to school.

Thank you for the microwave.

Thank you Jesus for having Jonny ask if I needed a ride after school. Another free ride.

Thank you Jesus for the $88 flight refund. And so on...

{Several days ago I made a silly post about not having a microwave and it being #firstworldproblems and how #idontliveinafirstworld. It was online for no longer than 5 minutes when I got a message from an old college professor of mine wanting to buy me a microwave. "Before you agree to this you should know that the cheapest one I've been able to find here is $50 and that's for a used one," I told him. He said he has too many luxuries not to buy me a microwave and that he was sending me $200. "Buy yourself a new one. Not used, new. And use the rest for popcorn."}

{When I flew home in January for Poppy's funeral, my flight from Houston to MS was canceled for days and a friend of the family had to drive me half way to Ellisville to meet my sister who came to get me. Soon after, I applied for a refund for that leg of the trip that I missed. It took them a hot minute but I got that refund on April 3rd. Why did it take so long? Who knows ... but the timing of the Sovereign One is pretty impressive.}

• Also on that day, I received a message from a family in Natchez wanting to financially support our mission trip. 
• A couple days later I received a message from a lady. She's the aunt of one of my World Race squad mates and said she loved following my blogs during the race. She wanted to support us and sent a check the next day. 
• After a conversation with her, she informed me that she was sending another check (apart from the mission trip donation) to help with our needs here in CR. 
• A friend of my parents who followed my race wrote me saying that when I was on the race she could not support me financially but now she has a little extra and she wants to help so she sent us a check. 
• The next day, a very sweet lady from my church back home sent me message asking how to send me a donation for our mission trip. 
• On April 7, I got an email from my Internet company saying I would receive a 25% discount on this month's bill due to an outage last month. It saved me $20. 
• That same day, I got a message from an old friend who I have not talked to in years. He and his wife wanted to donate to our mission trip but I told him we actually had JUST met our financial goal and thanked him for wanting to help. He then told me that they wanted to help anyway and asked how they could donate.
• Alonso used to work in sales for his dad's company. A commission from one of his sales came in late and his dad gave it to him yesterday. The sale was MONTHS ago but we are just not getting it because ... God's time is brilliant. 

Now remember that I'm not sold on the idea that IF, I do (__fill in the blank__)  THEN, God will provide. So I'm not trying to tell you that my thanking Jesus made anything happen. I am, however, saying that something happens in your spirit when we make the choice to praise Him for the small, daily things that are easily overlooked.

I think we get it backwards sometimes. It's not that we have much faith, therefore God provides. It's quite the opposite.

God provides, therefore we have much faith. 

Every time He blows my mind, my faith grows more and more. He is the author of my faith. He is the perfecter of my faith. I need not be concerned with what I can do or give to make myself worthy of His provision. I need simply to just be.

Be with Him.

Be his daughter.

Be with all His is, and share that with the rest of the world.

To read this blog series from the beginning, click here. 

Provision : Not the Prosperity Gospel - Part 2

Ya know how we ask God for these things and sometimes in the back (or front) of our minds we're like, "Oh shoot I hope this prayer works!" Maybe it's just me. And maybe you think it's a lack of faith. Maybe you would feel better about my blogs if I said things like, "I'm believing God for big provision." Because that would make it sound like my faith is really strong and I would never, ever doubt that He's going to give me what I want.

Well, I'm here to write the truth and the truth is that sometimes I pray things to God and hope in my heart that He's actually going to do it.

So with worry on my mind and prayers in my heart, I began to tell the world about a mission trip to Panama that Alonso and I would go on this month.

What am I doing? I don't even have enough to live here ... much less travel to another country for a week to do mission work there.

But some little whisper in my heart told me to try anyway. To go for it ....



I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. It had been so long since I had fundraised. For the World Race I had lots of supporters and many of them were committed to monthly donations so I didn't have to 'beg for money' very often. But now with an upcoming mission trip I would need to, not only support-raise for myself, but for Alonso too.

{Just so you know, their culture is very different in that they do not do a great job of sending out missionaries. They don't send support letters and watch as the checks pile in. They don't mention their calling to someone at church and have church members beg to support their work. It's very different. So any and all of support comes from the States, with the exception of the pastries I sold at school.}

The more I thought and prayed about it all, the more I hoped the funds would come in so we wouldn't have to cancel our trip. I'll be honest and say there was this part of me that truly wondered what would happen with all of this. So on April 1 I posted a blog about our trip and the ministry we will be serving with .... hoping .... waiting .... wishing .... praying that donations would roll in easily.

April 1st ... nothing.

April 2nd ... nothing.



To read part 3 of this blog series, click here. 

Provision : Not the Prosperity Gospel - Part 1

Let me preface this post by saying that I do not support this "prosperity gospel" I so often hear preached by Christians who, I really do hope, mean well. We can go circles around the theology of it all OR we can just settle in on this: I've been to too many countries and seen too many people living with nothing - yet having more faith than many of the people I know preaching this idea. They have zero material things that we would term "blessings" yet they praise God with a fierceness. So if, according to this doctrine, strong faith = financial blessings, these people aren't getting it right. Something inside of me just won't let me believe that my love relationship with Jesus is conditional. If, I pray/have faith/give to a certain religious institution/etc. then, God will bless me financially. I just can't quite buy into that.

With that said, let me continue this post with you knowing where I stand on the sovereignty of God and the belief that He will have His way, regardless.
________________________________________________________________________

Let's begin.

It's been kind of tight around here lately. And by kinda tight, I mean extremely tight.

My two roommates just moved out and I've acquired about $250 extra each month covering their part of the rent and bills.

Alonso is not working right now because we need him to finish school before we move to the States to get married. On top of that, he's devoting much of his time to ministry.

I don't have a paid position at the school in which I teach so it's just me, Jesus and those of  you who support me financially. (Thank you so much, by the way. You're amazing.)

My stressful thoughts about money were affecting the rest of my life, the most concerning part being my relationship with Alonso. One night we were walking home and I told him, "When I was in college I learned in a class that the number one reason for divorce in America is financial stress. I don't doubt it one bit. I can totally see how that happens to people." You're probably thinking, "Geez what a great way to start a fresh engagement, Ashli!" But just hang with me, it gets better.

Worried about groceries and and budgets and finding ways to cut costs, I kept telling God this one line. All throughout the day or night, any time I thought about it I just said it. Sometimes in my head and other times out loud.

"God, please provide. Please give us what we need."

In the shower I would beg Him to take care of us. Walking to the bus stop I would remind Him how bad we needed Him to come through. Sitting in my classroom waiting for my students to arrive I would be all, "So God? I need You to figure out a way to help us."


To read the second part to this blog series, click here.