Well this was unexpected.
I mean… I had always hoped and dreamed that Jesus would let me run off and be the Catholic Pocahontas (sorry, Kateri) in the wild just expending all of my heart, soul, and resources loving His people but I never actually thought He would let me. I was preparing myself for a life mortification by letting go of my desires and dreams of the wilderness to serve the Lord in the everyday. That will be my life someday, but it is not this day. (Shout out to my LOTR fans)
For some reason I had convinced myself that if I wanted something I shouldn’t have it because that would make me selfish… What? Newsflash self: JESUS LITERALLY WANTS TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus is a wild man. With twigs and manliness in His glorious beard of mercy. That was an incredibly strange characterization but I’m just going to let it be because, oddly enough, I mean every bizarre word. The more I come to know Him, the more I find that He isn’t a perfectly polished gentleman with clean fingernails and fresh pressed clothing. His love has shown me this amalgamated, harmonious mosaic of souls that I simply can’t resist. He goes to the dark and dirty and raw, exposed places of pain because those are the souls desperately straining to find some Relief. The carrying of the Cross is an arduous task. Christ seeks these places with His strong, weathered, gentle hands. And what is our task? To love like Christ loved. Unabashedly vulnerable and achingly authentic. This is what I have longed for. Truth.
“Love without suffering is not worthy of the name” — Saint Clare of Assisi
So now that I’ve had my prescribed tangent on the glory and love of God we are brought to how I stumbled upon the World Race. In a circumstance as simple as a phone call with my champion partner-in-crime from the college years an opportunity was wishfully thrown around. “What if we got to do this?” “What if you just applied?” “What if the Lord took us on the ride of a lifetime?” What if, what if, what if… (insert pregnant pause)… “Let me pray about this.” So I nervously approached the Lord like a tiny child asking their dad for an official Red Ryder carbine action, 200 hundred shot range model air rifle. As I sat in mass anticipating the unavoidable, “you’ll shoot your eye out kid” the strangest thing happened. That gentle whisper from 1 Kings came in that day’s Gospel reading. Matthew. Freaking. 19:21. “Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.'” It took SO much self control to not jump out of the pew and scream, “OKAY YES HALLELUYER KAY THANKS BYE!”
That night I started my application. OBVIOUSLY I was expecting to get denied because it must be my cross to bear that I can only have the standard everyday life so I can offer up the sacrifice of my adventures for the people they’re actually meant for. But the GOOD, GOOD FATHER sent a sweet gift to this little daughter, “My dear, I want your happiness. I want you with me. Come with me. Love as you want because you want Me.”
YES. YES LORD. THAT IS WHAT I WANT. YOU. JUST YOU. FOR ALL TIMES.
So my mind-blowingly doting Heavenly Father has blessed and commissioned me to pursue Him through the hearts of His people in South America. And it is with an awe-struck, grateful heart (seriously squealing like a little girl as I write this) that I follow this wild, wild Love into the far reaches of His creation. Buckle up, buttercup. Because here we go.
“It was a beautiful letdown, the day I knew, that all the riches this world had to offer me, will never do.” — Jon Foreman
