The months have felt slow and I never thought that this trip would end but now that I’m looking ahead I really only have 30 days left of this race I’m so blessed to call my life. To be honest I’m actually kind of scared to come home because I know I’ve changed but other people I know might not have and I’m afraid to know that I’ll need to try to find a community that will help encourage my faith not hurt it.
When I look back on all the months I’ve spent it was so clear that the Lord had put me here so he could not only change the people that I’ve met but to change me. I had been trying to find what my gifts, my passions and who the Lord called Hannah Jones (AKA Foxy) to truly be and I have found so much freedom this month in finding what that means.
The one thing I’ve been praying about most on this journey were my passions. I never really knew what my passions were. I knew what I liked to do but none of those things made me want to pursue them for the rest of my life. I wanted to find out what I was passionate about so when I tried to find a career I’d know what would make me happiest.
So when I asked the Lord what I was passionate about He showed me the moments I found the most joy in. That’s when I’m with children. Strangely before the world race I thought I was not a kid person but after teaching classes in India I came to love children a lot. They showed me so many ways a person can love and be loved.
The two ways I feel most loved is by being invited in, whether it be just asking me to go somewhere or inviting me into a conversation. The other way is by asking me questions or playing with my hair or doing simple little things for me like writing me a note and the children I’ve come to know have done that so well probably without even knowing they were showing me love.
Also I’ve found so much joy in worship. The moment I knew worship was something I wanted to continue doing and bring my family into was the night one of my teammates and I found peace and freedom with the Lord.
This was the night we took communion all together as a squad and it wasn’t any traditional communion, this time we made it to when we got the bread, in this case it was a cookie, we would pray and if you had any encouraging words the Lord told you to tell someone then you would break your cookie and give it to that person you got words for.
God gave me an image or vision of my teammate, Alex, climbing a ladder out of a huge pit and she was trying to go faster and faster up the ladder because she could see how close she was getting to the top. So once I got this vision I went to where she was sitting, broke off a piece of my cookie and told her what the Lord showed me. At the time I wasn’t fully trusting God and felt like I couldn’t hear him. But later in the night I finally got confirmation as we were doing worship. This was the night that changed the way I felt about worship. I had my arms stretched out, I was staring at the sky looking for shapes in the stars then I felt a hand pat my back. One of my other teammates came to me with something the Lord had given them to tell me. She gave me encouraging words to keep using my voice and speak because my words hold weight. Then Alex came up to me and told me after I told her what the Lord showed me then Kacie, our squad leader, came up to her and told her she got a vision of her climbing out of the pit.
The Lord used me to show her that she had fully trusted Him and had given her Burden she was holding on to over to the Lord. It was such an amazing thing to be a part of and such a cool thing the Lord had trusted me to give Alex just so that I could know that I was hearing His voice clearly. Jesus doesn’t give us random words just for the heck of it. He wants us to trust in the gifts he gives us and use them even when its random images of someone climbing a ladder. Jesus trusts us to obey Him with words He gives us to speak, if we don’t hear Him the first time don’t worry He’ll likely tell you until you do.
Worship brings freedom, it brings deep breaths, it brings peace, it brings happiness, it brings a full heart and soul. Worship is something that can be as simple as drawing a picture. All you need to be doing is spending time with God in some kind of way for it to be worship.
