I am sitting in a travelers clinic waiting, praying for my intestines to get working so that I can give a second stool sample (that’s right, I’m praying to be able to poo in a cup). This is my second hospital in the last week and a half, and I’m being tested for a parasite. It’s only 12:17 pm. It’s been a rough week safe to say.
I’m sitting in my last set of clean clothes; my pink running shorts, tank top, and knit sweater, and my body is not okay. My stomach has been hurting for the last week and a half, my back is sore from the floor, the callous on the ball of my right foot cracked open, and I think I have caught Nepal’s common cold. I’m not good at being sick. I’ve missed two days of ministry now, hoping it’s not a third. Screw it, I give up, this is hard. Don’t be fooled by my smile, I’m not okay.
This month has been hard for me, for several reasons. And I think the underlying reason to all my reasons is that this month, God is doing what he said he would at the end of debrief. He told me that it’s time and he would break down all my defense mechanisms I have hidden behind over the years. And that a)sucks, b) scares the crap out of me (no pun intended), and c) made all my walls go up immediately which means I’ve been “Stubborn Anna”.
The word vulnerability is race lingo, and I cringe every time I hear it because it’s something that I’m not good at. No, I don’t want to talk about my feelings, why something upset me, why I miss home, or my fears and insecurities. I want to keep you (not you, but people in general) at a nice arms distance to protect myself, and it’s suffocating me.
God is showing me that I can’t live like this, that he didn’t create us to live alone, but rather to be vulnerable with one another as Jesus was the ultimate example of vulnerability when he hung on a tree for us. This is hard because I don’t want people to see me when I’m not good, when I’m not put together, but this month I just can’t seem to put it together. It’s almost like I am stubbornly trying to run except my feet are cemented in, so really all that’s happening is that I’m straining my back as I try to twist and run. Truth be told, I’m exhausted. It’s tiring to be stubborn with God, it’s tiring to keep my tears hidden from my team, to be wearing a fake smile. I’m just tired. I don’t know if I am making sense, so I would like to share something that God told me while we were in worship the last night at debrief and I just wept and couldn’t again keep it together.
So maybe this will explain my heart better.
“It’s time. You’ve hidden yourself for far too long. You’ve locked yourself in a safe, behind a heavy metal door, with a finger print key pad, in a room of concrete walls, with no door. You are suffocating. I’m telling you it’s time for all of that to be destroyed…I will make you naked. I am breaking all defense mechanisms you’ve put up and hidden behind. You will be naked and I will see you. But even more you will see yourself fully for the first time, and in that you will see me walking towards you, and I will clothe you in my holiness and righteousness…It will be painfully beautiful, very last bit.”
It’s scares me to let people in, for a multitude of reasons. But here I am standing on the edge, toes over, wanting to jump, and my knees are locked every time the countdown is at 1. I don’t think I can jump into this as much as I am blindly falling into it.
“Come and you will see even greater things than these,” he beckons me.
