I am two weeks into the new year, two weeks into month number 4, and I have yet to post a blog. To be fair to myself, I have written things, but the process of actually finishing a post has been difficult this month.
Coming into this month, I knew it was going to be difficult. During the end of my time in Malaysia, I realized God was preparing me for a challenging season.
As I posted previously, God has issued me two challenges:
The first, say yes. Say yes to anything and everything He prompts me to do.
The second, dive into His Word with a ferocity like never before.
These challenges set me up for success this month, despite the difficult circumstances I was walking into. The first few days in the Philippines were crazy. The entire Squad is in one city, Bacolod, and even the process of figuring out which team would minister where was overwhelming to be a part of. After a few days of uncertainty, Anchor Depths (my team) and our co-team for the month, River Dancers, ended up sharing a house a few minutes away from a church we are partnering with. Our days are filled with the unexpected, I’m not sure we have had one day go anything like how it was planned, but I am learning to take things one step at a time and leave space for God to change things up.
This month has been filled with many opportunities to share our faith with the locals. So far this month, I have shared my testimony with hundreds of children in public school classrooms. My ministry partner, Daiva and I were blessed to be able to lead an entire class to the Lord. Our teams have lead assemblies in the schools, preaching and sharing testimony with hundreds of children of all ages- from elementary to college-aged. Our team has been on local radio and there are plans in the works for putting us on TV. We have prayed over a sweet elderly woman whose biggest desire is to be healthy so that she can go to church. We have ministered in our host church’s Christian academy, singing songs during their chapel hour and preaching/teaching in the classrooms. We have begun the process of learning a Filipino cultural dance, to be preformed at one (or more) of the many large public events that others on our Squad are planning for the end of the month. We are literally at our hosts (and the Lord’s!) disposal and I am learning to roll with the punches.
I walked into this month knowing it was going to be difficult, expecting it was going to be hard logistically, within the ministry, perhaps within my team… I, however, did not expect a personal attack. For the first time in years, depression came back to haunt me.
Honestly, at first I was confused; I’m in the middle of the Philippines, on the World Race, doing the very thing God has been leading me to do, why the heck am I struggling with this? I went into a panic for a few days; I dove into the Word, I prayed incessantly, I wrote in my journal as much as possible in an attempt to process what was happening. Despite all of this, it has been the hardest time on my Race thus far. I felt alone. I felt like I was insane. I felt like my team, my Squad could see the crazy in me and were judging me for it. I felt emotional, naked, exposed. I felt unwanted, unloved, and useless. Above all, I felt broken and abandoned by God. I called out to God, confused and heartbroken. He promised to never leave me (Hebrews 13:9), why did I feel so alone? He promised to continue the good work He had started (Philippians 1:6), why did I feel like He had abandoned His project, half finished? I asked Him, since He had the power to heal me immediately and completely (Luke 5:12-14, etc.), why didn’t He simply snap His fingers and just do it already?
God is so faithful; He is too good to me. I waited on Him and He responded quickly, full of love and compassion. “I am fixing you,” He said. He showed me how He has been with me from the very beginning, reminded me of the depths He drew me up from. He showed me the lies I chose to believe this month, the deception I agreed to define myself by. He showed me how He is consistently renewing my mind (Romans 12:2) as I draw closer to Him, and that times of depression may come but nothing I could ever experience is more powerful than the work He is doing in me. He showed me that, rather than allowing myself to detach from my emotions and the difficult circumstances I go through and “cope” through unhealthy measures (alcohol, food, excessive sleep, like I have done so often in the past) I am choosing to walk through the hard times with Him, thereby actually dealing with my issues and reaping the healing that comes with that.
He told me, “the process produces the result.” The “healthy, ideal me” I was desiring doesn’t exist yet; He gave me the potential but it is the refining process He is leading me through that is constructing the Laura I was meant to be. Without actually going through the process, I wouldn’t ever become all He desires me to be.
Throughout all of this, He is drawing me closer to his likeness; He loves me too much to leave me as I am. He is proving the legitimacy of my relationship with Him through the correction and discipline I am currently experiencing (Hebrews 12:5-11).
I have experienced more freedom from this revelation than I can possibly say. To know, truly know, that even in my darkest moments, God has been with me and using these valleys to draw me closer to Him is amazing. To know how loved I am by Him and that He would bring me through this for my benefit, is reassuring and life-altering.
