Hey everyone!!! I am currently in Quito, Ecuador. I’ve had a crazy first month. I have gone from being up in the mountains and serving at a beautiful home for girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking, to seeing my parents for a week, and then to living at a beautiful host house for the rest of my time here. It’s weird knowing my time on the race is coming to a close, but I have learned so much. For this blog, I want to share with y’all some of the things that I have learned thus far:
PSA: this blog may be touchy topic for most but if i’m being honest, I think it will be a good reminder for all.
Have you ever thought of cake and faith and how similar they might be? Most people like cake, but not everybody. Some like chocolate cake and some like vanilla some like yellow and some like marble. Just like in faith there are many different denominations and ways to have faith. How we come about what we like best is really an individual preference and journey. That’s kind of like mine. I tend to watch and observe rather than read and contemplate. My journey and my faith is a little different from what others have experienced.
All my life I have gone to church and loved God with all my heart but I don’t see him as a father and I don’t read his word everyday nor do I participate in every youth activity. Does that not make me christian? I grew up knowing how much the Lord loved me and how much He loved his people. I know we are suppose to treat others how we want to be treated and we be thankful for everything and that’s how I went about my life. To others around me I never spoke about him I never read my bible nor did I ever pray in public besides praying over the meal. As I grew up I felt as if people were judging me….
Christianity kept growing and growing and a lot of things I had never heard of came into play. I felt that if I wasn’t reading my bible everyday it was a sin and I would never grow as a christian. I also felt that something was wrong with me because I couldn’t hear from the Lord. To this day have never heard from him and to be honest I thought it was kinda creepy since I didn’t understand what it was. Without realizing I quickly started changing my personality and spiritual understandings into what others wanted me to be. I became someone I didn’t really understand but others did so everything seemed great to me! . The fear of not being accepted played a big part in my life and I figured the only way to make my life easier was to just adapt into a new lifestyle.
Once I signed up for the race I was still going about this lifestyle and I had a feeling that what I would be getting into wouldn’t be easy for me but I stuck with it. Before I left I became scared that people wouldn’t like me or find me weird even tho I had literally been shaping my life to please others and not myself so I decided to just stick with my routine. It had worked back home so why wouldn’t it work here? In Thailand I realized it was hard for me to fake everything I was doing, but I was afraid to be different or not met where I was so I kept pretending to be in the same place as everyone else. In Malaysia I realized that this little game I was playing wasn’t going to work for me anymore because I was miserable and had to remind myself that it is ok to be different. Something that my dad told me was that Jesus died for us and stood up for what He believed in because He was different and didn’t see life like everyone else. He believed greater for His people and made the greatest sacrifice anyone could ever do. After hearing this I realized if I spend everyday of my life living up to peoples standards then I will never be able to grow in what I believe or who I am.
In Costa we were working at a daycare that changed my perspective on everything. My teacher showed me pure joy in everything she did. When she was tired she pressed on and when she was sad she still brought joy to all the kids. She showed me what it looked like to truly love others in her own way. She didn’t try to be anybody else but herself and that inspired me and reminded me of how life should be. I shouldn’t have to hide myself or act different because of others. So for the rest of Costa I was continually working on really taking time for myself and trying to understand what makes my relationship with Him my own.
I learned I don’t read the bible because I don’t always enjoy reading and I don’t normally get a lot out of it.
So why was I was doing it?
I have a big imagination and love for adventures and to be honest just living and experiencing is one of the greatest treasures we get in life. We are so blessed with the world around us and just by observing everything around me is real and instead of reading I just want to embrace it with everything I have. I have also realized that I may never hear the Lord speak to me like he does to others but I’m ok with it now. I don’t have to say I was called or even he told me because no matter where I am I know its where the Lord wants me to be. One thing I always hated growing up was asking questions, but i have learned that through not understanding things there will be lots of questions. Questions are great things and even though people will give you their opinions it will never compare to the one true answer that we will receive in heaven. I also love to listen to people and their encounters with the Lord and the things He taught them. I like to hear the crazy out of this world stories because by listening we can learn so much and thats a wonderful thing we can share with each other.
One thing that makes christians different is their mindset and attitude. Most of the time we have a heart of serving and loving on others but there are times that we will fail and thats ok. We will pray over people and ask for healing and we may not get what we want out of it so we become disappointed because we didn’t see the outcome. In these situations we don’t think of the emotions of that person. Every person will appreciate a prayer but one thing they appreciate most is the fact that you took a small chunk of time out of your day and came over to them or that you smiled at them or that you made them feel noticed. So we can be very selfish in not getting what we want, but what makes us different isn’t the outcome we give people but our actions.
So I don’t know if any of this was a good reminder to you, but what I wanted you to take away from it was that there is no right or wrong christian. I am now not afraid just to be who I am because I have learned that life is miserable when you live a lie. No one of us are the same and as long as you know where your heart stands you don’t have to prove it to anyone.
….now you see there are different types of flavors an cakes, but they are all sweet and good…just like we are all a little different, but we are all followers of Christ!
With love,
Tatyana
