On our way to Nicaragua from Guatemala I managed to lose my wallet on the bus, which I figured was no big deal because I knew it was on the bus. However, once we arrived in Managua Jacob, Elizabeth, and I searched the bus, and my wallet was nowhere to be found. I was so frustrated almost to the point of tears. I mean I'm in another country and I just lost my money, debit card, credit card, my insurance card, and my drivers license, and my only thought was: what the hell am I going to do? Its not like getting new cards and a license is as simple as it is in the states. I didn't even have a phone, so I had to communicate with everyone via skype. Needless to say it was a little stressful. So basically I was going to go into my next month without any money, and no way to get any. Once we arrived on the property I thought to myself, this won't be so bad because I won't leave the property, and I won't need to spend any money. I didn't realize that there would be times when I needed to get into town for internet use and that trip would cost me money. Now to give you a little bit of insight there is nothing I hate more than asking for help. So this month had the potential to be extremely difficult.
The first week went by and I didn't need to spend any money, so I started to think I might get away without having to ask for help from my teammates. Then one fine day we needed to take a trip into town so we could use the internet. I personally needed to talk to my parents to handle the problem of all my lost stuff. Now mind you that the bus only cost 12 cordobas, the name of the currency in Nicaragua, which equals about 50 cents and that covers both ways. I should not have felt bad about borrowing it but I was so embarrassed that I needed help. That was the beginning of what would be a very long month. Over the course of the month I ended up borrowing money from several of my teammates, which they of coarse had no problem with helping me out. However, in my head I was being the biggest burden in the world. I always had the mentality that I needed to everyone with their problems, but I kept all my problems to myself and I didn't need anyone's help. Well that was all about to change in the following weeks.
One day during my quiet time I heard God ask me "why don't you trust me?" My initial thought was oh man not this again, I thought we had already figured this out. Again He asked me "why don't you trust me?" I told Him that I did trust Him and that I didn't know what he was referring to. He went on to tell me that I only partly trusted Him with certain things, and that I tried to keep several things apart from Him. It was like I only gave Him what I couldn't handle, but I held onto the things I thought I could control, like money. I didn't want to believe that at first, but this is God I'm talking to after all. After my failed attempt to defend myself I decided to give up and just listen to what my father had to say. He told me that I had a problem with pride, that I always tried to deal with my problems on my own and I always ended up making things worse for myself. He told me that I am making my life more difficult because I refuse to give up control on the little things. Also he asked why I rationalized giving up control of all the things that seems large in perspective, and kept control of the "little things." When in reality it's the "little things" that have so much attached to them. For example, I hate asking for help, which means I'm just a strong person right? No it means that I have serious pride issues, and an issue in trusting people and God. So I'm learning to give up control on the "little things" in life as well as the big things.
