So I am waiting in the Denver airport because I missed my connecting flight. And now I am waiting for the next flight to Atlanta to board and hoping I have a seat. After talking with my sister and brother-in-law last night about my trip, what I’ve known all along is finally starting to sink in. This trip is going to be hard. And I need to be all in. I need to be completely 100% committed to what God has called me to do. And Colin (my brother-in-law) encouraged me last night that even though this is a trip of many uncertainties, that the more things about it that I am committed to, the more certain I will be. Which make sense to me because I know that when I am set on something, my stubborn personality sticks to it. I can’t go into this trip saying, “If something happens back home, I’m leaving..no questions asked.” For example, I have been struggling with the thought of my grandparents getting sick or possibly something more tragic happening to them while I am gone. And originally I thought, if something happened, I would go home and probably not go back. But if God calls me to go and to stay the whole time and be committed, that’s what I need to do.
Another thing that God has been teaching me probably the last few months is about suffering and endurance. I just read a couple days ago in 2 Corinthians about comfort and suffering. Verses that I usually would have just skimmed past and not really thought about but for some reason, I thought about them and God revealed something huge to me. Comfort and suffering go together. You cannot have one without the other. How can I be comforted if I am not suffering. And Paul says just as we will have an abundance of comfort, we will also have an abundance of suffering. I think in America we have this idea that some people suffer, and some people can make it through life without it if they’re lucky. But I am convinced that every single person that lives in this fallen world is going to suffer. It comes with the curse and the fall of man. It is inevitable. What we can control is how we react to it. I told my sister last night that while it scares me a little to think about all the ways I could suffer, something inside of me is excited to suffer, because only in that moment do I have the chance to choose to praise God and choose to rejoice even though nothing around me or in my life calls for rejoicing. It is such a beautiful paradox to me. And only the Holy Spirit could have revealed it to me and given me such joy at the thought of suffering. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. What I can do now is pray for God to strengthen me for that time because it will come.
Well I could go on forever, but I need to be alert for when my flight boards, so I don’t miss it again! So I will try and keep you updated throughout the week on how training is going and what God is doing.
I love you so much and can’t thank you enough for your prayers!
