The whole
world seems to be crashing in. Literally. The weight of what I am about to
embark on can no longer be ignored. I leave for training camp in less than a
week, and I am filled to the brim of my shallow cup full of emotions.
I have lost
count of the people who have asked me, “So, where, exactly, are you going?”
I can now
rattle off the countries I’m going to be visiting without batting an eyelash.
Everywhere I
go, I see the “unloved”, those being the people society has deemed unfit for
anything but a good, stereotypical joke.
I still don’t
know how I am going to pack a year into a backpack.
I now live
by the mantra, “I’m excited to go, but I’m sad to leave.”
I feel like
I have given so much lately, and not to my detriment. I have given time and money, and I’ve even
given love.
So much love.
I have taken
a look around my small room, and realized I have very little left in the way of
things. I’ve given them all away. Or sold them.
Talking to
my friend Anna, I realized that this is the complete end of myself. So very
little of me is left, or at least, what used
to be me. God has changed my life so much that I don’t even recognize
myself hardly in the mirror.
There are
times lately that I’ve felt like this empty shell, a husk of a creature. Like
when cicadas shed their skin and you find them on a tree, thinking they’re the
real thing, but when you inch closer you notice they are just an empty casing.
I think to myself,
“Kirsten, where have you gone?”and wonder aloud, “God what are you doing to me?”
I wonder if
the Disciples still struggled with insecurity after Jesus had risen, ascended,
and sent them the Holy Spirit. I don’t see a whole lot of instances in Acts
where Peter doubted he’d be able to grant healing in Jesus name. We are told,
that we will be able to do “Greater things than these,” but I’m terrified that
my own doubts will get in the way.
And what is
worse, what if they DON’T get in the way, and God STILL uses me to do something
miraculous? Will I actually be able to handle that?
Will I be
able to handle God suddenly being so REAL?
There is so
little of me left, whether it is things or otherwise. My room is empty. I feel
like my head is empty. My heart, well, it’s just a mess.
In church
today, we sang “To the ends of the earth,” and I realize that is EXACTLY where
I am going. I’m not afraid of going to the Ends of the Earth for Jesus. That is
the EASY part.
Yet I’m
TERRIFIED of going to the end of myself for Him. That is a territory for where
there is NO map, and even if there was, I can imagine the words being scrawled
on the edges; “Here there be monsters.”
There is no
one going with me this time that has traveled with me before. I wanted independence, but I don’t think I
really knew what that meant.
I remember
the words clearly in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. “He’s not a tame
Lion. He’s not safe. But He’s good.”
Does that
terrify anyone else?
I suppose I
must cling to the fact that God is good, and it is not His will to harm us. Jeremiah
29:11 assures us of that. He is bringing me to the end of myself, and that is a
humiliating, terrifying sobering experience for anyone, but especially for
someone like myself, who has been so wrapped up in herself for so long. It is
comfortable here. And though my flesh screams to stay comfortable, my spirit is
so insanely bored with it.
So I will go
to the end of myself, because I suppose, that is where God begins.
