Throughout my journeys in Asia, you’ve seen photographs of me holding children with a joyful smile on my face. You’ve seen play dough rings and sassy faces, maybe heard my little friend, Dalik, sing “Jesus loves me” to my camera. You shared joy with me in my fully funded update and met the halfway point of the World Race with me. You have seen photographs of Angkor Wat, met my friend named Goy who is caught in the sex industry – and you have seen the hope still filling her eyes. You’ve met new friends and faces with me who are intertwined in Race Culture, visited Kata Beach for Month 7 Debrief, let go of lanterns with me, have seen pictures of team time, tried on strange clothing from the Bazar in Malaysia with me, heard about a mountain I climbed and cried up in Nepal, celebrated my birthday and even saw me most recently feed an elephant.
These are all amazing things – don’t get me wrong; but they are just photographs and words, they are only a little fraction of what I see on a normal basis out on the World Race. Sometimes, everything is hard to share. Believe me, I wish I could tell you everything. I wish I could give you a front row seat to the emotions I’ve felt while holding kids that barely know love and nourishment. I wish I could rip my heart out and help you feel the emotions I’ve been struggling with and help you understand the things I’ve been working through since India. Let me give you a short glimpse into my month in Malaysia.
What you’ve seen this month is a lot of happiness, smiles, and joy insurmountable. But what you don’t know is that behind every smile in a picture during ministry is having to deal with dragging my feet there, going out of obedience to the Lord because it is where He has me right now. If I’m around the kids, they’re great and cute one moment, but the next they’re harshly grabbing at my arm asking my name for the one millionth time in that same day or trying to steal my glasses off my face. What you didn’t see before all the smiles and joy on my birthday was another existential I-literally-can’t-anymore meltdown that was set off by a simple, surface-level thing, like trying to figure out the situation with Pizza Hut for my birthday. I had an I-am-incapable-of-doing–anything-on-my-own-and-I-am-turning-23-crisis crying into my team mates shoulder the night before.
So essentially – I am a mess. The Lord broke me in Asia. I have been exhausted of myself in more ways than I can even count. Social Media might show you otherwise – and the otherwise feels are all legitimate and real, too – but the hard truth I’d rather keep to myself is that I do not have it all together, I mess up, and I am definitely not as brave as I would like you to believe.
There is a beautiful photo of me that one of my friends on the squad captured as we arrived in the Malaysian Bus Station. I was scowling in exhaustion from having cried the entire way to Malaysia and I hadn’t gotten much sleep for that entire travel day (which is normal for me). I was frustrated that such a bad photo had been taken of me, but there is also something entirely real and raw about that photograph that captured the beauty of even my bad side.
Most days on the Race I am happy and feel a joy insurmountable and those are the things I share on Facebook and Instagram because those are the moments everyone wants to see and hear about. No one wants to hear that I am hurt and broken because of everything I’ve experienced, seen, and personally processed through with three more months to go (of which, despite everything, I am supremely excited about). No one wants to hear that I can’t hear the Lords voice in a clear way right now – especially on a mission trip like the World Race.
It’s not perfect, though – traveling the world and doing life with Jesus. In the grand scheme of everything in this life He gives to us freely – there are always going to be hard seasons and there are always going to be times we don’t hear Him clearly. There are going to be moments it feels like homework to open up your bible to connect with Him and you’re going to feel like He’s not there. There are going to be seasons where the tears fall like rain and don’t ever stop – because it’s a landslide of emotion realizing everything is cracked and spent, exhausted.
At the end of the day, though… Jesus wants the entire thing. Let me say that again: At the end of the day, Jesus wants the entire messy, happy, joyful, in-a-funk… thing.
He doesn’t want the perfect square photograph with some beautifully captioned words. He wants the entire picture that extends far outside an Instagram photograph, Facebook status, and blog post. I believe that once God gets everything, the only thing He will be able to do is heal those places that still bring hurt, pain, and make us feel something deep in the middle of our hearts. In the end, it will bring freedom – but I understand now that freedom doesn’t come until we go through hard seasons of doubt and darkness. One thing I have learned in my breakdown this month is that despite everything I throw at the Lord and despite feeling like He’s not there, the truth is still real. The truth is that He is with me and will rescue me (Jeremiah 1:19)
The Lord brought me to Asia to break me, but while being here, He has sure helped me come to the conclusion that being a shattered mess and all over the place is okay. Being that way makes us real, it makes us flawed, and it makes us human – but He loves that… And He will always love that.
