One year ago, I sat in red muddy Georgia and encountered God’s Holy Spirit, and what a ride it’s been since then.
I grew up in a legalistic and religious school and church, which dampened my relationship with God’s Holy Spirit. After encountering the realness of God at the bottom of my own strength, I hungered for more of God. I encountered the urge of His spirit in a church in Knoxville, prompting me to get baptized. He came to me and reminded me of the World Race and confirmed my path for me. Then at training camp a year ago, He spoke to me in visions for the first time.
Throughout the race, Jesus has been continually bringing me back to the same path, and I haven’t fully recognized it until later in retrospect. Since it’s officially been a year since the first time I recognized God spoke to me through a vision, I’d like to write about my journey through the story of my visions of my walk with Jesus over the past year.
Physical location: Marietta, Georgia. Pre-Training Camp; Adventures in Missions’ first Beauty for Ashes retreat for World Race women. October 2014.
“For this exercise, we want you to draw a picture of what you are worth to God.”
Looking up from my lap to the speaker, I lifted an eyebrow. I thought, I might as well not even draw anything. My worth to God? HA! I’m not worth anything. I’ll just keep a blank piece of paper because that’s what I’m worth. All I do is continually dig myself into holes, and God has to make a ladder for me to get me out every time.
Suddenly a vision flashed before my mind’s eye:
A field peppered with holes spread out beneath me from a bird’s eye view. A forest outlined the edge of the field with trees going on as far as the eye could see. I saw myself sitting at the bottom of a pit, shouting, “Help!” God began lowering down a ladder into my pit, and as I looked, each hole had a ladder in it. God then spoke to me, “Sarah, you’re worth more than all the trees in the history of the world, for I will make you a ladder to get you out of the pit you dig yourself into every time.”
My jaw dropped. As I began coloring the picture God put in my brain, I began shaking my head. I didn’t think I was worth anything to Jesus. This is crazy.
Physical location: Kathmandu, Nepal. World Race, Month 2; all squad month. First team: Rabah Current. February 2015.
I spent time with Jesus, and He gave me a vision one day randomly:
I opened my eyes and could tell I was on a forest floor as I stared up at the tallest trees I’ve ever seen in my life. As I stood up, I knew he was there—Jesus was somewhere near me. I looked around and He asked me, “What do you want to do?”
I said, “Can we build a tree house?!”
“Of course,” He said through a smile.
Suddenly a tree house appeared before me as I was surveying the forest around me. I took one step forward in anticipation to run, stopped, turned and asked, “Are you coming with me?”
As He took a step to His left showing the most glorious, ornate woodland throne behind Him, He asked me, “Will this fit?”
I looked back at my tree house and my shoulders dropped. “No,” I said turning back to Him. “It won’t.”
“Then I can’t go,” Jesus told me.
I glanced back at my tree house of all my worldly dreams and desires, turned away from it back to Jesus and said, “Then I don’t want to go either.”
He grinned from ear to ear, sat in His throne and said, “Then come and sit with me, child.”
I giggled like a small girl as I jumped into His lap and His arms wrapped around me.
Physical Location: Piggs Peak, Swaziland. Month 4. Lived in a small house with 22 other women on site of an orphanage. Second team: J-Crew. April 2015.
We were doing an exercise with the older children on finding a secret place with Jesus. In my secret place, I walked up to Jesus in anticipation for Him to hold me, since that’s what He had done previously. He shook His head slowly, denying my request.
“Ouch,” spread across my face like a billboard. “Why won’t you hold me?” I asked Him, tearing up.
“Because I want you to walk with me,” He responded, reaching out His hand towards me.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a baby take their first step forward on their own, but that’s what I felt like He was asking of me. Terror spread across my face as I realized what Jesus was asking of me.
We began walking through the trees, and He would fill the forest with His magical laugh every now and then at my nervous noises and at me using Him as a human crutch. “It’s ok,” He would comfort me, “I’m still here. I’ll always be here.”
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