Trying to explain seasons of life and seasons in relationship with the lord seems impossible sometimes, but I am going to try hard to explain the walk the lord and I just made.
So let me tell you, Africa shook my world. In Africa the lord and I walked through the hardest season we have had yet. The visual representation the lord gave me of this season was a dark, scary forest, but at the end there was an opening. This opening was a huge, warm and welcoming field. Exactly what Dorothy sees in the Wizard of Oz. The beginning of Africa was hard in the way of transitioning to a new country, new team and new ministry. As time went on the Lord opened my eyes and heart to see the pain of this world and painful events in life that I ignored to feel. It’s hard to explain but my heart hurt all of the time, it seemed as if events kept happening and my heart would break more and more. Something that happened in this time is that the Lord called me to say ‘see you later’ to two humans that I love and care for so deeply. As I watched someone I love and lived with leave the Race and re-enter the States, I felt a lot of loneliness. I wanted so deeply to process, laugh and love along side this human. I know now that I will have the rest of my life to do this with them but at this point in time it hurt. It hurt deeply. It lead me to have a lot of questions for the Lord about love, how to love when it hurts and how to love unconditionally, especially when distance and communication separate you. While the Lord asked me to grieve and process the pain, He asked me to see the hurt in the world. He asked me to trust Him in knowing there is good. Knowing He is good. He asked me to hold His hand even tighter in the forest when all I wanted to do was run to the field. He asked me to worship Him when I didn’t want to, He asked me to praise Him when it was so hard to even feel His presence. It was a season of transformation and learning. It was a time of crying to the Lord, literally, and trusting that He will soothe my soul. There was a point in processing that the Lord told me that we were about to walk through the scariest part of the forest, and let me tell you we did. A few of my sweet teammates sat with me while I cried, held me and prayed over me as the lord and I walked. As we walked through pain, we walked through grief and walked into the entrance to the field. It’s where the Lord and I are now. This field filled with poppies. A field not of sleep, but of joy, freedom, learning and the warmth and sweetness of His presence. It’s in this field the lord has started to show me why we walked through pain. Why it’s important to feel pain but not let it overcome you, or encase you. It’s here where He is teaching me about the season, places where I did well and places I need to continue to grow.
The forest was hard, the pain was real, but the field is beautiful and full joy. Seasons are both hard and wonderful, but above all, no matter what He has you walk through, the Lord is good. He is really good.
