pre-written
Two things:
- I need $461 more by July 1st to meet my last deadline for the race. ALL MONIES RECEIVED AFTER THIS DEADLINE WILL NOT GO TO ME AND INSTEAD WILL GO INTO A GENERAL DONATION TO ADVENTURES IN MISSIONS. Click on the Support Me button to donate.
- I have TONS more t-shirts to sell. Go to www.squareup.org/market/brennasworldrace to order.
I think I should give you some wild, grandiose examples of how God is working in Central America and how He is using me to bring His kingdom. I feel I should tell you just how happy I am to be here, that I have been transformed. I want to tell you how strong I’ve become and how I’m changing the world.
But I can’t. I can tell you some stories that would make you scratch your head in wonder, but not in the way that I think you’re expecting. I can tell you I’ve been transformed, but through pain more than happiness. I can tell you He is using my weaknesses way more than my strengths.
And more than these, I don’t want to tell you the reality: that I’m homesick now before more than I ever been. That nothing about this was what I was expecting. I expected to feel full, round and ripe with life like the scarlet-orange mangos I harvest from the side of the road every few days. Instead, I feel confused, angry, and apathetic. Four out of the past five months, I was incredibly frustrated because I felt like we weren’t doing enough, like we weren’t warranting your support. Like we weren’t earning it enough. I just wanted to be worth it, to prove myself in both my eyes and yours.
Now, I have the opposite problem. I don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t want to go anywhere, I don’t want to try, and I don’t want to invest. I want to lie in my hammock all day, eating bonbons, and zoning out to random movies. I don’t want to make myself available. I have questioned why on earth I’m here, all the while knowing I would be just as miserable somewhere else. What made me do this crazy thing called the World Race anyway? What made me think I would last eleven months outside of my spoiled American life? I felt something greater, and I bought the grandiose speeches saying how these people who went on the race really lived. I wanted to force myself to obey God. I wanted to kick myself off the cliff out of my comfort zone. But now? I keep wondering what difference we are possibly making. I question our motives: do we do this because we want our altruism to make our lives matter? Because I desperately want my life to matter. Sometimes I don’t quite believe God when He says it already does. So now I want to close it off. I want to pretend like I don’t care. I feel so not self-aware this month anyway, so why not close the deal?
But I do care. I choose to care. I can feel how I feel. I can feel tired of fighting, all alone, stuck in a land of reserved people, and away from both my biological family and my acquired family. I can do what I have been doing and seek the internet, electronics, and people at home for comfort instead of God and my team. I can choose to put myself in situations where I control the level of vulnerability I exhibit. I can hide away all the crappy parts about me and how I think I’ve failed and how I hope to heaven that my past team never finds out about how not victorious I have been this month. Or, I can choose joy. I can choose to believe the truth: that God has a purpose for me to be here, that He is sustaining me, that all in all, I am going to be OK. I don’t have to panic about how I can’t hide anywhere or how I can’t say the right Christian things that will make people think I’m worth something. You are my Hiding Place. God doesn’t work through my pretentions. He works through my brokenness, my utter acceptance that I have turned away from everything good to follow my own way. He works through my baseness to shine His light even fiercer. I don’t have to be anyone other than myself. So I’m not going to be. I’m not going to question my worth because I have value more than jewels: I have the value of Divine Blood Shed, not just in death, but every day in life as He chose the harder, better way instead of His own.
I caught a glimpse of my comfort zone tonight: I just saw my brother walk down the stage at graduation. Do you even comprehend right now how much God loves me? There was no guarantee that Skype would work. Our Wi-Fi is crappy. The power keeps fluctuating off and on. But I prayed for it and it was there, right when I needed it. I saw his school, where I have walked countless times over the years. That’s my place out there, thousands of miles away. I don’t know what will happen after the race. What I do know is that I choose not to be the same. I will probably stumble and fall, like I have this month. I’m so susceptible to waves of emotion, lies accompanied by despairing feelings, sapping of energy. But I am not going to back down. I am writing this for the whole world to see so that when it happens, you can tell me to get off my duff and fight. I don’t have to be hopeless or stuck or feel overlooked or not important. I am important. I sometimes act like God’s word isn’t good enough, that I need humans to validate me, but I don’t. God is more than enough. Humans are fallible and as fragile as a tumbleweed in a dust storm, so I should stop seeking them over God.
Choosing Jesus was the best thing I ever did and ever will do. It is hard though. But bring it on. Bring it on! He can take it.
Well this was supposed to be a fundraising blog and it turned out to me a BUAAAA THIS IS MY LIIIFE blog. But anyway, I need $461 before July 1st. Can you help please? Thanks.
-Brenna
