For the month of Myanmar the Lord asked me to do a phone fast. fun!
So for the past 3 weeks all I have used to capture memories of Myanmar is my trusty camera. Phone fasts are not fun, honestly they suck. For mine I shut off my phone and gave it to my teammate, Lucy. I haven’t talked to anyone from home or any of my friends that are spread out through Myanmar and it’s not easy. I haven’t been able to listen to any music on the long bus rides to and from ministry or even at our hostel because my laptop volume is broken lol. So I have LOTS of time to sit with the Lord in SILENCE. it’s great!
The Lord wants me to learn how to become dependent on him and hear his voice throughout the hardest parts of my days. He wants me to learn how to lean on him and see him in everything. Halfway into our month in Myanmar the Lord asked me to do another fast. what! a! guy! It’s not fun, I have to eat healthy lol. So I cut out lots of stuff and my diet has consisted of nuts, fruit, and meat (if it’s safe) unless our ministry host provides us with food.
So you may be wondering why I titled this blog human intimacy, I’m not really sure why either so whatever I’m writing next is straight from the man himself.
ahem.
Last week I hit…I guess you could say…a wall. I broke the fast and talked to a friend on the phone, felt convicted and then another one of my friends called one of my teammates and I literally saw her on face time but didn’t talk to her because I felt so convicted from talking to my other friend earlier and I felt horrible (still do). THEN I go on Instagram and tell people to email me because I’m going crazy in my prison cell (not a real one) but
that I won’t respond to the emails because that would be breaking my fast. THEN Jesus tells me to give up comfort foods and the lack of my normal food intake made me a bit, um, crabby you could day. Also the extreme absence of having alone time or even the thought of having alone time has really just been GREAT. A rough time. BUT I learned something.
Humans crave relationship and intimacy. We can not survive alone, its really that simple. But being crammed in a room with 6 girls and no windows with a hallway space of at least 1 and a half feet, with no phone/music to distract you, and not talking to anyone else besides the same six girls for four weeks straight really makes you think you could live alone for the rest of your life. That made me sound like I don’t like my team, let me clarify that I could not live a happy life without them in it. But in this time of extreme closeness, frustration is a thing. Anyways, of course I’m wrong about living alone forever. We create intimacy with others because we fear the thought of being alone. oh woah. We are scared of the fact that we could spend the rest of our lives with no friends,no family, being excluded, essentially no relationship. So why does God make it so hard sometimes to crave the intimacy and the relationship when we know that we can’t survive without it? I honestly have no idea, so if you know the answer, comment down below or email me plz.
He makes it so hard because he gives us his heart for the people he loves, which is everyone of course. Here’s what really got me thinking about this blog. So when I hit the wall and asked for emails, I actually got emails. I wasn’t expecting any at all so when I opened my computer and saw that I received some my heart straight up melted. I’m not saying I cried or anything, but in that moment I wanted to. You forget how much you love people. It’s like when you talk about something or someone for so long you just forget the real emotion behind the memory, it just becomes something you’ve memorized because you explain it or think it over and over again.
So what I got from the emails is that I crave relationship. I’m an introvert and I love being alone, If there was a “most likely to become a hermit” in a high school yearbook, I would be voted. But I’m wrong. I could not and would not ever do that because humans are great, friends are great, memories are a gift, and intimacy is essential for living a good life. I think its crazy how you can feel so alone living everyday life with the same people but when you hear from someone you haven’t heard from in a while it all changes literally the second you get a notification.
Don’t take what you have or who you have for granted. Even if it’s someone you hate. Because there will be a time when you wish you could get in the same argument, the same fight, or a time when you wish you could hear that one laugh or the one same response to everything you say. There will be a time when you crave the intimacy and the relationship you worked for that you’ve lost or that you didn’t even notice until it was too late. Deep down you know you would not be who you are without the people that have been apart of your life, good or bad. You know that you wouldn’t act the way you do, respond to things
the way you do, do the things you do, or even think the way you do without them.
Your life is forever marked by those people. Not gonna lie, that’s actually terrifying and frustrating.
But through all of the things we’ve been through and the things we’ve seen,
through all the hurt, scars, pain, fear, love, hate, etc., God STILL makes human intimacy an
essential part to our human existence. He still makes it impossible for us to live alone forever. When we have relationship with others, we have relationship
with Jesus. Jesus is in every single living soul on this earth. It doesn’t matter if you believe in him or not. Everyday I see a different side of him, everyday I have a different conversation with him, a new perspective, a new idea. Its mind-blowing because it’s with the people I see on the street, or the girls I live with, my friends at home, my friends on the squad, my family, LITERALLY EVERYONE. It’s wack, truly.
So yea, I’m just gonna end it there. Gave you some perspective on human intimacy hopefully. Tell me your thoughts, I wanna know, I’m just out here in Myanmar hangin out in my cell.
see ya.
-love mady
