For the past few days I have been praying about what to share with you; my family, friends, supporters and random world race blog creepers concerning my month in Thailand. I had such high hopes for what last month would contain. After having read all sorts of blogs written by former racers, Thailand was in fact the country I was most looking forward to on the world race. I felt as though i knew exactly what to expect, and how awesome ministry in Thailand would be. In my mind we would work with bar girls sharing Jesus with them, offering them redemption that only christ can bring and an opportunity to have new life…Upon arriving and meeting Emmi our ministry contact this excitement grew even more intensely within me. As encouraged by Emmi, I began praying for my "one". The one person who I would be able to intentionally invest my time into, the one person who God would give me to continuously share the Love of Christ with throughout the month, the One person I would be intentional in bringing the kingdom of God to repetitively.
While God did some really awesome and amazing things in Thailand through my squad, including but not limited to, a few bar girls placing their faith in Jesus, a couple girls leaving the sex trade industry and seeking to start a new life with Christ, and numerous conversations with several Monks which we are convinced will lead to salvation. I am a little more than bummed to tell you that my month in thailand was no where near as exciting and honestly was less then disirable. It looked nothing like I had anticipated it to, and ended up being extremely different from most of my teammates experiences. As the World Race encourages you to have no expectations, I realized I had an expectation in expecting my month to look nothing like it actually did. I spent the majority of the month unable to physically get up out of bed, making trips back and forth to the emergency room to be seen by a doctor, only to be left more frustrated by not knowing what was wrong, and to have my heart condition come active again.
I have always been a pretty strong person, at least I have liked to think this about myself. But last month, I felt weak, overwhelmingly weak. Physically weak. Spiritually weak. Mentally weak. Emotionally weak. Just all around weak.
You see the past two months (March and April) I was in a very dry and wilderness season with The Lord. I was growing extremely frustrated and fatigued spiritually. Because I became sick this just intensified my feelings of weakness. I would lay in bed all day desperately crying out to the Lord to show up. Just wanting to hear his still, gentle, whisper of a voice again. I was in a place of doubting everything, including for several days Gods love for me, and my salvation, a place I had never been before. (Luckily, God quickly reminded me that He does in fact love me, and if I had no other reason to justify how I know this, it simply was that "Jesus loves me this I know because the bible tells me so.") I was so confused, teammates would come home at night and share with me all the exciting things the Lord had done, or how they audibly heard his voice or how they saw the most miraculous thing… in my flesh i just wanted to politely say, Um, Excuse me, Please Shut Up! It was all I could do to hold back tears knowing that, I was desiring God, Him alone, more then ever before, and that I had just spent all day in bed, so discouraged, desperately looking for him, seeking him, crying out to him and reading his word. Yet I felt more empty and broken then ever before, questioning if I truly could have a relationship with The Lord, after all, wouldn't I hear him if I had a relationship with him?
I grew to think that something must be wrong with me, I didn't have answers to the questions that people kept asking me (doing their best to encourage me). Everyone kept asking why are you in this wilderness season? Why are you so dry? Is there sin? Did The Lord ask you to do something and you didn't do it? Is there a distraction? The more questions asked of me the worse and worse I felt. I had practically no answer to any of their questions, or if I did, I felt like it wasn't the answer they were looking for. Teammates and squad leaders were praying for me and with me, doing their best to encourage me. I just simply knew I didn't like being where I was, that I was not content being in the wilderness, but I knew that God was going to do something great through it and make no mistake, He was the one that led me into it. . . After all, if I never heard Gods voice again, wouldn't his word be enough, wouldn't the pouring out of Jesus' blood on the cross be enough, wouldn't the fact that I can bring Glory to Gods name be enough? So why did I feel this way? Did I have a right to feel this way?
I am not sure what else to say besides, It was an extremely difficult month for me. Yet The Lord used it to test me so that I would be able to bring the most glory to his name. By the end of the month I finally came to a place of being willing to be weak. I stopped trying to fight to be so strong. I was okay being in the wilderness. I was content knowing that God was the one who had led me to this place of dryness, and this wilderness season, and that He in due time would be the one to lead me out of it.
I just want to share with you three verses that the Lord has placed on my heart as a description for the season he has just led me through and as a promise of what he does for his children.
"And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord … For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. "
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 7-10
"I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you."
Isaiah 46:4
"See, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield My glory to another."
Isaiah 48:10-11
The Lord is redeeming things this month, in Malaysia. I have slowly felt the living water drip into my life again, which is collecting into a puddle of water as each day passes by, and soon enough will be overflowing creating a stream.
The Lord is still refining, and He is still sustaining, He is leading me into a "good land".
