friends and family,
hello, I miss you and I cannot wait to squeeze your necks when I get home. a little update: the biggest lesson I am learning on this trip is how to spiritually and physically recharge and rest. if you know me personally I am almost 100% sure you are reading this and cheering and thinking “FINALLY”. The lesson I ran so far from and avoided for so long is being taught to me, and guess what… i’m listening. it is taking a lot of knocking me down a few levels and breaking some pride issues. With ears and heart wide open I am ready to recieve this blessing that is called REST.
In one of my last blog post I wrote about my personality type and my enneagram. This isn’t something that i rely on, but it does give clarity to someone who has felt alone in their character for a long time. Enneagram 7’s keep themselves busy to the point of burnout, because in the stillness and the rest, there is opportunity to feel pain and there is no where to run from it. Yall. I packed the day OF me leaving because I was so busy I didnt have time. I let this craziness exist to the point where I arrived to training camp completely worn out and drained when in my mind I should have been “spiritually preparing myself”. its a good thing our God is so good and meets us exactly where we are.
I can’t remember the last time I had a schedule devoted to my relationship with God. I was always basing my day off of how many people I could meet with and how I could fulfill everyone elses needs. No matter what I am doing in Swaziland I have around 3 hours a day devoted to spending time laying in the grass shouting out praises or sitting on the edge of our porch journaling. everything is slow here. its almost like in all of this life i created for myself I lost site of what truly matters and why I am even alive- to glorify God. This has been really good for me to refind myself and understand how this all began, and it has been a good place to really meditate on what God has to say about me and our relationship.
Although this has been a good and a quite life changing lesson, it has been hard to understand this through doing ministry. When God sent me to Africa I assumed I would be spending most of my time serving people in everyway I possibly could. I tried not to put expectations on this trip, but from prior trips I guessed that this would be my schedule. Its a good thing He knows me better than anyone and is giving me this time to soak in stillness and get to pour out directly from a full cup. (which I should always be doing, I know)
Because there are so many silent moments and still sittings, Satan is doing his best to squeeze himself in any situation. After talking to a few of my teammates we all figured out that we feel like we are not doing a whole lot, because we are visiting our carepoints and doing homevisits or admin work, and that is mostly all for the day. we keep our schedules pretty open for anything that needs to be done. as much as loving on kids is great, I was not seeing the fruit from it. I was not getting to check anything off of a box. we have no goal for the end of the day than to just love well. this was the easiest thing for Satan to grab a hold of and RUN.
We talked to Charity, who pours into us girls throughout the week, and this is what she said to us. “we have to flip our mindset on what is actually a successful day doing ministry. in our culture we define success as how much we can get done in one day, or how many things we can accomplish. success to God is how well we love people and how many times we bring glory to Him throughout our day” The idea that culture has drilled into my head of a successful day is a burden I need to leave here.
one of the first things I learned here was that in Swaziland, time is based off of relationships. Someone could show up 2 hours late to something, and it would be normal. their reasoning for being late would most likely be because they were spending time with someone who they love. obviously I am not going to show up two hours late to everything, but this shows how much they value quality time instead of being rushed and into a schedule. I felt God telling me He is the exact same way. How was I going to bring Him glory through my relationships that I was trying so hard to empty my everything and my time into, when I wouldn’t even spend time with Him? This trip so far has been a stable way to rest emotionally and learn how to refill.
I am writing this because I need accountability when I get home. to keep me accountable, please make sure I give myself some moments to breathe and sit still and rest, even when I don’t want it. thank you, I adore you.
-Georgia
