Time is a funny thing. On the one hand, it feels like I spent the better part of a decade in Mongolia, and yet I can barley grasp the concept that my time in Asia has come to an end. Asia has taught me so much about myself, where I fall short, and how I can grow to look more like Christ. We ended our time in Asia in a small country called Kyrgyzstan. A hard name to pronounce with people who solidified the reason behind my why. Why I am here. Why I am a Christian. Why I believe a relationship with Christ is the solution to my brokenness.
In keeping with the status quo of Asia, our ministry outreach in Kyrgyzstan was teaching english! My team and I went to various universities in the morning and met up for talking clubs in the afternoon. Our schedule provided an opportunity to get to know the students on a personal level. I noticed a common theme among my students, they are all desperate to be fully known. My students are seeking to fill a God-sized hole with human connections.
Multiple times during our last week while saying goodbye, a student would look me in the eyes and pled, “Don’t forget me.” It hit me right in the feels. I have felt the same feelings. Most recently this desperate cry to be known and remembered came up when I left for this mission trip. I felt the deep pangs of sorrow leaving friends and a city I called home for two years. My heart cried out don’t forget me when I said goodbye to my family for almost an entire year and to the comforts of a privileged life I did nothing to achieve. Why am I concerned of being forgotten if it was my decision to leave? Can you remember a person who doesn’t fully know themselves?
I think our desire to be known is a mirror of God’s desire to be known and sought after by us, His beautiful creations. I think we are created to love one another and truly care for each other. However, as mere humans we will not satisfy the desire of our hearts to been known. Only God has the power to fully know each and everyone of us. From the song Only You by Of the Land, “Only YOU can quench our insatiable hearts. For a rest can only be found in YOUR arms. Our lives are YOURS for only YOU can SATISFY.”
Psalm 139
O Lord, YOU have searched me and YOU know me.
YOU know when I sit and when I rise; YOU perceive my thoughts from afar. YOU discern my going out and my lying down; YOU are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue YOU know it completely, O Lord.
YOU hem me in – behind and before; YOU have laid YOUR hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heaves, YOU are there; if I make my bed in the depths, YOU are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side i’d the sea,
even there YOUR hand will guide me, YOUR right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to YOU; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to YOU.
For YOU created my inmost being; YOU knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise YOU because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; YOUR works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from YOU when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, YOUR eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in YOUR book before on of them fame to be.
How precious to me YOUR thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with YOU.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Life will continue to progress no matter my geographical location and that is beautiful. My students, my friends and my family fill up so many pages of my life’s book, but God is the author. The only one who knows everything about me is God. The only one who will never forget me is God. My desire is to be know by my Father and He has already satisfied that.
Thank you for always remembering.
