It’s been a year since I landed in JFK airport. A whole year. I’ve been back for a year. I am still trying to wrap my head around how every second of that adventure, every country, every experience feels like yesterday… yet, last week feels like a year ago.
The past year has been rough. Trying to balance the “being here” while so desperately wanting to be anywhere else…. and trying to understand why.
Even as I sit here and try to make sense of it I can feel a lump of tears rise in my throat. Why is it so hard to do this… to live life… everyday like this. I try not to think about it… about how desperatly I want to hop on a plane and land anywhere… anywhere hot and dirty and far away. And when I do think about it… well, it’s physically painful. There is litterally an excruciating hurt in my heart when I think about where I am and where I want to be. But I think what hurts the most is that this is where God has me. And I can’t figure out how to let Him use me here… now… I want to be willing…I say I am with my mouth… but I know the truth is – in my heart – I’m not.
A few weeks ago I told my husband I just wanted to go anywhere and He asked me what I was running from. I stopped and looked at him… I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know I was running. But I realize now that I am.
What am I running from… What am I running from… I have been thinking about this and trying to really see what the answer might be.
Then yesterday, as I thought about this past year, it hit me. That’s what I’m running from… what I’m scared to death of. Time – running out of time.
This past year litterally went by in the blink of an eye. I mean it feels like I just started my job a month or so ago and I have been here for almost a year. The days and months and years fly by and I’m terrified that 10 years from now I will still be sitting at my job vaugly remembering a day when I thought I’d do more… do anything for the Kindom of God. Yet, all I did was desire to get outta town while the years passed by. I’m terrified of the fact that I only get one life… I only get so many days… and even tomorrow isn’t promised. Im terrified I’m going to waste this time. I’m running from the fear of complacency and contentment and comfort. I’m running from the promise of “normalcy”.
But I realized today that God doesn’t want me to run.
He wants me to follow.
I realized today that my worst fear is actually happening.
I am wasting time.
I am wasting every day that God has given me. I have wasted this past year. I am wasting today… right now… right here. As I go to work and go home and live my life – day by day – there are people… people that don’t know the Love of God… people that need a Savior… people that need to KNOW the TRUTH! And all I have done is waste time. I have been so selfish. So selfish to tell God how I want to serve Him and where I want to serve Him and how I want to serve Him… All the while talking to and walking past and sitting beside people RIGHT HERE in front of me that NEED JESUS… that NEED TO BE LOVED.
And it brakes my heart to know that.
I guess brokeness is a good place to start.
Sigh…
