First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! What better day than a day where we get to celebrate thankfulness than to send this out?
India Bound! (part 1)
Yep, you guessed it, back on the mission field for me. Is it weird that I am a little nervous? Not necessarily for the traveling part, hygiene part, missional part…but honestly, for what God just might do in me and my team on this trip. No matter how hard you focus on serving the people, pouring out, giving all you have…God always tends to plop some giant lesson to learn in my lap. I am nervous for it. So this first part will be updating you on what God is teaching me, the second part will be about the trip. If you don’t want my long winded telling of what’s going on with me, feel free to skip to the good stuff and read about the trip in part 2! 🙂
It has been forever since I have written, and for those who have been so faithful to read, I apologize for not being faithful back. This has been an interesting season. About four months ago I told a few friends that I felt like God was prepping to do some major invasive surgery, and I ignorantly was excited and thought I was ready for it. Let’s be real, how ready can you really get for serious surgery? My dear friend, Emily Beck, spoke over me nearly 4 years ago that she believed God didn’t want me to continue to put Band-Aids on my wounds but allow Him in for surgery…welp, 4 years later it has finally started happening. It is exhausting, tiring, ugly, beautiful, relentless, painful and oh so rich. I don’t like it, I will admit, who likes to hurt? John 15 has been a chapter that has resonated for years and now is speaking louder than ever. It an entire gardening analogy. While I don’t do much gardening, it still is powerful. The whole idea of pruning…ouch. I love how it was pictured in the book ‘The Shack’ by William Paul Young. He writes on how there was a gorgeous garden that the Holy Spirit started to dig up. Mack, the main character, sees this and is distraught. Completely confused why someone would be tearing apart a stunning patch of flowers he protested against it. However, in the days to come it grows back into a magnificent garden of flowers that far outweighed what was previously there.
Sometimes He even roots up what appears to be good stuff.
‘As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me.’
That is a great word to describe part of what I believe God is trying to teach me, to ‘abide‘.
Let’s see what good old Webster’s says about abide:
: to accept or bear (someone or something bad, unpleasant, etc.)
: to stay or live somewhere
: to remain or continue
and Dictionary.com
1. to remain; continue; stay: Abide with me.
2. to have one’s abode; dwell; reside: to abide in a small Scottish village.
3. to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship, etc.; last.
Well, abiding in a small Scottish village sounds awesome, but that’s beside the point. The rest of it, man, I didn’t realize just how much He is teaching me about that until I looked up the definition. God is asking me to remain, all in, live with Him, to continue…no matter what. I cracked up a little on the first one in Webster’s definition: ‘someone or something bad, unpleasant’. Well, we know that God isn’t bad, but let’s admit, sometimes the things He is calling us to do, the seasons we go through…they are more than unpleasant. Like right now, it is really unpleasant to be unearthing deep rooted lies. It is unpleasant to look my sin in the face and realize this is going to take some serious work to change some of these awful patterns and false beliefs about myself and God. But He is asking me to stand firm, to not give up on Him and what He is doing.
Now, about me, I am a hard worker. I like to move forward as fast as possible without looking back. Dealing with hurt, pain, sadness of my own…well, that’s just inconvenient. Someone else has pain or suffering, I can sit with them for hours and be thankful to be there for them. However, sitting with myself in any sadness or grief, yuck. Not sure many people like to face their junk, but I am learning how important it is to admit my hurt/loss/loneliness/struggles and tend to them. It’s like a festering wound that I leave unattended and give it permission to go attack other parts of my body. As a hard worker, I just want to press on, move forward, and not deal. But what I am learning is how I sometimes just need to sit, allow myself to feel, and actually work through it. When I share struggles with people, and even now, I tell them as facts and almost remove myself so that I don’t share the feeling and almost do this self protective thing; this is also something I am praying about what God has for this. I am good at enduring, and usually it doesn’t effect my day or is even on the forefront of my mind. However, once it piles too high it is usually so heavy that I become so exhausted that I don’t even want to deal with it. This usually manifests itself in higher stress levels and shortness with people.
Trying to work through any of this on my own strength will not work…it hasn’t, but continual abiding in Him is where I find my hope.
Now why am I telling you this humbling and vulnerable information. Well, because a) Scriptures say ‘Therefore, confess your sins one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. James 5:16, b) I could use some honest prayer for this upcoming trip, and c) I am probably not alone in some of these things and want to encourage anyone else feeling this way that they are not alone. We have so much hope in Jesus and I never want to forget that. This whole abide thing, I think he is onto something there. John brings the heat a lot, I love it:
‘So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”‘ – John 8:31-32.
God is so good, and I am so thankful to be on an amazing journey with Him. No, life isn’t perfect, there is still ‘uprooting’ to be had, but I am thankful that I have a God who is up for the challenge, and the Holy Spirit to walk constantly with. Let me know if there are any specific ways I can be praying for you.
Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!
(Continue on to part 2 to hear about Christmas in India!)
