After ten months and too many goodbyes to count, we are headed into month 11. Loving and leaving people seems like a normal thing these days. When I say goodbye to someone I truly care about, there are no more tears. But isn’t that normal now?
This month we saw multiple teams come in and out of Mission of Hope, the ministry we were apart of for the month. They were one week missionaries from North America. They came in on Wednesday and Saturdays, groups from 20- 150. They didn’t know me or the person I’d become.
So, to those missionaries:
I learned your name. I heard some of your stories. You asked me a lot of questions. To you, they were so simple but for me they were almost too much. The first week I was angry. Not at a specific person but the church it self. My heart broke when I saw the American church come in and I was so confused. Was this what I left behind?
But then God reminded me: “Remember where you were 10 months ago, Gabby? See the church through My eyes. She is my bride.”
That’s when I remembered, it’s not just my squad who calls me higher and helps me, it’s the church. On the World Race, the more you travel and see this big world, the smaller your community gets. You learn to trust those in this small circle you have formed. It’s safe. Yet, there is a church back home who submits to the Father. Yes, it’s imperfect. But so am I.
I went to a little worship night on the roof this month that one of the teams hosted. They were going home the next day and they were debriefing their week. One of the girls stood up to share, she talked about being at one of the orphanages serving food, a child had dropped his plate and he scooped it off the ground and kept eating. She was so emotional. She talked about how she was crying and had to look away to cry before she continued to help serve.
Woah.
How much hurt, pain, despair, and oppression have I seen? When did I stop feeling hurt for your children,God? I was moved by how much she was upset at this – only because I had numbed the pain I had seen for the past 5 months. It was easier this way to not feel it. But I don’t want to live like that. I started to ask God to break my heart again. It hurts because there is a lot of pain, but it’s okay to grieve. It’s okay to not be okay.
So church, your world may look different but it’s all the same. You may not see a child pick food off the ground and eat it like it’s candy and wash it down with water that’s been purified with bleach. But you do see your brothers and sisters marriages get ripped to the seams. You do see when one another leaves the church. You also see your sons and daughters choosing other things to help apease the pain they feel. But you can’t be numb to it, your heart has to break. You have to cry out to your Father, ask Him why? Ask Him what can I do? He may just tell you to feel the pain, feel what it’s like to love someone so much yet they don’t make the choice to follow me. He may ask you to feel what it’s like to know how much I LOVE YOU!
