 I am going to give you a glimpse inside my book. This is my intro inside Introduction to Inspired to Action God is
daily giving us opportunities to work in partnership with Him. He is prompting
our hearts to do something, anything - sometimes small,
sometimes great. The
question is: are we listening? And if we hear, are we willing to step out of
our comfort zones and be inconvenienced for the sake of seeing a miracle come
to pass? Every day there are adventures waiting around the corner when we
choose to partner with God.
Two years
ago I was celebrating my 40th birthday in Newport Beach, California with my
aunts and female cousins when the challenge came for me to put these stories
into writing. I do not journal often, but I do love to tell real-life stories,
especially stories of the amazing things that God has done. All
weekend, these ladies picked my brain for story after story of Africa, orphans
and just plain old life. When the weekend was over and we were packing to leave,
two of them asked if I had any of these stories in writing. I told them that I
really did not have any time to do that, due to my full schedule. One of my
aunts urged me to at least put the stories on tape so I would have a
documentation of the things God has accomplished through my life. I brushed it
off with, “Maybe in another life I will have time for something like that, but
not in the near future.” Then I was off to the airport. I had a
very restless sleep the first night after I arrived home in Texas. God started
to genuinely convict my heart that these were His stories and they needed to be
written down. God reminded me that in the Old Testament of the Bible when He
did a radical miracle, He would tell His people to make a monument or record the
story. This was to ensure they would never forget His faithfulness or His
miracles. The people were to record them and always share them with others as a
reminder of God’s faithfulness. In the same way, I knew God was asking me to
begin documenting the big things He had done in and through my life, too. I was
never to forget. That very
night, in my sleeplessness, I started typing out the first stories. While
writing, I had no idea of the impact these experiences would have on me as I
relived them on my computer. While I wrote, many times I had tears streaming
down my face. I also
had no idea that this experience would cause me to fall even more in love with
God as I took a second look at all the details of what He has done in the lives
of so many. The miracles I have witnessed are unbelievable. It is my prayer
that you also fall more in love with God as you experience these stories. These
are His stories that came about through His great love for all mankind. Over the
past 13 years, my husband Tim and I have traveled the world in a variety of
capacities. For eight years we worked with an international medical mission
called Mercy Ships. For six of those years we were in Texas running young adult
training programs, and the rest of the time we were in Africa aboard one of
their hospital ships. Since the completion of our time with Mercy Ships, we
have been working full-time as co-founders of Orphan Relief and Rescue. We now
reside in Seattle. My life’s
passion is to inspire people to action on behalf of people who are suffering
domestically and internationally. I have come to the conclusion that a life
unto myself is no life at all. My hope is that through this book you will come
to understand what your role is in God’s larger story. Everyone
wants to leave a mark on this earth, to make a difference somehow, somewhere.
That is how God created us to exist. Our fulfillment in life is directly
connected to our relationship with God and our service to others. We were meant
to live this life in partnership with Him.
Each of us have our own stories of hardships
and difficulties that have brought us to a level of brokenness we have had to
walk through. Many of us have become battered and worn out. Some of us become
bitter because of what we have had to endure. Others choose to run to God and allow hardships to bring us
to a new level of humility and sensitivity towards others who are going through
tough things themselves. If we have chosen to go down the latter road, then the healing process has awakened us to a whole new
level of compassion, allowing us to extend a healing hand to those who we may
not have been able to reach before we experienced deep pain. This, my friend,
becomes the precious touch of God flowing from our lives. My hope
and prayer is that you will be awakened to what you were made to be and what
you were meant to do in this world – to live fully alive. May you get a glimpse
of what it will take for you to leave the dark cellar of a battered life and
experience the life which is destined for you. We only
get one shot at life. Let’s not waste our days living for ourselves. Let’s live
to the fullest as God intended until we take our last breath.
Sometimes living to the fullest occurs when we
allow ourselves to experience the pain that others suffer. The stories in this
book are not easy reading or subject matter, but they are very important. Some
of the stories I write are hard to fully take in. They deal with human
trafficking, hurting children and other dark and painful, yet very real
situations. I tell them not to depress you, but rather to educate and show what
God is doing in some of the harshest places in the world.
-Rebecca Pratt, September 2011
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