***Am I writing too much?***
***You don’t write honest-enough anymore.***
***$3,500 to get to $10,000? Who is going to donate?***
Oh wait, I really love this one: ***IF it’s in God’s will.***
Cue questioning stares and uncomfortable eye movement from one person to another.
This is in God’s will.
***But you’re definitely not that girl. You’re too quiet. You’re too shy. No one even reads your words or cares about what you have to say. Just stop.***
But I can’t. If it’s anything Satan knows how to use against me, it’s my consistent use of writing words and my worrisome mentality. Worrying about posting too much and who’s reading. Worrying if the people reading and subscribing even take one look at the words after clicking on the link. Worrying if writing too long and too much drives supporters and people away.
Worrying that if I shared the God-honest truth about how I was feeling, I would be, you know, stuck in my biggest fear — ***alone.*** I mean, I can encourage others and let them know they’re not alone – because they’re not – but man, admitting that I actually feel the ways that I do? Right, okay.
I can spit off a blog about the Biggest Sin I’ve struggled with but I can’t even scratch the surface of (gasp!) oh no, FEELINGS.
I’m a bubble about to pop and the needle is centimeters away from blowing me to soapy smithereens.
New Hampshire. I miss my parents. I miss my sister, who I will not be able to see in person before I leave. I want to be at home in this time leading up to launch. This wanting to be at home thing… *Never* happens to me. Literally. Never. At home, I can complain and be introverted and not get questioned, they will wake up the next morning and still love me. I can leave the states for a year and while my family may not understand what I’m exactly doing with my life and why, they will still be the first arms I run to when the journey inevitably comes to an end.
Calling people I’ve literally never spoken a word to or met in person and asking for support is hard. I am constantly crippled by the fear that I am being a burden to someone, that asking for help is putting unnecessary pressure on them. I hate feeling like that. I know that asking for support and letting others bless me is part of this process but I have never experienced something as hard as this. I don’t know how to accept love and ask for what I need.
Every donation and encouragement nearly moves me to good and encouraging tears. I don’t feel good enough for this and yet, God keeps reminding me that this thing I literally debated and prayed over for six months before applying is what He wants me to be doing.
“If” this is happening is not even a valid question anymore.
The statement we need to be speaking together is “when.” That is Faith that Moves Mountains.
I see friends getting cars, jobs, and preparing to go back to school and I am getting ready to leave the country in a little over a month with only a big backpack, day pack and very little money left to my name. Nothing I am doing is flashy and exciting, it’s actually quite scary and daunting, but I still trust that this is where God wants me. He didn’t promise security. I am invested in His Kingdom and invested is exactly where He wants me to be, there is no turning back now.
I never knew that my heart could yearn so much for ministries and people halfway across the world that I’ve never been around and yet, still feel the ache of leaving the place I invested nearly three years of my life inside.
I want you to understand the gravity of what I’m leaving behind and how that is making me feel: I am leaving a comfortable bed and roof over my head. I am leaving security in the dust. I am leaving familiar places, cities, streets, and beaches that I can walk alone on with no hesitation or problem. I am leaving independence and The American Dream as I know it on the other side of a door that is quickly shutting.
I am leaving the house I have known for the past ten years as my actual-physical-home, and I will never see it again the moment I turn my back because it’s been sold. Yes, sold. It’s not ours anymore. I am leaving temporary pleasures for the everlasting Kingdom, the thing that I know to be and trust is forever.
I am leaving friends with whom I have invested a lot of time in, with no real definite as to whether or not things will be the same way I left them when I return. If I’m being completely honest, that is what makes me restless at night when I can’t sleep during these in-between days.
Maybe it will be an orphan placing her hands on my cheeks and my eyes pooling with water because this little life is so fragile and free of the world’s burdens – and all I will be able to do is hold her and smile.
Maybe it will be a smile from a disadvantaged kid that doesn’t know how to show emotion. Maybe it will be the light bulb going off inside the head of a kid who is learning something he’s been struggling with for a really long time.
Maybe it will be prayer with a widow. Maybe it will be praying healing over someone and actually seeing it happen before my eyes because faith is actually being exercised and not questioned.
These things can be captured in words and photographs, but they can’t be experienced twice, they can only be truly experienced once. They are unique and only God shares those unique moments with us individually. It’s crazy to me that there is a God up above who experiences things alongside us, not only knowing, but truly understanding the exact same things we are feeling in those moments. I have no idea how to capture a moment like God without adding in elements of story to make it more interesting. I don’t know how to write and just leave it be without wrapping it and putting a perfect bow on top.
Sometimes there’s not a perfect bow or gift to be wrapped up in, and that’s a hard truth about the world that I am learning to sit inside and wrestle with even before I leave on The World Race.
There is never a piece of glass without a crack or shard, displaced and abandoned, where it was last dropped. There is no veil covering a window that doesn’t have some sort of dust on it, waiting to be tapped on, discovered – cleaned. There is no corner cobweb free unless it is dusted, found after days of being neglected.
“But what if I can’t make it to the next deadline?” runs through my head more times in a day than I care to admit. It is a very real question that I honestly don’t know the answer to, which is probably a huge factor in why it cripples me so much.
I am incredibly thankful for every donation that has come through thus far and for the individuals who have invested their money in this Mission with me. I am exploding with excitement about my team’s first ministry working with disabled children and their families at the Suubi House in Kampala, Uganda. The minute I found out we would be working with disabled children, my heart jumped because I knew it would be a challenge and it would grow me in my faith and dependence on the Lord in the first month alone.
If I’m being honest, that’s all I’ve been asking of God:
Challenge Me, Grow Me.
I know God is testing my dependence, faith, and trust in Him right now. I know there will be many, many moments out on the field where He does that, too. I literally have no clue what to expect starting on September 6th, and I am excited about the unknown.
Please celebrate all that God has blessed you with! What He’s given you is AMAZING. Praise God and give Him the glory for what He has given you already… But now, consider how you can give back to Him. When you place a donation into my account, think about this: It’s not me that you are giving to. It’s God. His Kingdom. His work. Something so much bigger than any one of us can fathom or imagine.
How tragic would it be to not even get to experience that challenge, that weird un-comfort feeling no one really likes, but secretly yearns for every day of their lives? How tragic would it be to leave God’s plans unmet because we didn’t step out in a simple act of faith and gave, donated, shared something profound, or encouraged?
I cannot go to Uganda and experience the challenge and blessing of this first ministry and what the rest of the Race will be unless I have $10,000 raised and inside my account in **20 days.**
I need your help and we only have 20 Days to raise 3,500 more dollars and maybe even more if God wants that! Will you join me?
His,
Ashley
