Costa Rica// June, 2010
July 2010
“Mom I’m sick.”
“I’m sure you’re fine, it’s probably just adjusting back to American food.”
“No mom…something is wrong. I’m in the worst pain I have ever been in…something is wrong.”
I remember it like it was yesterday. Crying on the way to the hospital because the pain was unbearable. Begging the doctors to not send me home because the hemorrhaging and vomiting wouldn’t stop. I remember my mom’s face. She looked like she had seen a ghost. She didn’t have answers, and saying “It’s going to be okay” to her only child would be a lie.
The following weeks consisted of tears, hospital food, uncertainty, and even some anger with God. At 17 years old, I had just come back from my very first mission trip…I was a tad bitter with God that he would allow me to get sick. I remember talking to God and saying, “What the heck…I go and tell people about you and this is what I get in return?! Death?!” I even remember making a deal with God…as if that changes his timing. I was all alone in the hospital bed crying, all I wanted to do was get out of there. All I wanted was to stop throwing up and bleeding. All I wanted was for the doctors to say that I was going to be okay…I closed my eyes and told God, “Jesus, if you let me live…I promise I will be yours to use. I promise I will sacrifice everything and be a missionary. ONLY IF you let me live”.
Now I’m not saying that’s how God works…Trust me. But I will say this. He has a plan and purpose for everything. There were many tears shed in that hospital room. There were many fears that were brought to the cross. There were even some curse words here and there, and anger that had to be dealt with. But, there was also a lot of growth. There was joy. There was hope. There was Jesus.
I remember no doctors could put an IV in my body because my veins kept collapsing. I would get poked 15-30 times a day until they finally scheduled a picc line to be inserted. As the doctor prepared my arm with the necessary gels and liquids, I began to sing “Blessed be the name of the Lord”. To my dismay, the doctor smiled and quietly said, “I love that song…do you want to pray with me before I put your picc line in?”. In that room we prayed, we sang, and even cried. God prepared me in that moment for battle, but he also gave me a glimpse of him providing for my future.
Did Jesus let me live so that I would be a missionary? I don’t know. Did he let me get sick so that I might know how to respond if I were to get sick again? Was my sickness a gift to see how he provides even in scary moments? Did I get sick so that my testimony would radically change and I would learn that in health and sickness, God and his kingdom is worth it? I don’t know. What I do know, is that whether I live today and die tomorrow, that God is faithful and is not surprised by anything. He is still good and his love is constant, beautiful, and worth going to the nations and proclaiming from mountain tops about.
June 2010 I went on my first missions trip to Costa Rica and had my heart broken for the nations. For God’s children.
July 2010 I was admitted to Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital and was on the verge of death.
October 2016 I am going back to Costa Rica for the first time since 2010, with full expectancy that God is going to do some radical things for his kingdom.
I write these things to you not to guilt trip your support and prayers, but to invite you on to this journey with me. I am so grateful that I still have many people in my life who were there with me during that scary time. It is so special that these people are still praying for me, and get to see what God has done in my life since 2010. I can’t promise that I won’t get sick again. I can’t promise that missions = safety. What I can promise, is God has the power to move mountains…and I am so excited to say YES and to GO because of what he has done in me. Friends and family, I am about $3,000 away from being fully funded. I want to say thank you for believing in me, but ultimately for believing in God and what he is about to do.
“Death to self sometimes requires us to abandon safety, to leave comfort, to forsake wealth, status, and even relationship. But it also makes possible joy, peace, and love. This death allows us to become fully alive”
– Seth Barnes
