I’m starting to realize missions is like childbirth. At
least the trips I’ve gone on lately… the World Race, Peru, and now Guatemala.
For much of the process, I am physically uncomfortable, emotionally broken,
spiritually challenged, and just plain confused.
I don’t understand why people don’t just get me (or it). I
don’t understand the need for overcommunication (though I’m beginning to more
and more). I don’t understand why God created mosquitoes or ants that bite or
horseflies. (Maybe He didn’t… sometimes I think they MUST be creatures of the
Fall). I don’t understand why it becomes more impossibly hot and humid the
closer one gets to the equator. I don’t understand how being constantly itchy
or having weird skin issues grows my character. Basically, I don’t understand
why it is necessary to be so uncomfortable to grow.
Okay that’s a lie. I do understand… God cares more about my
character than my comfort. And when I look back on the World Race, I realize
I’ve forgotten much of the challenging stuff. The physical discomfort of
sleeping on the floor for 5 months. The questionable health care in developing
countries. The awkwardness community sometimes brings. The frustration of never
going anywhere alone.
Because the end
result is so beautiful. It’s like a mom going through childbirth. It is so
epically painful, even with an epidural, and yet women keep doing it, because
the result of a new life in the world is so epically beautiful.
In the end, it’s not about the discomfort or the sickness or
the challenges. It’s about what all those things turn me into. It’s about
learning perseverance, about getting in tune with what God’s doing in my life
and in the lives of others around me.
It’s about the glorious transformation that occurs when
people start walking in their God-given identities. About how they start to
look more and more like Jesus as time goes on. About how iron sharpens iron,
and rejoicing in our sufferings because suffering produces perseverance and
perseverance character and character hope, which does not disappoint us.
I forget all the hard stuff because I LOVE who God is making
me to be. The suffering I forget because I remember the perseverance He is
growing in me, which is the character He is building in me. In that, He grows
my hope, which will not disappoint. I love the person who came alive on the
World Race (once I got over my junk…). I love the woman who is learning to lead
with grace and perseverance and hope. I am so thankful for the process, I
forget the painful parts and celebrate the victories.
This new life God has given me is so worth the pain and hurt
and challenges. I am not sure I would have said that a year ago, but now, I see
His victory in my life and how through the pain and challenge He is still
growing me. Clearly I’m not done yet because I am back on the field, back to
the heat and the itchies and the community living. But this time, I go with an
awareness of the process, and the blessing that the process is. As God
continues to shape me into the woman He needs me to be, who looks more and more
like Christ, I am content to be here, even in my mess.
Because the new life… is so worth it.
