MERCY

Alaina

Before hearing about Genesis 24 and the camels, I began to pray that I could get to know God better. In deepening my relationship with Him, I also hoped that I would get to know myself better, since I was feeling a little lost. In order to better understand where I'm coming from, let me back up to the year before. At that time, I had prayed for a new direction in my walk with God, and instead of a spiritual change, I ended up with a life change. He showed me all the reasons why my current major was wrong and guided me to Nursing. I know without the slightest doubt that starting Nursing school is exactly where God wants me to be, but I was struggling with my purpose.

I was finishing up my last semester before transferring in the fall, and I was starting to wonder why God had kept me here. I knew there was a purpose to His plan; I just didn't know what it was. I started to pray that I would know Him more so that I could better show Him and His love to others. I prayed to Him to change me because I finally realized that the only way to grow is to change. For about a month, I prayed all those things and felt like I didn't hear anything from God.

Then, one Thursday at Bible study, Julie told us about the camels, and everything I'd been feeling for the past month seemed to fall into place. My first reaction was that it was going to take me weeks to figure out what the name of my camel was because I'm the kind of person who thinks things to death, resurrects them, and then over-thinks them some more. Almost immediately, the word mercy popped into my head. My first thought was, "No way. That was way too quick, and I don't even really know what mercy means." 

Directly after Bible study, I was telling my best friend about my devotion from the night before. It was about finding your identity in Christ, which, as you know, was something I was searching for. I whipped out my Bible and read to her 1 Peter 2:10: "Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God's people. Once you received no mercy, now you have received God's mercy." I proceeded to plow onto whatever point I was trying to make when my best friend (who later found out she was Grace) stopped me and asked me to read the verse again. I did, and that time it hit me...the verse talking about identity said, "mercy" twice! I mean you can't get much clearer than that! After that, there was no doubt in my mind that I was riding on Mercy. 

Before I had even heard about my camel, before I'd even prayed to help find my identity in Christ, God had already answered my prayer within that verse. He had answered my prayer before I'd even prayed it! I realized that I no longer had to wonder what I was doing here or feel overwhelmed by trying to be an example to others of all the ways Christ loves us. It's so freeing to know that I'm riding on Mercy and that by focusing on that, Christ can work through me.