A Story of Hope

What is your full name?
     Lil Cortes

Where do you usually sit in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings?
     On the left side in the middle

What is your favorite color?
     Green

Do you prefer going barefoot or wearing shoes?
     Flip Flops

In November of 2008, I went with Hope to Uruguay on a two week mission trip. I went on this trip with a great deal of anxiety and depression due to the fact that, six days prior to my departure, my friend Phillis Seabrooks died. Two days after Phillis, my dear friend, Juanita Kuhlman died. Both of dear sisters in Christ.  Both from cancer.

I was thinking that I should not go to Uruguay because it was important to me to go to each of my dear sister’s funerals. I wanted to pay my final respects to each of them and show my support to their families in any way I could.  Friends kept telling me that both these sisters would have wanted me to go and that I had already come too far to skip it.   I went with a heaviness of heart. I felt detached as if I was just going through the motions. I got to Uruguay and had a hard time pressing into the people there.

I continued to muddle through and at the end of the first week began to see God move regardless of where I was mentally.  He moves regardless of our state of mind.  He orchestrated many little events all along the way that encouraged our hosts and our team.  Little things just to show me His hand is at work in every little detail. Taking a guitar to give to a church only to have that plan fold, then giving it to the church in Minas and finding out that it had been a nine month prayer request.  Talking about your favorite colors and getting gifts with those colors on them.  Not having gifts to give in return, pulling out the trusty “Got Hope” tee shirts; only to find that this was the perfect gift that created jumping and childlike joy to the recipients!!!  Go figure, He has a plan even when you think it folded. God was trying to show me He is in total control and Loves my forgot-to-bring-a-gift-giving-self no matter where I am mentally. 

At the end of the first week I began to get sick.  I had a stomach bug that just wouldn’t go away. Let’s just say nothing wanted to stay in my body long enough to nourish and strengthen it.  The second week we went to minister to a church group in Montevideo. The women had a church service that evening that seemed to last forever.  I normally would not mind a long service. I felt so sick I was like a horse for the barn and just wanted to go home. I stayed outside in the van.  I tried to sleep. About an hour or so later one of the ladies from the church shows up with a small glass of tonic for my belly.  I don’t know who sent her.  He knows. 

A short time later; Marie came to the van to tell me that our interpreter Anna wanted to pray for me.  Anna was asking “where was that girl she had been talking to in the city earlier that day.” She wanted to pray for me. My team members figured out it was me she was talking about and tried to thwart her because they knew how sick I was and wanted to let me sleep. Anna felt that the Holy Spirit was telling her she needed to pray for me. Realizing that she was being led by the Spirit, Marie came to get me. Well I was pretty excited and just knew that the Lord was going to heal me. I was told that the service had an hour or so to go, I asked them to come and get me when it was time to pray.  I laid there praying and preparing. I was sure that God was about to heal me.

One of my mission team members finally came to get me; we went in to the church.  Eventually the hand signal came for me to come to the front of the church for prayer.  There were many women there, as the entire church was praising and praying loudly.  A couple of my team-mates gathered around me to pray over me with our interpreter Anna.  She signaled for them to go away as she was going to pray for me by herself.  They moved on as they had their hands full with so many women wanting prayer, from a handful of American women, most of whom did not even speak Spanish.  God was their translator, it was amazing.   

Anna started to pray for me.  She told me something was holding me back from being used for great things. She prayed that I would understand and know how much God loved me.  She said God wanted me to know that nothing could ever separate me from the love He has for me.  She said I was holding Him back for lack of trust in His great love for me.  I had to let go and just know He loves me.  Accept that fact in my heart.  She also prayed for the spirit of depression to be broken.  As for the depression, I feel God was lifting me out of my sadness for the deaths of Phillis and Juanita.  I think he was also ministering to my sadness and frustration being so sick so far from home and feeling that it was stifiling this trip.

What I have not told you is that one of my biggest struggles has been with knowing in the deepest part of my heart that God loves me, I mean really loves me, just how I am.  I knew in my head but could never seem to get it in the deepest part of my heart.  I had always known this was holding me back from the best God could do through and for me.  It has been a 20 year struggle that has kept a part of my heart heavy and discouraged.  I did not share it with people because, I mean, what kind of follower would I be?  Who would be encouraged to follow Christ with my pathetic example of embracing God’s love?  I had to travel 8000 miles for God to show me this love?

I remember thinking, ‘Well I guess this means He is not going to heal my sick self.”  I thought, ‘Lord’ don’t you think it would have a bigger impact on me if you did both? Heal the heart and the body?’  The fact is He was trying to heal me of something much more important.  My physical state was insignificant in comparison to what I was missing if I did not allow my Father’s love to sink into the depths of my being. If I had been well it may not have had the same impact.  Sometimes you have to feel pretty crummy to realize what is really important.

This woman had no idea of my struggles.  Anna did not know me from Adam or Eve, if you will.  But God knew Anna and He knew she would be faithful and listen to His voice and speak what He would ask.  He knew she would be in Uruguay at just the precise moment I needed her there to minister to me.

I am so glad we cannot run from the Father’s love.  You can go halfway around the world but the Father has people there too.  God wanted me to get it once and for all that I need to accept His love so that I can pour out to others and so I do not miss the very best of what He wants to do through me if I will only let Him.  If I will only trust His love.

I did not get healed that day physically, but internally God did something much more important.  The physical is not the most important thing in life but your relationship with the almighty God.  If we do not let Him love us then we cannot love others how He wants us to love. If I allow that Love to sink in God can use me in mighty ways to love others in only the way He designed just for me.  I did hear Him.

I think God wanted me to go to the farthest corner of the world to show me how big that love is.  To show me in a visible and tangible way that I can’t run or get away from it no matter where I go, how far I go, and no matter my physical or mental state of being. 

If the people of Hope told me I would just say, “Yeah that’s what they are supposed to say.” It’s the Christianese speak and even though they would truly mean it I would not buy it.  I had to see it played out.  The Lord needed to show me in a unique way from someone who did not know me or my struggles.   So that this doubting Thomas would GET IT!!

So, before I was a thought in my parent’s heads, God knew all these years later that I would connect with Hope Community Church and have another piece of my heart healed.  He knew we would go to Uruguay.  He knew I needed to hear from Anna.  He knew all the little things I saw Him do would set the stage.  He knew my illness would help me see clearer. I needed every situation just as it was for Him to show me His perfect Love. I am so amazed how He put me in such an awesome family to walk my walk with. He used Hope as a tool to give me new Hope for my future.  I am excited to continue pressing into God’s love and the love of my family here at Hope on this most incredible journey He has planned for me.  Let’s walk!!!!
     

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