It’s nearing midnight, the end of our first week. Everyone is finally settling into bed after a late night of worship, prayer, homemade doughnuts and hot chocolate (compliments of Hilda and Hermana Ada, our incredible cook). I’m sitting in the dark at our dining room table, listening to Kevin speaking Spanish in the background on his phone after calling out, “Goodnight Jillyfish!� (He’s come up with nicknames for most of us now, so in return we decided tonight that his new name is “Fluffy�, despite his adamant protests against it ;). Our fellow team is doing a prayer vigil tonight, taking shifts, so Chase is sitting down the table from me praying, and I can hear my roomies’ voices softly talking in the dark down the hall.
I feel alive.
By that evening, I was on the bathroom floor puking my guts out… definitely not my greatest moment! I could only laugh at how quickly the Lord had brought me to that place of brokenness, the beginning of an insane ride in which I am totally out of control. Once again He reminded me of His grace. I do not live under my own standards of success and failure — I live under that grace. Within that sphere, there is freedom, joy, and I can express myself in whatever way I want to! There is no obligation, no guilt, no striving. There is rest.
“For when I am weak, then I am strong.�
I am weak physically. I think this is the hardest area of weakness for me to accept. If nothing else, I want to feel like I can run, be tough, work hard, and serve in physical ways. And that is where my loving Father stripped me the other evening, showed me how fragile my body really is with the reality that one meal could take me out of commission and leave me deflated and exhausted for a good 24 hours. Feeling like I had nothing to offer, and bringing me back to the place of grace. In my weakness, He surrounded me with a team who encouraged, prayed for, and blessed me beyond imagination!
I am weak in my Spanish. Every single day we go to places where there are hurting, broken people that we are coming to love and serve… people with whom I struggle to communicate. There are the orphans and children at the hospital, as well as the neighbor kids. And the old folks at the nursing home we visit. And the store clerk. And on and on. The effort to communicate is exhausting and embarrassing. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely stoked to learn this language, but it is not easy. I have taken for granted the ability to talk to people! Not anymore. And yet, God’s strength shines through our weakness! Yesterday we visited the women in the bars who have been forced into prostitution, which is the only way they see that they can make a living. We struggled to formulate sentences and carry on conversation in the heaviness of those places. Yet to my amazement, many of them broke down and cried in our arms after expressing a desire to have a different job and opening up to us. We prayed with them and hugged them and brought a light that was not there before. That was not us. That could only be Jesus, working in the midst of our inadequacy.
I am weak in my ability to play guitar and lead worship. So what have I been asked to do over the last few days? Exactly that! Today in the dump we sang and did skits and chatted with the families, especially the children, who live there. Somehow the guitar ended up in my hands and I found such joy in playing and singing, bringing joy into that haunting scene. Somehow I ended up leading worship with a teammate tonight during the corporate worship time, with everyone involved in Casa Verde’s ministry gathered here in our home. It is humbling when I fail to perform the way I want to. But even more humbling to realize that God doesn’t care what I sound like as much as where my heart is as I sing to Him!
I am weak. He is strong.
