The other day I started a blog post after the light in my bathroom went out. It was an observation about how I was going to live life the next 11 months, but it was wrapped in a perfect little box and delivered in a cute story. Don’t get me wrong, it was real, but I don’t think I had felt the depth of emotions I was about to feel.
Later that night I read a blog from someone explaining everything the World Race is not. The premise was don’t go on the World Race if…..you like comfort. To be honest right now I can’t think of all the other reasons they listed. I loved the blog. It was saying if you aren’t going with the right heart you aren’t going to make it because the conditions are far from ideal. It was saying if you aren’t sold out to the mission of what you are doing, you may want to rethink your decision.
I got stuck on the comfort one, not because I am attached to my creature comforts. I can handle sleeping on the ground, not having television, and all those things. What got me was a picture of a “bathroom!” A hole in the ground surrounded by stuff that should have been in the ground, not on it. This was real to me. This is the reality that I am about to go into. Suddenly everything was brought clear to me in a single picture. The realness of what I am about to do hit me straight on. Am I bothered that I hadn’t embraced this before? Yes, I am.
Today I saw pictures of flooding in Serra Leone. People are lamenting because their homes have been destroyed. They live in shacks. SHACKS. I wonder how many Americans would be mortified to see this? Not at the travesty of someone living in such conditions, but because I can hear this rolling off of people’s tongues, “I could never live there!” It makes me angry and I want to scream and make everyone understand what people live like on the other side of the world. While some drive to work in their fancy cars, people are crying because they lost their home that was built out of tin and had a dirt floor.
The word I would use to describe how I feel is hopeless. Powerless. I can’t stop water, I can’t stop flooding. I can’t make people here care about the livelihood of others that they cannot see. I can’t bring anything to those people, they need more help than I can give. I can’t do anything to make this better. Can I? These thoughts are rushing through my brain as I think about floods, and disasters, and orphans, and trafficking.
I wrote a blog about my light going out and how I’ll live 11 months in countries with situations so much bigger than this. Then I was forced to face the “bigger” and I am overwhelmed.
This is me being real. This is the battle going on in my head and I wanted to share while it is fresh on my mind. I don’t know that I fully grasp the enormity of this situation. I think I have compartmentalized a bit. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and two pictures have opened the floodgates for me.
Can I stop water? Can I single-handedly make people see? Can I give hope to those in dire need? Can I? I know this much, I can be a vessel.
