Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

“I have seen you in the sanctuary and behold your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” Psalm 63:2-8

Today marks the completion of my third week here. I’ll be honest with you; I don’t always love it. I’ve been here for almost three months in total, and find myself often counting down how many more months, weeks, weekends, and days I have left until I get to go home and close the Costa Rica chapter of my life. The journey is tough and often lonely. Psalm 63 is my “study abroad Psalm”. I read it my first week here and God has impressed it upon my heart. The above quote is just a portion of the psalm. My soul keeps coming back to the question: Is God enough? Can I truly say of God: “your love is better than life”, or “My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods.” The answer isn’t always yes, but I earnestly want it to be.

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.” Psalm 62:5-6

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” Psalm 62:8

Day by day God is teaching me to find rest in Him. To pour out my heart to Him, and that His love actually is better than life. He IS enough. Everyone that I love, and the places and things that give me comfort, may be 1,946 miles away, but God is not even an inch away! He’s the only one in my life who I will never be separated from, how great is that! We can never escape His love and He is so faithful. It’s easy for me to start to create a “pity-party list” and start to resent being here… such as missing Thanksgiving, missing birthdays, missing fall, missing being part of my Bible study and not being involved in the lives of the new freshman at WKU, missing most of the holiday season, missing my family, being a semester behind in school, not getting to take classes with Hannah, not being able to pick apples or pumpkins, being the only girl here who doesn’t drink alcohol, missing-out on black Friday shopping… ok, I’ll stop now! However, that is a very dangerous road! Instead:

“… demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5

God is teaching me to do as Psalm 63 says, to praise Him, and to find satisfaction in Him alone. I have SO MUCH to be thankful for! Instead of keeping a pity-party list, I’m going to keep a gratitude list. When I’m tempted to throw a nice little “pity-party,” I’m going to instead choose to throw a “gratitude-party”. Listen to a few things that God has to say about being thankful:


Colossians 3:15-20
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Psalm 136:1
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

James 1:17
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Psalm 50:23
The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”

Hebrews 13:15
Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

God commands us to be thankful! So here are a few things on my gratitude list:
1. I’m so thankful for Cecy and Willy. Although I can’t see them as often as I would like too, I’m SO thankful for the ability to go home every once and awhile - to my Costa Rican home.

2. Relationships from this summer. I’m so grateful for my missionary friends from this summer who are still here. Again, I don’t get to see them as often as I would like to, but the times that I do get to see them are so sweet.

3. Great professors! So far I really love my professors. Two of them even taught at the Institute for several years before teaching at ULACIT. Most of them seem to really care about teaching us to speak Spanish… not so much about making us prove ourselves.

4. A great Tico mom! Amira is wonderful. I’m so blessed to live with her. She is very sweet, funny, caring, and a great cook! (Although, she has stopped cooking vegetarian food… that only lasted about a week. And yes, we eat rice and brown tuna fish…. But at least she doesn’t add any ketchup! But still, I can’t complain! When else will I ever get to drink freshly squeezed lemonade from lemons that are homegrown!?)

5. Christian fellowship! God is SO GOOD! Much to my surprise He has placed several Christians in this program! We are from different backgrounds, but all share a love for Christ. Today we started a Bible study at school. We had 7 people come! We are studying Ephesians… this is such a praise!

6. Opportunities to travel. The past few weeks I’ve been able to go to some pretty awesome places for FREE (well, ok the cost was included in my tuition for this semester…)! It has been so fun! I’ve been able to experience new things in God’s creation such as a volcano, rain forests, jungles, waterfalls etc. And I have many more travel opportunities to come!

7. Do-able workload. I was pretty stressed about taking all Spanish classes… but again God is so good because so far it has not been very overwhelming! He has given me an understanding of the language that allows me to speak with confidence and understand what is said in class! Praise God!

8. Opportunities to share my faith. I’m praying for more opportunities, but so far He has given me several opportunities to share my faith and several people here that I can minister to!

9. God’s faithfulness

10. His love

11. His power. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us!

12. God’s Wisdom.

13. God’s unfailing and never-ending love!

I could keep listing things all night! Even though I may feel homesick from time to time, God has richly blessed me. RICHLY! I want to always dwell in His presence. I have a long ways to go, often times I'd rather just complain and have a self-centered focus, instead of a Christ-centered focus; Lord, teach me to be more satisfied in You than the richest things the world has to offer! As the psalm says, Lord may I: think of you through the watches of the night, always desiring you above everything else! We have everything that we need in Him. Friends, let’s let praise be always on our lips and live a life of gratitude as we seek God together and find satisfaction in HIM alone!

For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. Psalm 107:9