For about as long as I can remember in my walk with Jesus I’ve written down my prayers. What started as a way to keep my middle school mind focused for a solid five-minutes has turned into one of my favorite things. I have journals and journals full of prayers to the Father & now, I’ve switched from a pen and paper to a keyboard and an app, but none the I less have found it just as meaningful and important. There is something so beautiful about being able to look back weeks, months, and even years later to see how the Lord has responded. It offers such hope, reminds me of His faithfulness, and reminds me all the more just how wonderful walking with Jesus is.
I go back though and read prayers fairly often, but some I find myself reading more than others. In Peru, my team and I were in an orphanage and I found myself reading through a prayer I wrote in Uganda back in 2017 almost on the daily. One night it was my turn to lead our team in devotions and rather than reading to them what I had been reading in the book of Acts, I read them the prayer I wrote in February of 2017.
Truthfully, it was a rather vulnerable moment. Reading my prayer to my 5 teammates and squad leader was something I had never really considered doing. I wrote it to the Lord and never for someone else to read or to hear, but in the moment, I felt confident that the Lord wanted me to share it with my team. So, I did & then I turned on some praise music and gave them the space to write a prayer to the Lord too.
Afterwards one of the girls mentioned that when she heard me reading it, it sounded like a blog. Which kind of made me laugh – I guess my mom was right when she said that I write like I talk. But as we’ve left Peru and ventured into India and now Nepal I find myself reading that prayer all the time. Because the world we live in is tricky. Mission work is complicated. & Katie Davis said it best when she equated it to trying to empty the ocean with an eye dropper. But I continually go back to this because while there is beauty in the wrestling and much growth in the conversation, the truth will always be that Jesus is enough. He completed the work and at the end of the day, it’s in His hands. Always, always, always!
So, here is my prayer from Uganda. Here is the cry of my heart asking the Lord why and His faithful assurance that when He said “it is done” that He meant it.
“Compassion. It’s the opposite of competition. It’s being present with people in the midst of their struggle. Compassion comes from an intimate relationship with you, born out of obedience, and shows itself present in service. Father I want to be a woman marked by compassion. I don’t want to view myself in more esteem than others. I don’t want to be marked by pride – seeing myself above others. I want to have compassion. Compassion for the woman at church struggling to see you for who you are. Compassion for the child in poverty in the heart of Africa. I want to have compassion on the child being beaten up in the slums of Costa Rica. I want to have compassion on the orphan, left alone on the streets of China. Compassion for the Hindu, the Muslim, the Christian, and atheist. I want to be compassionate for the single father of three children who attends church every Sunday, the single mom on welfare, and the homosexual couples I know. I want to show compassion, because you’ve shown me compassion. I want to show compassion because I too have been there, and in many ways am there, and I can relate. I get it and want to help others as I too want to be helped. But it feels so messy. I’m not sure if I always under complicated it or if now I am just over complicating it. I’m not sure how it looks or what all it entails. But, I want to love others like you do. I want to extend my hand and walk with people in the midst of their struggle. I want to be kind to people. Be gracious. Be loving. Be like Jesus.
But what does that look like? How do I take the child I saw in Africa and relate it back to my home in the US? What can I practically do to show the love of Christ to those in Africa? Or is that not my calling? Have you called here, in Mukono, for these few months. To love and be loved here, and then you’re placing me back in the US to love and be loved there? I’m interning at Compassion International. The title itself says compassion, yet is that truly compassionate to just mail in a check every month with an occasional note? Is that really what you meant when you told us to love as our Father has loved or is it something much different? Something more radical? Something that ask more of us, that shapes us, and challenges us, and pushes us beyond our comfort zone? It’s the balance between what is enough and what is not enough that my mind wrestles between.
And then I stop. And I remember that on the cross you said it is finished. You completed the work that I could not complete. You did what I cannot do. You, my God, You are the savior of the world. You are the sovereign King on the throne. You are, not me. I’m your child – an amazing gift, totally undeserved. I am yours. I can rest in your embrace, in the reality that you hold the world in your hands. Not me. In that place of rest, I’m reminded that I can go. I can go to Africa and give my whole life to missions and the advancement of the Gospel. I can spend all my time trying to eliminate human suffering and pain. And just as Katie Davis said, I can spend my whole life emptying the ocean with an eye dropper. And that will be good. You will be glorified. But, I can live in the states and work as a social worker. I can be a wife and a mother and raise children that will love you. I can sponsor a child through compassion and sleep just as well as I could, were I in Africa, putting in blood, sweat, and tears into poverty eliminate. Because it’s not in my hands. It’s in yours. It always has been and always will be. I can go EXACTLY where you have called me, with no shame or regrets, because you’re in control.
Father, I can trust you because you know what’s best for me. You know what’s best for the community I find myself in. You know what’s best for Africa – for Mukono, Uganda. You also know what’s best for America. For FBCIT. For my family. For Liberty University. For the Mukono CDC. For Cross Point Church in Lynchburg VA. You know what’s best for WinShape Camps. I’m so grateful you have placed me in these settings, not to serve more or work harder. But to see you. Father may all that I say and do, be about you. You name. Your glory. Your renown. Not my own. May I not be tempted by the lies of the enemy that try to tell me otherwise.
In your name, by your grace, help me be a woman marked by Compassion for all people, of all generations, from all backgrounds, of all races. Not because it makes me look more globally centered or more Christ-like… but because you love them. You are for them. You are about them. I want to be like you, love like you, and as a result let you name be lifter higher.”
I’ve learned over the years that He is not afraid of my questions. My uncertainties don’t shake the Father. I’ve found there is so much beauty in just being honest with Him about how I feel and allowing Him to comfort me with the truth from His word and His faithfulness. & there is nothing more comforting than knowing that it’s not on me. That it’s all on Him. I just get the gift and the pleasure of being used by Him in both big ways and little ways.
