What I’m about to recount to you is a narrative of a series of circumstances that all added up to my state of mind and heart at the beginning of this month. I’ve always known that God’s way of doing things and His timing has humor in it at times and is always completely purposeful. These last couple of weeks have been good evidence of it. I’m in Montenegro now but our last couple of days in Greece were harder than I thought they would be. It was harder than I was expecting to leave the island of Lesvos and the refugees. Walking away from the camp and realizing that I’m just leaving everyone there still stuck there with not a lot of hope of getting out anytime soon and thinking about how I will probably never see any of them again was strange. I really poured myself out the last two days we were at camp, I felt more apart of it and like I really had ownership and responsibilities those two days. I loved it. But I was completely exhausted when I walked out of camp that last day.
The last night before we left Lesvos we all went out to eat with our ministry host and their friends (it was their last night in Greece also because God was calling them to other ministries and adventures). I felt terrible. I was coming down with a bad cold and had chills and fever. I had laid down between camp and dinner in hopes of feeling better but couldn’t get warm enough to go to sleep, I was shaking uncontrollably. I wanted to go to dinner still though because it was our last night in Lesvos and it was our last time with our hosts and I wanted that time with them. I went and started feeling a little better but still not great but it was a good night of fellowship.
That whole week I had gotten very little sleep and all I could think about at dinner was going home and going to sleep but because of the crazy week I still had not packed up my backpack and we had to leave early in the morning so it needed to be done that night. When we did finally get home I found out that two of my super close friends had gotten engaged and I was soooo pumped and excited for them! I ended up talking to them on the phone for a while which was such a blessing and joy. It did make my packing go late into the night however so once again, not a lot of sleep.
We had to spend the day in Mytilene before catching the ferry and normally I would be all about exploring and seeing the city but because of how I was feeling, I sat in a coffee shop and slept on the YWAM boat all day…very much not like me at all.
During this time, I also had found out that I was going to still be gone out of the country for an important event that was going on in some of my friend’s lives back home that I wanted to be apart of. To be completely honest, the news of this knocked my feet out from under me emotionally. I’m a very relational person. When it comes to things that I miss from home it’s very rarely things or stuff or comforts, but it’s people and missing out on big and little things in the lives of those I care about that really hits me the most. Those are the things that are hard to swallow. So there was a lot of processing and talking to God and letting Him heal my heart and trusting Him.
We were having Debrief at this time, which is where the whole squad gets together and our mentor and coaches come out and meet with us and see how things are going. They led us in fully processing what we had seen and experienced in Greece. It was interesting because when we were in Greece I didn’t feel heavy at all, it was a lot of fun and I loved getting to love on the people we were with. But after we left I felt so exhausted and worn out and heavy from our time there. It was as if God’s favor and grace had been on us so strongly while we were there but now that we left it was time to feel everything.
To top all of this off, we also were doing team changes at this Debrief. So all of the comforts and friendships we had developed over the past 4 months were about to get all changed up. Team changes are a good thing but they are hard at the same time when you really love your old team. I believe that I was blessed with such an amazing first team, we genuinely loved each other and were healthy and pushed each other towards Christ.
While at Debrief, an epidemic of lice broke out within our squad. Now for those of you who don’t know me super well, lice are my top irrational fear. I had a super bad case of them about 6 or 7 years ago and couldn’t get rid of them for the whole summer. For years after this time I became extremely paranoid of them (as in thinking about all cloth surfaces in public, like movie theaters, and how easy it is to get them). It used to consume my thoughts. I HATE lice. But God has brought me so far in my fear of them and in my trusting of Him and living in freedom. He has taught me how to take my thoughts captive when it comes to this. One other girl and I became the chief lice experts in our squad and had multiple nights of hour upon hour of going through girl’s hair, one little piece at a time, to get out all bugs and eggs. If you only knew what a big deal that was for me you would crack up!
I woke up one of the mornings during that week and discovered that my cold had spread to my eyes too. One was completely sealed shut and puffy and the next morning the other eye was sealed shut as well. It was quite hilarious to see me try to get off my top bunk bed and head to the bathroom while barely being able to see out of both my eyes. I looked like Quasimodo.
I say all of this to try to explain all of the craziness that was going on for me at this point. In the midst of all this physical, spiritual, and emotional upheaval, the leadership of our squad asked me if I would pray and consider being a leader of one of the next teams they were making. It was out right funny timing. I was so excited to get to be a leader of a team and so excited about the group of girls that I was going to get to pour into and do life with but I could not have been asked at a more weak moment on the race for me. I had absolutely nothing to give. I was completely worn out in everyway and running on E. And at this point God asks me to step into more responsibility. I love Him for doing it to me like that. He knows that I tend to try to do things in my own strength and have to constantly be reminded to rely on Him and let it be all Him in my life. It was a not so subtle message of Him saying that yes, I have called you to big things, but it’s Me in you that will do the big things, not you doing big things and letting Me tag along. He has to be my source for everything. So when life is going a bit nuts and you don’t know which way is up, just wait. God, in all His wisdom and purposefulness and yes, sense of humor, might just be up to something.
