“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these…”
This summer has been a summer of preparations. If you haven’t heard, we’ve got some big changes happening in the Brulé family; so in the midst of all the fundraising and World Race preparations, I’ve also been doing my best to keep up with maid-of-honor duties as my twin sister, Sarah, plans for her wedding this August. Her wedding just happens to be the weekend before WR training camp, which means that once it’s over I’ll only have a few more days before I strap on my 65L pack and head down to Gainesville, GA to meet the people I will be spending the next 11 months with. So through all the craziness and excitement this summer has brought us, I’ve had to remind myself time and time again to slow down and recognize what God is doing–and often times it’s been the seemingly little things that have stuck with me the most.
A couple of months ago, Sarah decided she was going to try to grow her own flowers for the wedding to cut down on some of the costs. So, one day she came home with several packets of wildflower seeds, and we spent the day in the garden beds in the back yard, digging up all the weeds and overgrown vegetable plants from last year that never quite made it. Neither of us had ever really done much gardening before, so naturally we were a little uncertain–not knowing how successful we’d be or even which colors and varieties would pop up from the mix of wildflower seeds she’d bought–but we decided to wing it anyways. Well guys, we’re now a month away from the wedding and the flowers have started to bloom; and to our amazement, they turned out to be the EXACT colors she chose for her wedding! How awesome is that?!
How awesome is it that our Father loves us that much? I mean, we’ve all heard about the miraculous signs and wonders–how He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind–and I’m sure I will witness many of these wonders over the course of these 11 months that lie ahead. But for right now, what wows me the most about Him are the small things–the litte acts of sheer love that tell me that yes, He does indeed care about every single little detail of our lives. It’s the things that we didn’t even ask for, the things we didn’t even know we needed–it’s the things He does simply because He loves us. He loves us through the remarkable and the mundane, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the rational and the irrational–yes, He loves us through it all.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Luke 12:22-34
This is the passage I’ve clung to time and time again over the last few months. Most of the feelings I’ve had while preparing for the race have been positive ones, but there have also been times I’ve allowed the fear and the doubt to seep in too. Almost every conversation I’ve had with others about the World Race has been nothing but encouraging, and I have been so grateful for that. But there have been other kinds of conversations too; the kind where I can just hear the doubt and disapproval in their voices–or even worse, there are the ones where they just don’t say anything at all.
There was one event in particular that happened a couple of months ago that has really stuck with me. I had just had a conversation with someone about the World Race that was particularly discouraging. It wasn’t what he said that was discouraging; it was what I heard in his voice. He tried his best to cover up the disapproval, but the subtle hints of negativity pushed their way through. I knew that the heart of the issue was that he was misunderstanding my intentions for going on the World Race–which is exactly what I have been most fearful of in sharing with others about it. After the conversation was finished, the internal string of thoughts and questions began:
“How am I going to raise all this money anyways?” “Should I really be asking people for money?” “I hate asking people for money.” “Maybe I should be focusing on my career right now.” “Ew… career.” “I know God can use me right here where I am, am I abandoning my country?” “Does He even want me to do this?” “What even are my intentions anyways?” “Why am I even doing this?!”
I was just about to shut myself away in the studio for a while to meditate yet again on Luke 12, but just before I closed the door, my sister’s fiancé, Ivan stopped me. Having no idea about the internal debate going on inside of me, he handed me a folded piece of paper that had been stapled together at the edges, with the words “WR Amy” scribbled in red on the front: “Here you go, this is for you. Sorry about the envelope, I didn’t have any so I just made one,” like I would somehow be offended by the fact that it looked as if a five-year-old had made it. I glanced inside and immediately went to hand it back to him, “Ivan, this is your graduation money!” I knew this because we had just gone to his graduation party a few days before. I then proceeded to go on and on about how he had worked so hard in school and he deserved this money, and how he and Sarah were about to get married and surely they needed it more than I did, and so on–you get the picture. But it didn’t matter what I said. He had made up his mind and he was giving it to me, and that was that.
My point in mentioning all of this is just to tell you that for every discouraging comment and every doubtful thought that has entered my mind, God has never failed to provide encouragement and affirmation just when I needed it. Whether through leading me to just the right scripture, through sending someone to unknowingly bring words of encouragement to me at just the right time, through allowing me to print 40+ fundraising letters after the printer claimed to have run out of ink (hah!), or just simply telling us He loves us through the wildflowers. My point in all of this is that He knows us, He loves us, and He cares. It doesn’t matter what it is, whether big or small–he cares. No, maybe it’s not logical, but it’s the truth and it’s what He’s shown me time and time again: He cares about it all.
