holiness, it’s what i need.
My friends! I don’t even know what to write this blog about. There is just sooo much to tell you. That is one of the things I am having the hardest time with while being gone; not having you experience my life with me. There is so much that is going on, so much that I would love to talk to you about and process through with you, but, it’s kind of impossible. My blogs and emails never seem to fully express what’s going on here…and whenever we do get a chance to skype there is just so much to talk about that I hardly tell you anything.
Life here is insane.
I’ve alluded to this already…and probably straight out told some of you…but, being half way through the this journey called the ‘World Race’ is bringing on some tough situations.
For five months I have lived in constant community, all of my belongings fit into a backpack and I as soon as a place becomes home, it is time to move on. I stink most days. I don’t change my clothes regularly or really have enough clothes to do so. Everywhere I go I have at least five other people with me and then all the locals stare and yell at us because we’re white. It’s a foreign thing being called ‘white person’ everywhere I go. My feet have never been so dirty in my life and I have no control over my diet.
Life on the World Race is anything but glamorous…or easy.
That being said, I’m still loving Rwanda. I think the halfway point is just rough because I feel like I have been gone from you guys forever and I am realizing that I have just as long before I see you again. I am also starting to see how much the Lord has shifted things around in me.
To be honest, I came on this thing thinking that I had ‘it’ all together. I was so prideful. I probably still am in a few areas; in fact, I know I still am in a few areas. But God has definitely taken me on a journey.
I have learned that the World Race is so much less about me seeing or changing the world. It is really not even about the ministry and what we’re doing in each country. The World Race is all about God ripping the carpet out from under my feet and then rebuilding who I am on the foundation of who He is.
He has been teaching me so much. Lately, I have been learning about how big He is. How incomprehensible He is; how we allude to things about His character using words and terms that we can understand…but they hardly do Him justice because He is so beyond anything we can understand.
I have been learning about what it means that He is uncreated. Everything in this world, in this universe even, has been created. Everything that we can understand was created. Our God, He wasn’t. He just is. He is the creator. No one and no thing was before Him.
I have been learning about how little He needs me. He doesn’t need me at all actually. He doesn’t need me to believe in Him, He doesn’t need me to worship Him, He doesn’t need me to go around the world for eleven months and tell people about Him. He doesn’t need me.
I have been reading through Leviticus lately. Interesting read. It has shown me how little I understand about the word ‘holy’. As Americans, we don’t really regard much as holy. I often say that God is or sing songs about God being holy, but, I’m starting to realize that I have little to no idea of what that even means.
I come to Him in prayer as if I am entitled to anything. I talk to Him as if He is just one of ‘us’. I make commitments to Him that I seldom follow through on. I hardly treat God as if He is holy.
So, that’s where I am right now. I am in Rwanda, sharing a very small room with five other women, sleeping on mattresses on the floor with a toilet that only flushes if it’s raining, realizing that I don’t regard my God, the creator of the universe, as holy.
This wasn’t what I was planning on writing about. Then again, I didn’t really know what I was going to write about in the first place, but it’s where I am.
I miss you guys. I miss going through life with you guys. And when I get back…I’m not going to be the person who said goodbye to you.
I worry sometimes that I am not going to fit in or have a place amongst you because my world has been so rocked; but, that’s neither here nor there and the Lord keeps reminding me to not worry about tomorrow because today’s worries are enough for today.
So yes. I love you all.
Thank You Papa. Goodness, thank You Lord, thank You for what You’re doing inside of me. Thank You for pulling that carpet out from under my feet and showing me how erred my thoughts of You were…and probably still are. Thank You for taking me on this journey, and though You are so holy and though You don’t need me at all, You are so patient with me and love me so much. Thank You for walking me through this time and not letting go of me when I start looking the wrong direction or going off on my own. I can’t exist without You Papa. I am so worthless without You. I ask that You fill me up with you Holy Spirit and everyone who is reading this, Lord. I ask that You give them a divine revelation of who You are, how big You are and how much You love them despite everything. Lord, I ask that those reading this blog may know just how full of love You are and how much You love them. Thank You God for your patience…again and again, because, apparently…I need a lot of it.
Amen.
