Wow, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind.
We started out this go around with 2 pretty hard travel days. One flight being delayed by 5 or 6 hours…. sleeping on the floor at the airport… then finally arriving in Spain and sleeping in the airport in Madrid.. being woken up by security that next morning…. Realizing my phone had been stolen during the night (the thief literally unplugging my headphones which were in my ears and taking my phone from beside my head as I slept)….. pinging my phone with an app… realizing that it was still on the airport property…. Scrambling to try and find it before we had to catch the bus to Pamplona… not finding it, but meeting a maintenance man named Luie and having him look out for it…. Eric exchanging contact info with said maintenance man…. Getting to Pamplona and finding out our friend found my phone in a parking garage at the airport in Madrid….sleeping that night and then finally starting a 10 day section of the Camino de Santiago the next morning.
It was a wild start to my time in the field with M squad but it set the tone for a lot of things that the Lord wanted to do inside of me as I walked the Camino with without the distraction of social media or music.
The Lord addressed so many things during that time but the common theme was “ that He restores what has been stolen from us”.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm — my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.
Joel 2:25-26 ESV
As I walked the section of the Camino from Pamplona to Burgos for the second time.. so many memories came crashing back to me. Memories both amazing and memories that were hard. During my first round on the Camino, there were some really hard things to be worked through. Things within the squad and things within the leadership team that I was a part of. There were a couple of days where I actually almost could hear the hard conversations being had as I walked. Initially this stirred up some hurt and tension for me.. I allowed this to be a thief for my joy for a short time… but the Lord came and met me in that place.
He spoke into a lot of those memories… showing me where I had messed up.. then allowing me space to forgive myself …. He then led me into a space of forgiving those that I had actually been hurt by the first go around. It was special to actually be able to physically go back to the place a wound was left on my heart…process it with the Lord and then leave the wound there. As I walked through this, I began to experience the joy that I had really been fighting to hold on to.
A theme that has also been really important for me in this season has been to actually let the joy of the Lord be my strength. Meaning I don’t have to attempt to be strong in the way we generally view as being strong. I just have to accept his joy and live in that and from that place I will naturally find strength. It’s a conscious decision to live in that joy.
Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10
During all of this there were also beautiful interactions going on with the people around me. I felt like I had the perfect balance of pouring out and being filled going on as I walked. Friendships born, and people were coming alive. I wasn’t really sure how deep the impact had been on some of those that we loved the most as we walked and talked but but yesterday I received a message from one of these guys and with his permission I’m going to share a screenshot below.
That’s what I live for. To see others alive and learning more about what it looks like to be a son to a loving Father. This message was so encouraging.
To top off all of the goodness that was our 10 days on the Camino, we were able to recover my cell phone from the airport in Madrid on our way south to Mijas. Its It’s funny that the Lord uses things like that to let us know that he desires return of things lost in our lives.
I am currently still fundraising to cover this go around on the field, if you are interested in donating… click the donate button on this blog page.
