Earlier this month, my squad leader, Crystal, and I were sitting on a park bench in one of my favorite little parks in the cute town of Svishtov, Bulgaria. This park in particular is one of my favorites because as you walk through you can watch the yellow and red leaves fall from the tall trees above and gracefully hit in the ground. It reminds me of sitting at coffee shops in Fort Collins watching the leaves fall!
As Crystal and I were talking, I asked her what her greatest piece of advice is for World Racer. She replied by saying,
“realizing that the World Race isn’t about YOU.”
Um…Woah. That will hit you in the face… And then hit you in the face again. Did she really mean that it isn’t about how many Instagram likes I get on my artsy photos? Did she REALLY mean that the Earth wouldn’t stop spinning if I gained 50 pounds overnight from all the bread and cheese? Okay, I’m half kidding, but her bold and truthful words kept spinning around in my mind day after day as my thoughts strayed from selflessness to selfishness. Let me explain by sharing with you some of my unfiltered and honest thoughts from this month:
My team and I are spending the month doing a variety of ministry projects. One of our projects is visiting an orphanage in a nearby village. As we drove to the village, my team and I could hardly contain our excitement – we were going to get to love on orphaned babies for the rest of the day! Wohoo!! As we walked in the orphanage, we realized that our expectations for the day were vastly different than what was actually going to happen. The orphanage is actually an orphanage for 16-18-year-old boys and a very small handful of 16-18-year-old girls. Still excited and hopeful, my team, of 21 to 23-year-old women, and I sat down at a big picnic table with about 10 boys. We instantly got to sharing stories about what God is doing in our lives and how He’s rescued us from our darkness. Things, in my opinion, were going great! The kids were asking us really intriguing questions about why we believe in Jesus and His resurrection! In what seemed like the middle of our conversation, one of the boys got up and turned on some obscene rap music and somehow our Jesus pow-wow very quickly turned into what felt like an inner city night club with sexual gestures flying all over the place. To say that I was uncomfortable would be a vast understatement. I, unsuccessfully, stood, wide-eyed, in the back of the room attempting to avoid any invitations to dance and watched the clock tick by. Finally, our time at the orphanage was over!! Praise God!! If I’m being completely honest, I remember sitting in the car on the way home and thanking God that I wouldn’t have to visit that orphanage again. In the middle of my prayer I was interrupted by our host saying that we’ll be going back next Wednesday. *cue the ever so dramatic eye roll* WHAT?! Oh my goodness had I hoped I was sick that day.
Fast forward to next Wednesday morning – I like to think I make the best of most situations and am a pretty compassionate person, but Wednesday morning, I wouldn’t say I fell under either of those descriptions. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day. I spent the whole morning dreading our afternoon at the orphanage, and I was selfishly wondering how I could get out of going to the orphanage. My moral compass got the best of me, and I ended up going to the oprhanage. Our day at the orphanage was spent mostly with one young boy who found out the day prior that his biological father had just passed away. In that moment, I thought my heart was crumbling inside my chest. As I was listening to his story, my heart broke knowing that this young boy had no support or love at the orphanage from any of the workers or other kids. Tears welling in my eyes, I looked around and saw 3 teens making out in the back corner, a boy making extremely gruesome sexual innuendos at a young girl, and two boys fighting each other. Wow… none of these kids even care that this boy is sharing one of the most heartbreaking and vulnerable stories I’ve ever heard. That’s when it hit me…
THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU, CLAIRE.
In that moment, my heart completely shattered. I felt like I could see these kids exactly as God sees them, and let me tell you it was ABSOLUTELY HEARTBREAKING. I went home that night and sat under my favorite tree in the park and cried and cried. I wept about the situation those young kids were thrown into, about them not having any supervision or guidance, about the decisions they were making, about the future that was likely in front of them… And in all honesty, I saw pieces of my old, very broken, self in those kids.
Why had I gotten so lucky to have parents, family, friends, and mentors who loved me and fought for me, even when I least deserved it? Why did God rescue me from my darkness when He did? When would He rescue those kids? How could my heart have been so selfish when those kids very clearly need every tiny sliver of hope they can get?
God has a way of so gently whispering to us, but in this moment it felt like someone was screaming at me,
LIFE ISN’T ABOUT YOU, CLAIRE.
Every time I replay this memory, I feel like someone’s punching me in the gut. How long have I lived thinking that life is about me? Let me just tell you, it’s been far too long.
I know what you’re thinking – Claire, you gave up a year of your life to serve the Lord overseas. Yes, yes, I did. However, I still catch myself, too often, believing the lie that life is about me. I’ll be the first to tell you that being a missionary doesn’t mean my selfish ambitions magically disappear. Every day, I have to fight the very real temptations of seeking and serving myself rather than first seeking the Kingdom of God and second seeking to serve others. Here is yet another example of some of my clouded and self-seeking thoughts for persuasive purposes:
God has a funny sense of humor. The day after we visited the orphanage for the second time, I got sick (perfect timing, right?). My team and I were scheduled to do landscaping work at the local Respite home for disabled children and adults. As I was hoeing the ground, with rain drops hitting my face, and my joints screaming at me from all the sick aches, I wanted so badly to take a break and go lay down in our warm church. Seconds later, the desire to go back to the cozy church escaped my mind, and I felt an overwhelming sense of joy and thanksgiving remembering that:
This isn’t about me.
It’s about those cute little kids who got to enjoy the playground because it was now cleaned up.
It’s about showing people more of Jesus.
It’s about bringing more of Heaven to Earth.
Every day as I remind myself that life isn’t about me, the trajectory of my day radically shifts from being self-focused to being others-focused and centered on Jesus. I am learning that living a missional life isn’t just a temporary phase in my life that ends when I land back on American soil, but the bold and truthful words Crystal told me ring true for every facet of life. The day we fully grasp that life isn’t about us is the very day that everything changes.
It’s the day that we respond in love and not out of selfish ambition.
It’s the day that even more of Heaven is brought to Earth.
It’s the day that more of Jesus’ heart is revealed in our every thought and action.
It’s the day that abundant life truly starts.
(Lots of!) Love,
Claire
