Thanksgiving and deep burden

Well today has been a sort of roller coaster emotional day. Not really what it's supposed to be but hopefully you'll understand when I get to that part, but let me start at the beginning.

I slept really late today and it was awesome. Mom walked into the room saying "Timbo, you gonna get up?" she preceded to inform the that it was almost 11. Awesome wake up to lunch! Well almost lunch, I got up and went with my mom to get my niece and she was sooo cute as always! (http://yfrog.com/14yhp0j) When I got back the youngsters wanted me to play football again, so I agreed with the understanding that I was quarterback only (couldn't do all that running two days in a row). When that was over it was time for some food. The food was great just as I expected it would be. After that me and some family watched some NFL and had a little trash talk about tomorrow's Iron Bowl. I was the only Auburn fans around all those bammers so it was really useless trying to talk sensible.

After that is when the roller coaster of emotions began. I started talking to some other family member and when ask what my future held I answered, "full time missions or youth ministry." That's where the conversation went down hill. Some family member verbally expressed their dislike of my missions plans. And I just wanted to disappear. They were supposed to be encouraging me (or at least that's how I envisioned it). They were all fine with me doing youth ministry but missions seem crazy to them. I don't understand how they can feel one part of ministry is more important than another. I love my family but after this talk was over I was down cast. Walking around the rest of the day I had deep burden on me. I was burdened for my family. Some of those people are believers and they don't want me going overseas for my entire life? But most importantly I was burdened for people overseas. I realized this is how most of America feels about missions. They fill that they are only responsible for themselves and nobody else. It breaks my heart to realize that most people don't care about the 26,000 children that die everyday from starvation and preventable disease (not saying my family doesn't care about those people). I wonder if American's (my family specifically) understand that the amount of food we had to is more than most the world has in a year. Little did those family members know that they were actually pushing me more towards missions than they were talking me into staying. Be praying for me about what God has in store for my life. I'm not worried about the future because I know who holds it in there hands.

Counting all things loss,

Timothy Mathis