As I’ve said in my previous blogs from Bolivia, I love the ministry that we have been placed with this month, but something that I have been struggling with so much this month is my patience. I seem to have none. I’m impatient with my teammates, with the other team we’re staying with, with writing emails, with doing our finance budget, and myself. Everything feels like such a test lately and I hate it. It’s not who I am and it’s not who I want to be.
The other night, my team and I went out to get dinner from a street vendor, but just as we were leaving, it started to thunderstorm. It wasn’t too bad, so we decided to keep going, but after about a block, it began to hail so hard that we could hardly stand it and the lightning was so bright that it lit up the entire sky. The rain and hail felt like needles on our skin and I couldn’t help but relate this to how I have been feeling this month.
All the small things that would normally never bother me have just felt like needles getting under my skin, making them an unbearable nuisance. I’ve tried to work it out in my mind, and I can’t quite figure out what the change in my attitude is reflecting. I know that I’m stressed about my finances and living in constant community is a struggle for me, but I think it’s more than those surface level issues. I think the real issue is that I’m frustrated with God right now. I’m frustrated because my funding isn’t coming in, because I don’t know what to do if I get sent home, and I just don’t know what else to do and it’s so hard for me. I’ve been such a self sufficient person for so long and now not being able to take care of everything on my own is new and difficult and frustrating, like needles constantly poking at my finger-tips. Having to ask for help, especially with money, is my worst nightmare and to have it be unsuccessful is even harder. It just feels like I have been treading water and now I’m drowning. I’m drowning in uncertainty, in confusion, and in frustration.
It’s easy for my teammates or my squad leaders to tell me to just trust that God will provide, and I know that He will provide what is best for me, but not knowing is the hard part for me. Planning and knowing what I’m going to do is how I live my life and it’s so hard to break that mindset. Uncertainty is my kryptonite. It eats away at me to the point where I can’t think about anything else except the two possibilities staring me in the face. It consumes me to the point where I have no patience for anything and I can’t put my focus on what I should be thinking about and in turn, all these little raindrops begin to feel like needles. Things that would normally make no impression on me at all begin to chip away at me until eventually I have nothing left and I can’t do anything about it.
I know that God has a reason and a plan for all of this and He is going to teach me something through this frustration and impatience, but right now it is so difficult for me to see those sharp needle points as harmless raindrops.
