I think that I’d be doing you all a disservice if I told you that the World Race was all fun and adventures and little kids that love you and people begging to hear about Jesus and accept Him as their Lord and Savior and fruit that you can see. That being a missionary is all good days full of joy. All you growing and maturing and being the best Christian you can be.
No. Just no.
I think that I’ve done a bad job of letting you in. Letting people at home know that this thing is tough sometimes. Really tough. Letting them know that I fail at joy. At encouragement. At community. At being a light in a dark place. Letting them know that my hallelujah gets tired, too.
The other day, I woke up at 5:30 am.
“Wow, that’s early!” You might say that. But what you don’t know is that I’m supposed to get up at 5. Because the school bus comes to pick me and my teammates up for ministry at 6. This means I had about 25 minutes to get up, make breakfast, and spend time with the Lord before I had to go pour myself out completely for 10 hours.
I ran around the house. I was in a terrible mood. I hardly said any words to my bright eyed and bushy tailed teammates who greeted me with a happy “Goodmorning, Abs!” I couldn’t find my chacos. Anywhere. So I had to wear my shower shoes to ministry. I didn’t have time to make a warm breakfast like I wanted to so I ate cereal. I didn’t get to read a single verse of scripture and I didn’t say one thing to The Lord. And I definitely had no time to make coffee.
I got on the bus with my headphones in, still in a crappy mood. I put my feet in the seat to avoid anyone sitting next to me because Heaven forbid I experience any cheery, before-school interactions with the local teachers or my teammates.
That morning we had one of the roughest bus rides of the week. We were piled on an old American school bus going over unpaved roads with potholes the size of moon craters and ditches that run through them. Opening all the windows around me and sitting in the very front seat couldn’t save me from the motion sickness that came upon me. My head was spinning. I was sweating. On the verge of vomiting. And annoyed with everyone and everything.
We got to our ministry site and I stomped off the bus. My team stopped me before I walked into the school so we could pray together like we always do before we go in. I didn’t want to pray. I didn’t feel like coming before The Lord and offering praises and thankfulness to Him. My hallelujah was tired.
After prayer we got our room assignments for the day. I got my usual assignment- a preschool classroom with about 20 tiny humans in it. All the other classrooms in the building are almost completely empty of children until around 8 am. But not mine. The kids in my classroom live very far away so they get dropped off at 7.
The screaming and the tugging on my hair and the sticky hands on my face and clean white shirt started immediately. I broke up about 7 fights, read 13 books, and cleaned up 3 spilled water messes before 8 am rolled around. I could sense Holy Spirit beckoning me to draw near and talk it out with Him.
I didn’t. My hallelujah was tired. I pushed Him away.
Earplugs and headphones wouldn’t have been able to save me from the terrible headache that came during that class. The noise level is a glass-shattering kind of level. The only thing on my mind was school lunch and how excited I was to eat.
When it came time for lunch my team and I realized that since the children were leaving early this week because of exams, school wasn’t serving lunch. It was 11 am. We weren’t getting dropped off at our home until 4:30 pm.
The headache was real. The anxiety was real. The exhaustion was real. The frustration was real. The hangry was SO real. And I let it all control my thoughts and my attitude.
We spent the remaining time at our ministry site sorting and shelving books for their new library addition. I’m talking mounds and mounds of books just thrown into this room. Let me just add that it was about a million and one degrees in Honduras that day. And this place, like most places here, has a tin roof. So we were pretty much sitting in an oven. Sweating through our clothes. Leaving marks on the floor when we stood up.
I did this in silence. With my headphones in, again. Not saying a word to my teammates or to the two other American women who volunteer in this school.
The day seemed to last forever. I never once took my frustration, anxiety, hangriness, or exhaustion to The Lord. I never opted to take a break and read my bible. I just sat at my pity party.
Finally the bus picked us up from the school and I got in. Sat alone again. Felt the same motion sickness again. Felt the same annoyance again.
We got home and I did my own thing for the rest of the day. Numbed my mind with Netflix and social media. Ignoring the things Holy Spirit was putting on my heart to bring before The Lord. Ignoring His call to worship despite my circumstances. My hallelujah was tired.
Team time came around and I knew I needed to apologize to my team for being such a poop. I did, and they graciously extended encouragement and love to me. They let me know that they would be strong where I was weak because that’s just how team Lighthouse does things. And encouraged me to let them know where I was at (physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally) earlier so that they could pray for/with me and better love and serve me.
Y’all.
I’m writing this and crying because I’m sharing some of the ugliest parts of myself with you. And that is a scary thing for me. I’m working on vulnerability this year, and this is part of it.
My hallelujah was tired that day. I felt like I had no rejoicing left in me. No song left in my heart. I was completely focused on my circumstances and couldn’t get out of the funk I was in.
What are you supposed to do when your hallelujah gets tired?
I don’t know if there’s a perfect answer for this question. Don’t know if there ever will be. All I know is that there’s only one thing that gives new life to my hallelujah. My heart song. And that’s worship and praise.
When my heart is breaking and I’m failing at every possible thing to be failing at and my circumstances seem to be like waves crashing all around me, let me tell you that the last thing I feel like doing is thanking God for any of it. I know you can relate.
But when I finally get to that place. That “end of my rope” place. That’s where I experience the truest and most genuine worship and praise and thankfulness. The moment He begins to speak, fear and anxiety and worry and frustration and even hangry have to leave.
He reminds me of the things that I’ve forgotten. His promises. The gospel. His great love and kindness towards me. And He wins me all over again.
And He gives me a new hallelujah.
I’m not perfect- never will be. Being a missionary doesn’t protect me from the lies that the enemy feeds you and everyone else in this world. And I don’t want to paint a perfect picture of my life on the field. I have those days, too. The ones that you feel like might be the end of you.
If your hallelujah is tired today, I just want to tell you that that’s okay. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to come to the end of your rope.
At the end of my rope, all I find is His strength. He’s alot stronger than me. Alot better at dealing with the things in my heart than I am. And every time I get to that place, and ask His perfect love to come in and cast out all the things that don’t belong and give me a new hallelujah, a new song, He’s always faithful in that. He shows up and brings peace that transcends all understanding and comfort that only a Heavenly father could provide.
One of my favorite songs is called, “Letting Go” by Steffany Gretzinger. I’ve had it on repeat for 2 months. The Lord has used it to teach me what I need to do when my hallelujah is tired.
One of my favorite lines from the song is,
“And if I lived a thousand lifetimes
And wrote a song for every day
Still there would be no way to say
How you have loved me”
It is so true that we could never express or understand how much The Lord loves us. I’m learning that letting people in, being vulnerable, and failing allows me to understand just a little bit more about The Lord’s love and grace. That’s something that I’m finding rest in today.
