For the past five years I have had a ripped up piece of paper with the number 5 written on it. It has served as a reminder every time I come across it. This is the story of the letter and how it has encouraged and challenged me. I received this piece of paper my senior year of high school while on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. During this trip, my softball teams played against local teams and then were given a chance to share a word or our testimony. At this point in my life, the thought of sharing something about my walk with God scared me, and apparently the rest of my team as well. No one wanted to volunteer to share so our coach wrote down numbers and the number we chose was the order in which we would speak. I choose number five. That week we only had four games so we only needed four speakers. Which left me free from speaking. I should have felt relieved that I didn’t have to speak but I didn’t. I had this guilt/regret feeling inside of me. I didn’t think that I had a story worth telling. My testimony isn’t one of radical transformation, rather it is a testimony of God’s faithfulness. I didn’t come to this realization until probably a year or two ago. It took me looking back and reflecting on my life and realizing the story that God had given me to tell. So every time I see that number 5 I think back to that time in my life where I didn’t take to opportunity to share and didn’t have the boldness or courage to stand up and speak.
Flash forward to this month in Rwanda. Our schedule includes house to house evangelism some days and speaking/preaching every single day. Does the thought of me standing in front of a church speaking to about 40 people scare me? Absolutely! But here’s the difference between high school Megan and Race Megan…I know that feeling of regret and don’t want to ever feel that again. Sunday I was the preacher at church and when we got there, there were a lot more people there than I had pictured in my mind. As I sat there I started to sweat and shake just a little bit. I knew what I was speaking on, but it was a new topic that I had just learned about and wasn’t completely sure as to how it was all going to play out. But with lots of prayer before hand and just feeling the Spirit and talking about what he wanted to people to hear, I got through the message and actually lasted the whole 30 minutes! There’s something special about doing something that you are terrified about doing. Being open, vulnerable, and teaching in front of adults is definitely not on my list of things that I have aced but they have officially been moved to the accomplished list.
So that is the story of the number in my bible and how it reminds me to be bold and share. It doesn’t really matter what you say or how you say it because the Spirit will always use something in your words. So next time someone is looking for a volunteer for something that scares you, be the first to step up. Face that fear hand in hand with Jesus. Who knows, it may lead you to some new crazy awesome dream that God is waiting to fulfill.
