At the beginning of this month, our squad met together for one more Leadership Development Weekend (LDW) in Cambodia. To start it out, we all gathered next to this beautiful sandy pool area. I felt like God wanted me to speak to the entire squad about finishing our race well, and I grumbled all the way to my seat. I did NOT want to be there. I wanted to be in the air conditioning in my bed with my notebook. Why did I have to participate in mandatory crap, anyway? As I sat there silently as my squadmates began singing praises, I was thinking over the speech I needed to teach to all my squadmates who had given up on putting any effort into the race.
Oh my gosh. That’s me isn’t it?
Suddenly my heart started pounding, and God’s message began actually coming together fully instead of me trying to teach everyone how much I knew. It’s amazing what happens to a message when you get kicked off the stool you’ve set yourself on. After each song ended, my pulse quickened and my heart was basically shouting at me to stand up and tell everyone what the Holy Spirit was convicting me of.
I shakily stood up on my chair, and motioned to the squad leaders asking with my eyes if it was ok if I stood up and spoke. Everyone turned around to face me, since I had slinked into the back. It went something like this:
“Hey everyone, I feel like there’s something I need to share with everyone. I love to run in fun runs. I used to run them with my mom. My favorite part of the race is at the very end, after giving the track everything I have and then sprinting with every fiber I have left in me through the finish line. It kind of feels like flying; I love it.
“One time I ran an 8K with my mom. I had never run that far before, and by the time I got in view of the finish line, my muscles were spent. I looked at that finish line, and I gave up. I gave up on my favorite part of sprinting through the end! I started walking, but I was still in the race. I couldn’t just stop the race when I hadn’t crossed the finish line. But then my mom reached her arm back to me, and said, ‘Sarah, don’t give up! Not yet!’ I grabbed her hand, and she pulled me, propelling me to keep up with her. Soon I started sprinting, feeling the numbing sensation where I’m no longer focused on the pain and exhaustion, but enjoying the sensation of flying.
“Guys, the race isn’t over yet just because you can see the finish line. We have two months left, and we’re running this race together. If one person starts walking, we all walk. You can’t give up on a race you haven’t finished. You’re not done until after it’s over. I’m exhausted, but I know that Jesus is reaching back to us and telling us to not give up quite yet. We’re SO close. Just grab His hand and let Him pull you forward into that sprint. Then, once you’ve grabbed His hand, grab another’s hand and pull them forward. Because they’re not following you, they’re following the one you’re holding onto.
Let’s finish this race together. Sprinting all the way to the end.”
My heart continued to pound as I sat back down into my chair. People thanked me for the message, and pride grew back up again thinking that that message was for everyone else.
A couple days later, our teams split off to our separate ministries in Cambodia. During our travels, I started to feel awful. My lower back started aching, I was exhausted and my stomach revolted at every pothole. By the time we reached our ministry site of a school, I was pathetic. I couldn’t pick up my own bags, and thought I was going to vomit or pass out at any second. I went to bed immediately after dinner.
The next morning I felt as if a truck had run over me. My team leader took me to the hospital where I was diagnosed with Dengue Fever, which appears in a low white blood cell count. I was feverish, exhausted, had cold like symptoms, and more. After spending four days in the hospital recovering, they sent me “home,” which was an air mattress on the ground, bucket showers, no AC, full of playful children and bugs, no indoor plumbing, hand washed clothes and an unbearable heat. I went to sleep as soon as I got back and was awoken by screaming children and sweat.
Later that night, we also discovered the extent to which my head was infested with head lice, and that I had also given them to the teammate who had been taking care of me at the hospital. She had been so caring and loving in taking care of my intense phobia of needles and hospitals, and in return, I gave her head lice. What a thanks. To top it off, everyone was then terrified of my head, which is perfectly understandable, but the lies of “unlovable” “unworthy” and “untouchable” started swimming around with the lice.
I ran outside one day and sobbed to Jesus, “Abba, I can’t do this anymore! I give up! I’m tired. I want to go home! I’m sick of this! I’m done, daddy, I’m done.”
I’d like to say He pulled me out of my sorrow immediately, but what really happened was that it seemed my sorrow grew as oppressive as the Southeastern Asia sun. I watched movies to make me forget how many lice I hosted or how I felt like no one loved me. I cried between movies when reality would come back or when I’d reach up and pull a full-grown louse out of my hair. During team times, we’d pick lice and nits out of my hair, so I didn’t care to hear about anything else going on with the team. I tried to care, but I honestly didn’t.
“I want to go home,” I kept saying and thinking over and over again. “I want to go home.”
During our second week in Cambodia, the school closed for the week because Cambodia has a weeklong holiday where everything closes down. Our cook left for the week, and we had no other options for food; therefore, my team decided to stay at a hostel for the week on the beach since we didn’t have any other work.
The morning we left, I packed like a five year old throwing a temper tantrum and sat there grumpy while everyone else packed. We took a tuktuk to Phnom Penh and sat in a coffee shop until our bus arrived later that day. Jesus used that time to allow me to completely vent my frustrations to friends, all of whom helped me through my funk as best you can via social media.
Jesus visited me on the bus ride to the beach. He whispered to me, “Sarah, you’ve lost your joy.”
“I KNOW,” I responded. “I’ve had Dengue, head lice, and all this stuff. Of COURSE I’ve lost my joy. What did you expect?”
I felt an urgency to listen to a podcast called “Into His Image—Joy.” The sermon noted the importance of a proper definition of Love in order to best understand the other fruits of the spirit in Galatians (The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control). The speaker defined Love as the Agape love, which is a motivation for action that we are free to choose or reject. Agape is a sacrificial love that voluntarily suffers inconvenience, discomfort, and even death for the benefit of another without expecting anything in return. He told a story about the poisonous position of the heart to focus on yourself for the sake of joy instead of having true Agape for others, not for the sake of personal joy but for the sake of their benefit.
I didn’t lose my joy because I was soaked in sweat every night on my sleeping pad on the ground.
I didn’t lose my joy because I had head lice.
I didn’t even lose my joy because I got Dengue Fever.
I lost my joy because I had fully focused myself on my own sense of lack.
I heard it again, “Sarah, you’ve lost your joy.”
“I’m sorry I’ve held up a mirror between us,” I began telling Abba, “and that I’ve focused fully on my own lack. I’m done holding the mirror between us.”
I had focused so inwardly that I was caving in on myself and accepting death into my life. I was spiraling down into depression and only had myself to thank for it. Jesus shifted my focus back onto Him and the race He had set before me. This race isn’t about me—it’s about Him. It’s about realizing He loves me unconditionally and irrevocably, even when I’m set on staring at myself instead of His face.
Friends, I have a race to finish. I plan to finish well, because Jesus has grabbed my hand and told me that it’s not time to give up yet. I’m preparing for the sprint—the part of the race where I get to fly. I’m exhausted and don’t have anything left, but whatever I left within me, I will put into this race. I hope to return home completely exhausted, and I’m excited to hear those beautiful words:
“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.
Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:23)
