Note from the ‘Editor’:
A handful of you may have wondered, ‘Well I knew she went to Mozambique, did she do anything there?’ The following was written at the first chance after our time in the country. I saved it on the network and decided to finally make it into a blog. I decided not to edit or cut out the candor. But because time offers insight into God’s purpose for the things that we face, I’m able to write what happens after you walk through the desert place:
As some of you know I’ve been in Vilanculos, Mozambique over the past two weeks working alongside a ministry who oversees an orphanage of 24 children without living parents. By the fifth day I was able to carry on a conversation in Portuguese, with the loving patience of the person speaking with me, and I even got to read John 3:16-21 in Span-guese? to about seven local Mozambiquano kids halfway through a devotional. Which was undoubtedly orquestrated by the Lord and was great!
But you want more than facts, so I will try to deliver open feedback from the heart. And though I prefer to paint my blogs with optimistic undertones, this time’s depiction however won’t hide the malaise and discontent I experienced. I’ll try to leave you with some idea as to why. Hopefully I convey it clearly.
Fatigue hit me spiritually because I was not drawing from God’s strength. I don’t know how to be specific with the details leading up to this because I can’t recall any specific examples. It wasn’t something I realized was happening until I was bereft of all desire and found myself numb both spiritually and therefore emotionally. I can hide this sometimes well, and other times not so much.
Then my physical heath was attacked and deteriorated. By the time my fever hit almost 102 in the over 100 F degree heat of Africa, entirely absent of a/c, a roof or shade, I nearly lost all ability to care about anything. Knowing that this was happening grieved the Spirit inside me. There was a night where my body ached so bad that I wanted to cry out to God and in pain, but I knew I would have awoken the other close-by in their tents so I silenced myself. After all, I thought, what I felt was merely weakness that I could rightly deal with on my own. Again, not going to God. ‘But God, how do I go to you without being able to use my voice, and among all these people?!?’ Silence. God was silent. ‘Why don’t I feel you? Why don’t I hear you? Why do I feel virtually nothing among orphans in Africa? How much more ridiculous can this be!?’ I was in the desert place both spiritually and literally. There existed no reprieve and no relief. Divested of what I could and could not see, I was utterly powerless.
This is what I write currently:
Jesus knew 40 days of the desert’s aridity and its cruel conditions. He grew physically weak and was therefore tempted by the devil. But looking forward right after he resisted the enemy, his public ministry commenced. What is it about suffering and trial that bring us to the pinnacle? One that we either fall off and be crushed by, or fall on and be broken. (See Luke 20:18)
I had never in my life felt as I did in the heat of Mozambique. Never had I understood Jonah’s derisiveness until the season that came my first month in Africa. I knew very well that if I didn’t seek the Lord for strength and help, along with asking the believers around me, I would be rendered useless. Not only would that be the case, but I would be fully aware of its futility making it magnified and functioning like a degenerative contagion. But as I sit here writing the latter part of this blog, I think you’ve already concluded that I did go to the Lord. This is true, but it took weeks before I went to those who I call my brothers and sisters in Christ; who I’ve been traveling with for nearly 7 months at that point. God never intended that we walk alone in this world. I put my pride before others. I placed my personal fortitude on a pedestal. I regarded vulnerability as unnecessary and a breech of my privacy. I trusted to the measure that I felt they could trust me. Can you relate?
But then persisted the impression on my mind that reverberated, ‘I AM that I AM’.
I, I, I….I could carry on in this ephemeral life restating the unoriginal precepts of mankind — and the infamous pronoun, ‘I’ that slips oily out of my mouth. And I may struggle with this for years, but at the very least there’ll be a fight for what brings life. ‘I AM that I AM’, otherwise known from the Torah and Scripture as Yahweh/the Messiah in Jesus, who indeed re-verberates through the ages. He also re-deems, re-vives, re-stores, re-conciles and will re-surrect our very souls from the two-inch grave in which we’ve buried the good, the bad and the ugly of our lives.
Honestly, I didn’t predict this blog even going where it did. Ha, well, there it went. Take from this what you will.
This is what I’ve learned from all of this. Out of the desert place we find ‘I AM’ (Yahweh) so that what I was can stay with the sand dunes.
