We were asked to write a blog about how we felt before leaving on this mission trip. Here is what I am expecting…
Even when I try to tell myself that there are no limits to God and what He can accomplish, I still have Him in a box. Granted it’s a bigger box than it was years ago…but it’s still a box. As I’m thinking about this trip and all that I will experience with the Lord, my mind is more 
than a little confounded. My heart says there’s so much more to this crazy journey and walk with God than I can imagine, and that I will come face to face with how very much more over this next year – but my mind can’t comprehend even a hint of what that means! There’s so much that I want to believe and experience and see and feel that I KNOW are God’s heart. And honestly, that’s what I want on this trip. I want to encounter God…in a million different ways. I believe there’s something that breaks open when you step out of your comfort zone to give all of yourself and give up everything that is familiar and comfortable to you…all for the sake of this Gospel!
It’s going to break me. It has to. It will stretch my boundaries of comfort, continue to confound my mind, soften my heart, frustrate my self sufficiency, open my eyes, break my heart, radically humble me, conquer my fears, unleash my potential, use my weaknesses, shatter the limits I still put on God, and wreck me with His goodness. I believe this will be the hardest and most breathtaking experience of my life.
I love that God is so paradoxical – it may actually be one of my favorite aspects of His Kingdom. To be first, you must be last…to live you must die to yourself…to be strong you must be weak…to be whole you must be broken. I think I love it so much because it boggles my mind. Something within me wants to not “get it”…and be okay with that. So that’s what I expect this trip to be…a beautiful paradox!
