I think of the craziest part about high school that no one takes into account is how much you get to know yourself. Your flaws, how you work in relationships, your passions, etc. Finding myself was always something super important to me. There’s a sense of belonging when you find yourself. Not that you necessarily need to belong to people or a certain group but belonging to yourself. But being in high school you have to belong to other people isn’t that how you survive? But belonging in high school is pretending your one thing when your something totally different and that’s where you discover yourself the most, in the midst of people that are so different form you.
One of the things that led me on this journey to this mission is finding myself. If I have learned one thing while being a Christian is that God doesn’t make mistakes. Everything in my life that has happened in my life has led me up to my trip. The good things but especially the bad because the bad is what made me who I am. The crying, the disappointment, the failure without that where would this strength come from? The trials made me strong. The strength bred confidence.
I used to take these buzzfeed quizzes every time they would pop up on facebook or twitter just to “get to know myself” better. It is kind of pathetic if you think about it. I just loved learning about myself and getting affirmation about things I already knew but wanted the confirmation from the buzzfeed “experts” because the confirmation from myself was never enough. Even those personality tests were always interesting to me . Knowing I was an introvert,wanting to be an extrovert so badly and the test would always prove otherwise. One time last summer about a week before I decided to go on the World Race I took a spiritual gift test just because I was curious. The results were no mistake “exhortation, shepherding, and mercy-showing”. It wasn’t even the name of the gifts that mattered to me to be honest. It was the confirmation that I was meant to be a kingdom worker. Yes I knew. I knew since the summer before my freshman year, when I was in Orange County, California in a small bible college’s gym and I was singing to God and for the first time in my life, I knew he heard me calling his name. I just needed the confirmation once again. The push. The denial is what makes us crazy. Denying who we are again and again to fit into a plan that isn’t God’s of course that made me crazy.
