Within the span of a month, 6 members of my family have gone home. Every time we’ve heard someone break this news, it feels like a punch to the gut. Although my friends have had enormous amounts of peace (so much so it can only come from God), it still feels like a piece of me has floated back to America. Fear begins to creep into my heart; what if I’m next? When someone is sent home or elects to go home, is it NOT a light decision. Many hours of prayer and discussion are spent within leadership and with the individual. You don’t just wake up one day with a plane ticket back! Going home isn’t a punishment it’s a reprieve. Often times there are things in life that just can’t be dealt with on the field. Yet that small creeping voice says what if all of this sadness is it? What happens if you spiral too far down in the pits of despair?
“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand” Psalm 40:2
What I have to remember in this time is that my race has not yet been run in its entirety. That verse is so hard to live when you feel like the pit is too deep, when you feel like no one can scale the wall of sorrow. I keep coming back to it, knowing that sometimes in the pit you have to take one day at a time, sometimes hour by hour. I’ll get out eventually and I know that when I do, I have a firm foundation upon which to stand.
Katie
