This past week has been one of the shortest and longest weeks of my life. It’s been both relaxed and draining simultaneously. It’s been exhausting and also energizing. Not gonna lie, y’all. This week has been hard.
It’s been so Spiritually draining for me because I haven’t been intentionally seeking the Holy Spirit and looking to him for my strength, love, and peace that only he can provide. The strength I need to sweep for a couple hours everyday. The love to let little girls play with my hair and make leaf crowns for me, even though I know they have lice (no worries, I’m lice free). The peace that allow you to share a house with 14 other girls that you only met in person 2 weeks ago. And since it’s been so spiritually draining, it’s taken a lot out of me physically and emotionally. In fact, my team as a whole is going through the process of learning how to rest in the Lord and rely on him for our strength, not ourselves. But the Lord is faithful and he is still so active in our ministry despite us and how we’re feeling.
On Thursday, we had the afternoon off from working at CICREN and after supper we went into town to talk to/pray for the locals there. While a large majority of us played sports in the park, my teammates Brooke and Sarah and myself went walking around to look for tourists to pray for them. We walked around for probably half and hour and didn’t know what we should do or who to pray for. But we learned about this thing called a “scavenger hunt” where you ask God to speak to you and essentially tell you clues of what you should do and where you should go. So we stopped and prayed, asking God to speak to us. Within about 2 minutes, all of us heard God tell us something: Brooke heard pineapple; Sarah heard dog and teal; I heard stripes. (Side note: I was not expecting that. I really wasn’t feeling it that night and had never heard God speak to me that clearly that quickly before). So we kept walking and ended up at a restaurant in a teal building, with stripes on the walls outside, and we found a group of tourists: one was carrying a pineapple and another had a pineapple tattoo. We sat down at a table next to them, ordered some pop to not be rude, and we awkwardly drank our pop, trying to figure out what to say. All three of us were really struggling with this: how do we just butt our way into a conversation and casually mention that we want to pray for them? While we were sitting there, I asked God what we should say and why it’s so hard for us to take the initiative to talk to them. He clearly responded to me that we’ve been overcomplicating this entire thing: that all we have to do is go up to them and ask if we can pray for them.
That’s been a huge revelation for me the past couple days: that we, as humans, tend to overcomplicate things way more than we need to. As I’ve been struggling to have energy and be present this week, if I would’ve taken some more intentional time to be with the Lord and find my rest in him, this week probably wouldn’t have been so draining. But instead, I’ve looked to sleeping, trips into town, listening to music, etc. to fill me and it hasn’t come close to filling me up.
Growth is never easy. Even when you’re little and you’re about to go through a growth spurt, there’s pain. You wake up and your arms and legs are sore and your uncomfortable. The same is true when you’re growing spiritually: there’s growing pains and it sucks when you’re going through it and you wish you didn’t have to. But in the end, it’s always better. I always liked marking my height on the wall when I was younger and seeing how much I’ve grown. Now, I really enjoy seeing how much the Lord has brought me through and seeing how much he’s changed me. Growing pains are good pains.
I have a couple of prayer requests:
- For me and my team to learn how to rest. It’s been a bit of a struggle for all of us (to varying degrees) to learn how to rest in the Lord.
- For the wonderful people of CICREN: the staff that work tirelessly, that they’d continue to be filled with the love and energy; and for the children both at the school and who stay here during the week.
- In a week we’re leaving CICREN and our squad is splitting up for the rest of our trip. So pray for us during that time of transition, both leaving this place and people that we’ve come to love.
Thank you all so much for your continued prayers. I covet them all so much.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Bailey
P.S. we didn’t end up praying for the people we met at the restauran, but the Lord is gracious with us even when we don’t do what he asks. Growing, am I right?
