Images. Pictures run through your mind. You dream up cities. Moments. Places. You see it all so clearly. You know what sent the air has and the color of each house lining the street. In your mind it’s real and tangible. Then finally, it’s here. The moments you’ve so vividly painted in your mind are unfolding before you. Except the moments you perfectly crafted are so far from the reality you are living.
You don’t just dance with children in the streets. You don’t just laugh and hold the hands of orphans as you run through fields. You don’t get an adrenaline rush every morning. You don’t save the world, even though a very small part of your heart thought you would.
Instead you meet Poverty. You look him in the eyes and cry along side of him. You hold the hand of Hurt and Heart Break. You try and run with them, help them, yet you can’t. Because you alone are not strong enough to heal Hurt and Heart Break. You wake up every morning with a heaviness and a subconscious readiness to just be. To live and love the best you can. And you come to terms with the fact you just can’t change the world.
But then it’s time for another country. Unnecessary things from your pack are dropped, and you start to envision your next home.
You string together new conversations and paint landscapes in your mind.
Yet, just like before you get there and it’s different. It’s not what you though it would be. The conversations you so beautifully thought out are broken and lost in translation and a game of charades. The streets and houses you so vividly imagined bring you more sadness then the joy you envisioned because you see the mess these people are living in.
Yet again you drop things from your pack and head to the next country.
For the last time you picture the people you’re living with. You imagine the children you will love on and teach. Yet again, the reality you’re living is different than the scenarios you’ve envisioned. The moments with the people you’re living with aren’t filled solely with laughter. Instead some moments are filled with the hard conversations and tears. The children you saw running into your arms, run the opposite direction because they see missionaries all the time and can’t stand to open themselves up to anyone else.
But I guess that’s how it works. Your mind so beautifully crafts moments and seasons. Yet when they arrive they are so different then the sentences and scenes you’ve carefully strung together. I think it’s that way because the same, small part of our heart that wants to change the world, is scared. Scared of failing or seeing the ugly truth. Scared that if we don’t paint images or moments, when those moments arrive they won’t hold any sentiment or live up to expectations. And that’s hard. Beautifully hard and sometimes heartbreaking. You come face to face with what breaks Our Fathers heart. You don’t realize that when you paint pictures of what your life will look like.
But here’s the thing. As I prepare to pack my bags for the last time, I realize the moments, places, conversations, and friendships I crafted cannot even compare to the moments Our Father crafter for me. For us. The moments I truly lived. The hard, ugly, beauty filled moments I didn’t concoct are the moments I’ll never forget. The ones that changed my life. Because in those moments I saw The King. I saw Abba Father God. I saw what He created. And that is so much more perfect then any picture my mind could ever paint.
