“Choose in”. To all the future and current racers, get ready for this word to be thoroughly ingrained in your brain. If I could count the number of times I’ve heard that phrase I’m pretttttty sure I would be fully funded by now. But, who the heck knows what that means when it comes to that moment? Well, I had that moment the other day and I would love to explain my moment to you in hopes of clarifying the ever-ambigous “choose in”.
First steps first, the setting. My team and I were in Guija, Mozambique for the month working with a CBI missionary from South Africa. A majority of our month was spent evangelizing in the morning and building a mud hut in the afternoons. All except two days where we visited a preschool in the morning and a special needs school for blind and deaf kids in the afternoon, one of them being our last full day of ministry.
Doing introductions at the school!
After arriving and deciding to teach the kids how to make cootie catchers (which is quite the experience when you have a mix of both blind and deaf!), we all gathered near the land rover to leave. Our host Tiene was still talking to the woman that runs the school and the kids were gathered near their bed room. And there we were, a group of American Girls [life size, not dolls hehe], staring back at deaf Mozambique kids, both of us not sure how to proceed. I think JJ said in the background, “I want to give Fernado [one of the kids who was deaf and came from an abusive background] a piggy back ride”.
P A U S E . . .
In that moment it clicked. Choosing in was setting aside the time, pushing tiredness out of my mind, letting go of the “how it should go” mindset and choosing something because of the simple joy that is in front of you. And before you pin my gold star on my chest, know that it was not something that I did out of obligation or a, “This is what I should be doing” mentality; something in my heart clicked and I just took one step forward. I was able to choose to go hang out with the kids even though we were “done”. So, I skipped over to the kids, grabbed Fernando’s hands and then started tickling him. After I assured myself he was laughing and not crying [it has happened] I swung him up on my back and we did piggy back races. [See the video below!] It was the smallest little thing but not only did I get a lot of joy, I hope and believe the kids did too.
JJ, Fernado, and David!, two of the deaf boys 🙂
Today I challenge you to choose in. Before you get out of bed, ask Holy Spirit to show you how to see that simple joy and when he gives you that moment [and I always will, I promise] just say yes. Choosing in doesn’t mean making everything harder, it means stepping back, grabbing Jesus’ hand and skipping forward with him into something new.
