So I have been home for almost four months now and I still have to remind myself every day that I really traveled to 11 different countries in 11 months. It is hard to imagine that I was blessed with the opportunity to hold little orphan babies from all over the world! I wish that was my full time job, but as of now, it is not. I did not really know what to expect coming back to America: would I be the one having a breakdown in the middle of the cereal aisle at Wal-Mart, would I be the one who loses all their friends because I have changed? I had no idea. What happened I did not think would ever happen.
Nothing changed at all. I went back to the same job (which was not the plan). I went back to having almost no alone time despite finally actually have an entire room to myself!
I had such confidence that I would see God move in America the same way I saw Him move all around the world. It is not like God changes as I move from place to place, yet there have been so many times that I feel the exact thing I never thought I would. I feel alone. I feel like this was the peak of my life and its all a downhill struggle from here on out. How could I feel this when that is NOT what MY God tells me.
I saw Him make it rain for three days straight in a place in the Dominican Republic where it had not rained for 4 months. I saw Him make the power go out all over Chiang Mai, Thailand when we prayed for Him to shut down the Red Light District. He is omnipresent; nowhere in all His creation can anyone or anything hide. So why would he just forget me and leave me to mosey on for the rest of my time here on earth?
After seeing and experiencing these beautiful things, I was hungry to see Him move in the good ole US of A. Although He is always moving and doing things for the better in our lives, I was missing it. For 11 months I was learning how to just let go of my own plans for my future and even the day-to-day things, yet I got home and it was like I took such good notes for a class only to find out the class was cancelled. Everything seems to be a distant dream that I long to relive again. Is this really what I signed up for: to have a glimpse of such incredible things and to hear about so many more things God is doing around the world and then to just come back home, thinking that’s all God had planned for me?
I don’t think so. Well, at least I hope not.
It hurts me to say that I have fallen back into some of the desires America cherishes, but I have. I want enough money to be comfortable. I want stylish clothes, new technology, and all these temporary things that seem so urgent to get. Yet I look through my photos from the past 11 months and I crave the months where we had to walk a mile or more just to get electricity. Where you had food that was a far stretch from fine dining. Where when you found out that you could flush the toilet paper was the most exciting news of the day. Things I saw that changed my life are just a whisper getting drowned out by the humdrum life. I miss those struggles.
Then slowly it starting coming to me. I am doing just fine!
Just because I am not having emotional breakdowns when I see parents buying $300 worth of clothes and shoes for the still growing 10 year old or having a bible study with all my co-workers does not mean that I am not doing EXACTLY what I am supposed to be doing. As much as I want to be sharing about what God had done in and through my life around the world, that is not what He wants me to do right now. He wants me to love, that’s it. It all makes sense, yet took so long for me to figure out. (Go figure) My lost and broken co-workers and customers don’t need to get story after story about what God did in my life, He just wants to show them how much HE loves them through me. I feel it every day. There are many days that usually I would not have the patience to deal with people yet I find myself so overwhelmed with love for hard-to-love people. It doesn’t seem hard because it’s not me doing the love. It’s my loving, patient, and gracious Father showing His love through me.
People always say how can you believe in a God that you cannot see? Well how can you see love? It is not a physical thing, you show love by caring for one another, among other things. People might not like the God I serve or the love I show but, with the Fathers strength, I hope and pray that they can see that no matter how rude, mean, vulgar, you name it, no matter how bad it may seem, I will show love and the love I show does not even come close to the love of the Father.My Heavenly Father is beyond thrilled no matter what I am doing to give Him glory. He loves us unconditionally and is using me to share that with all His children.
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It is crazy that this is happening, but this is my final World Race blog! It’s a weird thing to get emotional about, but for over 11 months I have been trying to share what God was doing and what He continues to do with my incredible journey around the world, and now that season is over. But wait there’s more: although I will not be blogging on this page anymore, I WILL continue to be sharing my life on my new blog site anthonyjpinto.wordpress.comThere, you will be able to be able to keep tabs on me as I make my way to Mijas, Spain! Spain, say what?!?
