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I woke up feeling cranky, frustrated and restless this morning.
I woke up early to do my morning quiet time with prayers and a devotional. My prayers were distracted and it just seemed like I was pouring a bunch out on God and couldn’t pray for the other things I had wanted to. Reading my Bible helped a little and of course God fed me with truth but it just didn’t feel like I was open to hear it and receive it. I listened to some music and tried to draw but I just felt so restless. Thoughts of homesickness crept in. We ate porridge for breakfast and then a few of us were gonna go for a run. I needed to get out. I ran ahead on my own and my friend Sarah followed close behind. It felt good to be free, running through the cornfields, big white puffy clouds spread across the bright blue sky, the tall grass brushing against my legs on the skinny dirt path, Three ladies standing beside the road yelled hello and then they started running after us. They came alongside us trying to keep up. They kept pace with us and we kept going. We greeted them and shared our names together. Our new friends were Bonsai, Melody and Chadura. And we kept going. As we were running God gave me a beautiful picture of missions in that sometimes we try to fix things ourselves and run ahead thinking we know what’s best, yet we are in this together with the rest of the world. Our brothers and sisters in Christ from all over the world come alongside us in prayer and we fight for the kingdom together. Running this race with endurance, we build each other up and encourage one another We made it to the final stretch up the hill, but the ladies were starting to fall back. We yelled to them, “Just this final hill! Come on you’ve got this!” I was amazed at their perseverance to keep running with us. They definitely weren’t dressed for it with their long skirts on. When we made it to our finish point up the hill to where we would turn around, I noticed Chadura only had one shoe on (one of the plastic little slip on sandals). I pointed it out to her and asked how she could keep running with only one shoe and where the other was. Then she pointed to Bonsai’s feet which matched hers exactly. They had shared their shoes with one another and had run that whole way half barefoot. We started walking back with them trying to make Just as we pushed the ladies and encouraged them to make it to the end, they pushed us as well to keep running even when we had all stopped to walk. And each time one would fall behind and we’d stop to walk a bit, Bonsai was always quick to yell out “OK go, go!” And we would start again. When we made it back to where they lived we embraced them in tight hugs and we expressed to them the blessing they were to us and they gave smiles and words of love and thanks. Even if we couldn’t fully communicate with them, enough was communicated simply by the joy and fellowship we felt running alongside one another that morning. Whether I’m feeling barefoot, or I’ll equipped and weak on this race, God calls me to persevere. Things might be hard |
