When I imagined going on this journey, I imagined myself walking through weird foreign markets, praying for people and getting to sit with people in their suffering. I imagined empathizing with them; living closely to such poverty and feeling it rub off on my soul. People touching me in a way they never have before.
Now, I’m only in month one, but I think that my vision was probably a little bit wrong. Not in a bad way, but in the beautiful way that God gives us way more than we could have imagined or thought or hoped for.
In the way that would’ve been totally overwhelming in all the best and worst ways if He had told you ahead of time.
In the past 4 weeks that my team has been in South Africa, more than we ever could have imagined has happened. It’s so hard to even know where to start!
I thought I would use typical gifts I have. Ones that revolved around listening and empathizing. Bringing laughter and joy and dancing. Gifts, really, that I already knew I was gifted in.
I didn’t imagine learning that I was gifted in tilling a field by hand. That my weed-pulling skills were superior.
I didn’t know I was gifted in holding hands. I’ve held so many sad hands so gently.
I’ve prayed. Goodness, have I prayed. I’ve found God’s gifted me with the ability to know just how much we need to kneel before him. He reminds me in the most random of moments.
I’ve rediscovered my gift of being obnoxiously loud and friendly, attracting even the most unattractive of friends. Friends that need Jesus more often than not.
In any case, it hasn’t been typical. Whatever that means when you’re traveling to foreign countries, wearing dirty clothes, and eating weird things you would never dream of putting together on a “typical” day.
I would venture to say that one of each of my team members (including me) has cried almost every day; heart broken either for someone else or for their own ache of vulnerability and growth.
The enemy has attacked.
Nightmares and pain and sickness and fear and self-worth struggles.
God has shown up.
Healings and fullness of heart and answered prayers and Holy Spirit truth and divine meetings and beautiful souls.
So many beautiful souls.
Jesus shows up.
Wow, He shows up.
But goodness did it feel hopeless sometimes.
Yesterday, in my favorite dress, I sat on a urine soaked carpet and cried with a man as he had seizure after seizure, waiting hours for an ambulance.
Fuze, one of the residents here, started having seizures after a fall in church. I knew I should sit with him.
God wanted me to sit with him.
To offer whatever comfort and gifts I could give. This ended up being a crap ton of prayer and hand holding and semi-awful singing. It had to have been God (and not my voice) because He calmed as I sang and cried as I began crying.
I was hurting for his pain and hurting for my own heart.
Remembering my Dad’s own suffering.
When he was sick he often had seizures and they always seemed to stop time and me. I felt unbelievably helpless back then. Seizures are the sort of thing that you never think are that bad until you watch someone immobilized by them. All of the sudden a man becomes a child. A human with thoughts and logic and laughter become less than.
The helplessness that I once felt with my Dad washed over me with Fuze.
I bawled and prayed.
I comforted and sang.
And I found God.
Right. There.
Of course He was right there. I remembered the guilt I often still feel at not being enough for my Dad when he was sick.
At not being able to sit with him because I felt so much.
Too much.
At not being able to feed him because I couldn’t face him as a child instead of man.
It was too vulnerable.
It was too hard.
It was too big of an ache for my heart to feel.
Back then.
As I sat and held Fuze’s hand yesterday. A part of me was healed.
I realized that in my own humanity and youth I couldn’t be all of what I wanted to be to my Dad, but I could be that for Fuze.
With God.
With His strength and His courage and His boldness I could sit. And weep. And love.
Thank you Jesus. He makes me more than I could ever imagine being.
And that. That’s where I’ve landed this month.
Month 1.
He makes me more than I could ever imagine being.
I’ve ached deeper, thirsted harder, shivered more violently, and felt more conflict of emotion than I thought was possible.
I’ve also laughed louder and danced more breathlessly.
Whew. Just typing about all of it is making me tearful. I wish I could impart this to you, friends.
What it’s like to feel so much with Him.
To feel so ALIVE.
Take risks, friends. Make sacrifices and big jumps and feel all the fear. Because on the other side is more life.
Let me tell you the ending to this story. God wins.
Here we go.
Let’s all be brave.
