If you’ve been a regular reader of my blogs then you have probably noticed a theme within some of my blogs, trust. Mostly trusting my teammates and those around me with all of who I am. Something else you may have noticed is that I’ve tried to keep you all updated on the progress with my vision since taking off my glasses back at the end of March. I know that right now those seem like two totally different topics, but about a week ago they both really came to a point of breakthrough and in a way they mingle together a bit. This blog series will be about how God has worked through these two situations and brought freedom and hope to them both.
Throughout Africa I struggled with trust issues. I mentioned back in Thailand how I have many walls around my heart and that I was trying to learn to let people break through those walls and really know me. I’d made some strides in that and in being open and honest with my teammates, but there were still walls there. I had been working on why I am this way. What makes me not fully trust those around me? What makes me hold back? Why do I let fear keep me from being open? Do I really have trust in God that he has pout me in this situation with these people for a reason and that they are trustworthy and that community living is good? Do I believe those things at all? After processing through this with my teammates for the last few months I’d worked out a lot of what makes me have these tendencies, and the answers to these questions. At this point my teammates challenged me. They said I knew all the reasons, but now I was standing on the edge of a cliff and I just needed to jump off and trust that it would be okay. There was no other way to break through this. I too had come to this conclusion and I knew that was true.
In part number two of this story you may also remember that in Tanzania I was struggling with headaches pretty often. The thought of putting on my glasses crossed my mind, but I would quickly dismiss it because I thought that by putting on the glasses I was telling God and everyone else that it meant I didn’t think he could or would heal my eyes. I was challenged by Rozy my squad mom that it didn’t matter if I wore the glasses or not that God could heal my eyes and unless God was still saying to keep them off that I should put them back on and enjoy the ability to see better. After an 18 hour bus ride from Tanzania to Uganda where I had plenty of time to think and pray I realized that I had been keeping the glasses off as a way to try and force God’s hand to heal my eyes. Like if I keep up my part of the deal then he has to heal my eyes. There is no formula for what God does or why he does it. He has bigger plans than I can ever understand and I realized that I was no longer keeping the glasses off for a good reason and that I should put them back on. So in the beginning of Uganda I did just that.
