If you haven’t guessed already, I’m blogging again! I’ll be leaving to squad lead a World Race trip in January and am excited to share round 2 of my journey with you.
As you settle into this season of too much good food and things to be thankful for, I hope you’ll take a minute to connect with me here and step into this new season with me.
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“I would have despaired had I not believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Psalm 27:13 (AMP)
This is a scripture I’ve had ringing on my lips for a few years now. One I never could have understood the implications of when I first began proclaiming it in my life.
Despair is the complete loss or absence of hope. It’s a place I never want to reside in again. I spend a lot of time walking through my day saying, “I know I’ll see Your goodness here” or “thank You, God, Your goodness is here.”
When I found myself at October Training Camp with C squad, the squad I’ll be leading in January, I also found myself in a surprising amount of pain. I knew it was a good pain, I knew it was from God, but I also didn’t understand how goodness could be heartbreaking. Physically, painfully, heartbreaking. I felt like I was standing in an intersection underneath the traffic lights and all ways were lit up red. I only had 3 more weeks at my position with the Interview department and I didn’t know if I’d be getting a job with Adventures when I returned home again yet, but I knew I’d experienced the Lord’s goodness here and I wasn’t ready to leave it. I also wasn’t full time squad leader yet. I wasn’t getting on a plane at the end of the week and flying with C squad to Costa Rica. My journey with C squad had started, but it couldn’t be stepped into completely until January. I was expectant for the Lord’s goodness I’d find there, but I wasn’t ready to acquire it yet.
Not ready to leave one season of goodness, not able to take on the next season of goodness, I found myself in pain experiencing both; experiencing the grieving of one and the hopeful expectations of another. The experience birthed questions like, “how could God’s goodness cause pain? What even is His goodness?”
While I believe these are questions we could continue to answer for a lifetime, what I’ve found is God, Himself, is goodness and goodness is meant to be consumed. My pain has been a result of consuming the goodness offered to me and because of it I’ve experienced pains of stretching, my spiritual stomach expanding to hold more of the goodness being served to me. Like a glutton at Thanksgiving with no self-control to what’s being dished onto my plate, my stomach is FULL. And I’m not even a little mad about the pain I’m experiencing because of it.
C squad at training camp last month
