I’m halfway into month 2 of this 11 month journey and currently in Nepal. Last month was a bit rough. My team moved four times in China and I was sick the entire time. I will share my encounters in China in another blog because I want to camp out in what the Lord is doing right now in this very moment. My whole squad just finished our first debrief and on the field training. Debrief is a space where we are able to unpack our experiences and talk directly to our mentor and coaches as well as prepare for the work to come. I got the chance to talk one on one with our coaches and it was in those conversations that the Lord started to peel back another layer of healing. “I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” – Ezekiel 36:26. This was the scripture we dug into and it really resonated with me. I’ve read that scripture many times over the years and never quite understood it until now. Over time we experience pain and acquire wounds and respond by putting up walls over our hearts to protect it from further damage. Eventually that becomes a wall that we cannot move. God alone can remove that barrier and He wants to. In one of our meetings I confessed in a way to my squad that I struggle with rejection and shared a small piece of a past wound that I didn’t want to shed light to and communicated where I currently am at: that I’m closed off and have a painfully hard time trusting people. I don’t want to stay there but don’t know how to navigate my way out either.
During debrief the Lord continued to go deeper in the source of these roots of fear and opened my eyes to how much I’ve numbed my heart and mind. I never realized how much damage I attained from the hands of my parents and instead I’ve distracted myself with work or substances. Many areas of struggle stem from what I didn’t receive in formative years. My response has been that of feeling resentful towards God that He would allow me to be in such a hostile environment. I also held onto this belief that He has shortchanged me. In my time before the Lord I’ve confessed and repented for coming into agreement with the wounds and the lies that have followed. I asked the Holy Spirit to remove those barriers and open me up to His love. At first I felt incredibly weird and wanted nothing to do with this but freedom is something I’m willing to fight for. Even so He continued to whisper His love for me in an array of ways. In one of our worship sessions we were given words and scriptures and I received the word lovingkindness. I researched this word and found that this word describes His nature but it’s a different character trait from His basic goodness and compassion for all His creation. He delights in showing steadfast love for His very own children and His lovingkindness knows no bounds. I felt as though He was trying to say that’s how He feels towards me personally.
In our final session we got time to spend before the Holy Spirit and I asked Him to remove any distractions and something came to my mind that I’ve thought in depth about before. I asked if this was something truly from Him and His will for me that He would have to confirm it through white flowers. There’s no significance behind white flowers and I wasn’t specific in what kind of flowers it was just something I haven’t come across in my time in Nepal and seeing them would give me a sense of peace about this particular desire. A couple hours after that prayer I checked my phone and noticed I got a few text messages, one of them being from my dad. I wasn’t expecting a message from him and haven’t talked to him recently but I received these two photos
with the message ‘enjoy the beauty of life’.
Out of nowhere the Lord showed up in a real and palpable way. He sees and cares about the innermost parts of our hearts enough to randomly give a girl some white flowers.
There is this concept we talked about called an orphan mindset which is the antithesis of Kingdom thinking. Matthew 6:33 – “But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Many times I operate out of anxiousness and strive to attain peace apart from Him. Over and over again He tells me to just be still. We are told “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” – Romans 12:2, and in this He has asked me to lay down being defensive and let Him be my Defender and Advocate. Essentially my entire life I’ve never been able to grasp God as a Father. There’s this vocabulary in a Christian community that uses words like ‘daddy’ ‘pappa’ and ‘abba’. I don’t think I’ve ever called God ‘dad’. To me, God has always seemed distant, hard to please, easily disappointed, quick to anger, unavailable, hard to predict, (just like my earthly father) so I’ve taken comfort in His Son and my relationship with God has fundamentally become centered on Jesus because Jesus is so inviting. In this season God has brought me to place where for the first time He is opening my eyes to Him as more than the sovereign Creator of the Universe. He gave me a tangible representation at an orphanage in the mountains of what this looks like. My team got to hike up a mountain to visit an orphanage and we were greeted by dozens of eager and smiling faces. When we were done interacting with them and it was time to leave they came with us and two kids were insistent that they hold my hands as we descended.
They thought it would be fun if we ran down this mountain and at 26 I’m thinking at how bad I will feel this. They refused to play it safe and pulled my arms shouting “faster!” I gave in and laughed along with them. Here I was running down a mountain like a child, carefree without any concern for caution. Along the way both of the kids would stop at trees with flowers, point them out to me, picked them and put them in my hair. They literally had me pause and take in His beauty.
It was a sweet moment the Lord gave me that echoed that I’m His child. I still wrestle with calling Him ‘daddy’ and my view of Him hasn’t completely shifted but it’s a start. Even when I’m in a corner with my arms crossed He still chases after me. He is confident in His ability to woo me and deeply pursues me even though that idea freaks me out. Surrender to Him has only been fruitful and I no longer have to be ‘tough’ because He my Protector. He is rewriting places of pain from my past with truth and visual representations of His nature. It is my prayer that He changes your view of Him too that overwhelms you with His vast goodness and endless kindness!
Also, I have another fundraising deadline of 13,000 by the end of this month on the 30th. I’m 2,400 away from reaching that goal and stand in full faith that He will provide if it is His will that I’m to continue with this journey. Would you join me in prayer over this? If you feel led to donate I would be eternally grateful to be able to finish this race and be able to take part in bringing His Kingdom to the nations!
grace and peace,
Hannah
