Happy Monday, all! I’m trying to get back in the swing of blogging regularly, so hopefully you’ll be hearing from me a little more often now. I would also love to hear from you all – text me, Facebook me, email me, or comment on one of these blogs! Let me know what’s new in your life, tell me how I can be praying for you, send me a picture of your best friend’s grandmother’s dog – whatever floats your boat. I am, and forever will be, relational to the core, so when I share my heart in these blogs it is in the hopes that those who read it will be inspired and empowered to share theirs as well. Maybe not on the internet for all of cyberspace to see…but in whatever way feels most comfortable for you!
As I’ve said before, this has been – and still is – a hard, hard season. I have felt more helpless, needy, and burdensome than ever before. I have been broken in more ways that I can count…and then broken again as my pride takes the hit of realizing that I cannot fix the hard things in my life on my own. I simply cannot meet many of my own needs in this season of in-betweenness, nor can I solve many of my problems alone. I have never in my life been more grateful for sweet friends who patiently listen and walk through this hard season with me – not fixing the hard, but acknowledging it and, most importantly, reminding me of hope in the midst of it all. To those dear friends: you know who you are, but you cannot possibly ever understand how grateful I am to you for embodying the love and grace of Jesus in my life. You all are my inspiration.
“And even though I realize that I cannot always mend or meet, I can enter in. I can enter into someone’s pain and sit with them and know. This is Jesus. Not that He apologizes for the hard and the hurt, but that He enters in, He comes with us to the hard places. And so I continue to enter.” ~Kate Davis, Kisses from Katie
Recently, I have been coming to the painful awareness of just how helpless I am to meet the needs of others in the ways that I would like to. A best friend fighting for her life in the ICU half a world away. A community of hearts forever knit together by a summer spent in Charleston, now coming together to grieve the unexpected loss of a beloved friend and brother in Christ. In situations like these, is is both frustrating and humbling to realize how little I can do – how powerless I am to ‘fix’ the problems of those I love most.
And here I am, preparing to spend 11 months in 11 countries that are known for being breeding grounds of immense poverty and illness and hunger and brokenness. Here I am, preparing to spend 11 months falling in love with people whose lives are harder than I could ever possibly imagine, whose lives are affected daily by more problems than I could ever hope to solve. How faithful is our Lord, that He is using this season of staying as a ‘preschool’ of sorts, preparing me for the impossibly hard lessons that await me in the ‘school’ of the World Race and international ministry. Because isn’t that life’s greatest paradox – the juxtaposition of deep joy and immense suffering, neither emotion cancelling out the other or lessening the intensity of its grip on our heart, but both of them simultaneously forcing us to come to terms with irreconcilable contradiction.
“I breathe long and deep all that God is doing in this place, all that He is allowing me to participate in, and my heart swells with gratitude, with deep, unshakable joy. And in the same breath, just like the women at the tomb, I am terrified. Because I know it to be true: in order to experience the deep joys of the Father, we must experience the heartaches too. In order to know Jesus the way that I have known Him, I have had to give my heart to people in ways that I never would have chosen.” ~Katie Davis, 4/19/14
I know that I have SO much still to learn, and I am beyond excited to see how the World Race teaches and grows and stretches me, but I am also growing in my appreciation of the lessons that I’m learning here and now. As I am confronted time and time again with problems that I cannot fix and situations that I cannot make any less hard, this is what I’m learning:
We are not meant to be fixers. We are meant to be children.
God did NOT create us out of dust, knowing full-well the havoc that we would wreak on His beautiful earth and the brokenness we would bring with our sin and then say, ‘Go therefore, and clean up this hideous mess you’ve made. Solve all the problems you’ve created in this world and don’t come ask Me for anything again until you’ve fixed everything and made it right again.’ He didn’t do anything of the sort and I thank Him for it every.single.day. Because I’ve realized that I can’t be a fixer. In fact, most days I fail pretty epicly at just being the grateful and obedient daughter I was created to be. And STILL He speaks tenderly to me:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” (Jeremiah 31:3)
“I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:9-10)
“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be free from your suffering.” (Mark 5:34)
So, will you join me today in resting in the knowledge that you don’t have to be a fixer? It’s a beautiful truth to embrace.
“Sometimes the sadness seems almost unbearable, the problems unsolvable, the wounds unhealable. This has taught me one of the greatest lessons: the tension between inefficiency and faithfulness. The assurance that I must obey and be faithful only to what He has asked of me, even when tangible, earthly results or successes are not seen. I want to help them all, fix all their problems, and successfully find a solution to their horrendous living conditions. But often in an unideal situation, there is not an ideal solution this side of heaven…God assures me this is okay. If I continue to preach the gospel, and more important, live the gospel, here- even if outward conditions never change or change very slowly- and these people can live eternally with Jesus in heaven someday, a few years of suffering will pale in comparison.” ~Katie Davis, Kisses from Katie
In His love,
Cassady
**You may have noticed from reading this blog (or from spending any significant amount of time talking to me), that I’m kind of obsessed with Katie Davis and her book Kisses from Katie. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone, and will probably continue to use quotes by her in my blogs because her words just resonate with me. I would encourage you to buy her book and/or support the work she’s doing in Uganda through her organization called Amazima Ministries (http://amazima.org/)!
