This last year I went after an adventure of a lifetime with the Lord. An adventure that I thought would better me in so many different ways. One that when I got home, I would have crazy stories of miraculous healing and life change to tell. And I wont discount how many amazing things the Lord did do, but truly, there were a lot of empty promises I experienced in this last year. And maybe they were just promises I inadvertently made myself, but I didn’t account for the hurt I would experience on the race. I walked in so naïve, vulnerable, and willing. And so did the other 39 people around me. All I wanted was to feel known and make this new normal a home. Within the people, within the environment, within myself, but what I didn’t realize was that at the very beginning I placed way too many expectations on myself, and my team. Which caused me to get hurt. My heart wasn’t guarded, and neither were multiple individuals around me (or maybe they were too guarded who really knows). I created a human crafted home and manufactured peace that usually felt like it could blow up at any second but also became very comfortable. Which then made me push everyone away when I got back cause I had believed the lie that the home we created on the race was the only real one and that I’d never feel at home in America again.
There were days when I got back that I was simply so confused as to what I was doing, feeling as though I was walking around in a fog aching for belonging. For peace. For acceptance. For a sense of purpose and a place that felt like home. And I realized, the enemy would love nothing more than for me to dwell on what isn’t happening. He would love nothing more than to keep me in the confusion and fog. He would love for me to be terrified of what felt like an empty future for so many months. For me to believe that I peaked and got burnt out at the same time as a 19 year old, and that the repercussion is that I would never be the same again. That the ‘bubbly’ Moriah that everyone knew would never be the same. That my ambition, drive, passion, and desire to make Jesus known just wouldn’t be as on fire as it once was.
I had days that I would just sit in my room and cry wondering if things were ever gonna feel normal again. Woke up with anxiety, went to sleep with it. Counting on the fact that if I didn’t get at least an hour or two in the morning alone with Jesus that my day didn’t stand a chance.
When I walked into 2018 the Lord spoke the word audacious over me. The meaning of this word is ‘a willingness to take bold risks’. Sounds exhilarating, huh. I had never asked the Lord for a word over my year like that in my life and I was excited about it! And YES, that word has totally been fulfilled in the adventure aspect I had painted it out to be in my head… (lol I think the bold risks part meant jumping off cliffs and skydiving or something absurd to me) however what I didn’t realize was that the Lord was gonna ask me to let go of my closest friend, to stay home and not team lead in Cambodia(which I wasn’t that sad about, I just wanted to ‘go’ cause it seemed easier than staying), and work the same job I had sworn I’d never work again. All the while completely starting over in friendships. Those were the not so sexy ‘bold risks’ that left me at ground zero. As though I was starting over in everything that I had ever worked at. Starting at “okay Lord, I know you’ve told me to rest, and I’m not really sure how to do that anymore cause I don’t feel at rest at all, but I’m gonna trust that you know what you’re doing, please help me.”
BUT I can tell you after being home 7 months (what the heck), that though this has been easily the hardest year of my life, I wouldn’t change a thing. I learned what it is to be disciplined by the Lord, and it wasn’t easy.
Hebrews 12:9 says “Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!”
Submission to Him is living.
And sometimes life beats you up and cuts you down, but there’s really nothing like comin’ out on the other side standing on The Rock KNOWING that the Lord is good. And that there really is no greater freedom than surrender.
So all that to say, I’ve learned this year that my home is in heaven, and that I get to be expectant without expectations. I’m not made for earth. But I can choose to remember the Lord in any moment and abide in him. And belong immediately. Cause He’s right in front of me, He’s not far away, and I can be at Home with Him. There’s no fullness like life with Him. And
This was a year I choseto be at Home With Him.
