Put the puzzle together and you get = Peace

So it has come time to blog… and yet I don’t know what words to use to share what the Lord has been doing in my life this month.  I have been in Thailand two weeks, and those two weeks have been a journey of surrender for my heart, a complex puzzle with pieces that didn’t fit until God changed my heart and opened my eyes.  When I wrote my last blog, I knew what I was walking into, yet I was completely clueless.  I knew the ministry would be hard; I didn’t know it was impossible.  I knew I would see things that I didn’t want to see; I didn’t know the images would make me nauseous and yet be burned into my mind forever.  It was prophesied over me: “I believe you will cry more, experience greater brokenness, and greater joy this month than you have as of yet on the race.”  I knew my heart would be broken; I didn’t know I would fight it with everything I had.

Our introduction to Bangla road was in the day time, but even in the semi-calmness of the afternoon the darkness hung heavy over Patong.  The chains of lust and sexual perversion were strong, but even moreso was the weight of despair, hopelessness, numbness and depression.  As our contact explained which streets held the peep shows, where the lady-boys walked and the influence of the various bar owners, my stomach was sinking.  If it the spiritual climate was this heavy in the day, how bad would it be at night?

Our team went out that evening for the first night of bar ministry.  At first I thought I could handle it: the lights, the dirty songs, the pole-dancing on the bars.  But it was the little things that got me: the hand held strategically over her stomach to hide a little belly bump as she dances on the counter, that moment of rejection in another’s face when a potential customer brushes past, the numb look in his eyes as he stares off into the distance, blind to the dancers moving right above him.  The girls I talked to were only half interested in me; their eyes scanned every guy that walked into or past the bar.

That night, we talked about the evening, debriefed what had happened and what we had seen.  But that night, I shut down.  I didn’t want to think, I didn’t want to feel.

I didn’t want to get my heart broken again.

I couldn’t figure out why I had no desire to minister, or why my team was asking me to open up.  “I miss Shawndell,” Megan said.  I’M RIGHT HERE!  Where have I gone?  What is wrong?  How am I supposed to fix something when I don’t know what is wrong?  But I didn’t want to ask, cause deep down I knew I didn’t want to go there.  

.… I can’t reach without something to offer

Finally, it was staring me in the face and I couldn’t ignore it.  I have loved hard on the race, become close to so many through ministry, their names and faces pass through my mind: Lorena, Andrea, Pauli, Raija, Adriana, Veronica, Petra, Denisa, Rose, Jonah…..  I didn’t know that I could handle my heart getting broken again when I left this month.  I don’t want to hurt, I’m tired of the pain of leaving!  To fall in love with a girl here, and the possiblity of leaving her in the life she is living….  I don’t want to do that!  So I shut down the possibility before it could happen.  If I don’t love, I won’t get hurt.

You can guess how well that plan went.  Once God brought it up, I couldn’t pretend I was clueless anymore.  I couldn’t deny how I felt, but I could ask God to change my heart so I was willing.  So did I?  No.  And did God leave me alone?  Heck no.  Everywhere I turned, somebody was speaking a word about a willing heart or a broken heart.  A random IM conversation, a Bible verse, a word of prophecy…  I couldn’t hide!

Then during a prayer walk in Patong, God appointed us to run into Stacey Hume and Micah Higgins, two amazing women of God who are a huge part of my life.  My opinion is that He set up that appointment for my benefit alone, because Megan then asked them to pray for me, and they proceeded to pray and speak life over me as I cried right in front of the grocery store.  Stacey spoke the image of a tree over me, a tree split down the middle, with an iron band around the outside holding it together.  “Let God be your iron band,” she told me as she stared me in the eyes, all the love in her heart written on her face.  Micah gave me a beautiful ring, full of color.  “It’s a joyfull ring,” she said with a smile.  “Wear it and be full of joy!”

That night, God asked me to surrender my heart.  During intercession, Christy looked at me.  “This song is for you,” she said with a smile, as she clicked play on her computer.  As I listened to the song, I knew it had to be my prayer.  

When He asked me to, I prayed for one of the girls that I seen the first night we were out, but never got a chance to meet in any of our following nights of ministry.  I put my heart in His hand, I invested in the ministry.  In return for my obedience, He started giving me visions of my future, crazier and more glorious for His kingdom than I could ever have imagined.  It was like a floodgate to the Father’s heart was suddenly opened and I could see with new eyes.  I saw His hand in the days following my heart change, in conversations, in decisions, in everything… And I experienced peace like I never have before.  Thank you Lord!