I sat at the table looking at my certificate congratulating me on my graduation from the Center for Global Action with the picture of my smiling class below it. I look at the face of the people who have not been just classmates and roommates, but family. How can it be four months ago that I started? It seems like only a week ago, yet I have learned more in these short four month then I think I did on The World Race.
Christmas has always been a time of reflection because a year is an amount of time that can be wrapped up in a neat little package and be stored away somewhere for later, but my journey isn’t organized so nicely. My life feels like mismatched puzzle pieces that I am trying to fit together. I know they must make sense somehow, but I am still missing so many pieces.
Living amongst poverty and devastation last year left me in a broken place. I saw many hard things that were emblazed into my memory and I heard a lot of difficult stories that ripped my heart open. I was also living in very stressful circumstance with the same people for a year. When you are hard-pressed, things can come out of you that you did not even realize were there.
I not only discovered the brokenness in the world, but the brokenness that was inside of me as well. I have always hidden behind being an emotional rock and spent much of my time and energy on bringing healing to others. When I arrived in Gainesville, Georgia for CGA this September after months and months of resistance, I knew almost immediately God no longer wanted me to be the nurse, but the patient.
Self-loathing, self-rejection, and self-consciousness floated up to surface level all began to haunt me. Things that have plagued me and imprisoned me my entire life were beginning to whiter and I now felt like a knife had been inserted into my heart. God would not let it go until I was able to let Him take these deadly infections out of me…permanently. He sent people, circumstances, words, and even songs when I needed them to remind me that the pain is nothing compared to the joy that was coming.
I had to let go of a lot of things in my heart this year, but it leaves so much more room for joy and hope. I have found hope in the story God will give me, just as I saw hope in the slums of Africa and the bars of Asia and the orphanages of Central America. It is there if you look. God has given me so many things in my life and I have never felt so thankful.
For the last four months I have been spending my mornings interning for Venture Magazine. Through the team there I have been able to be encouraged and challenged as a writer and wrote several pieces for the magazine that have been published. If you have time, here are the links to some of the articles that I have written this year:
http://venturemagazine.org/you-can-live-a-full-life-in-just-five-years/
http://venturemagazine.org/the-village-it-took-to-birth-a-child/
I have been offered a full-time job with Adventures in Missions in their Encounter department where I will be working with their short-term ministries setting up and leading trips. I start in January and will be there for at least the next year.
God has brought me to such a place of healing and joy and I am so grateful every day that I get to live this live as one of His and that He will never leave me or give up on me.
I am thankful for all of you and for being a part of my life and the work that God is doing though Adventures in Missions. Merry Christmas!!
