What do you do when you’re too empty to speak, and too motivated to sit there? When you’re too tired to think and too excited to sleep? There comes a time on the World Race (maybe I’m just assuming about others) where you start becoming stripped of everything. Every day becomes a routine not because it’s the same thing all the time, but because you don’t have much to put into it. You wake up, eat breakfast, spend some time in The Word, spend some desperate prayer time with God, and then you’re on your way into the sticky heat and dust of Northern Uganda. I feel like I left a lot of myself in the last three countries, which may be a good thing, as I’m trying to lose myself in the midst of all this. But I tend to fear that I’m lazy, or useless, or just unable to add to the ministry God has put in front of me. So many questions running through my head: What if I don’t have the servant heart I thought I had and God just brought me out here for eleven months to find out more about Him and myself? What if God uses me a bunch while I’m out here and I will never see the fruits of my labor? What if I’m never supposed to leave the U.S. again after this trip?
My teammates laugh at how much of an analyzer I am and how much thought I put into things. But I see it as more of a curse than anything. Every step, every action, every bite (talk to Brandon about this one) is predetermined. I can’t just do things because it seems fun or right at the time. I think way too much. I feel like everyone has this giant filing cabinet in their heads and most people have all their information decently organized and well put-together. Someone asks them a question or starts a conversation with them and they are quickly able to open the right drawer, pull out the right folder and start reading from the right page. However, I feel like the cabinet in my head is completely unorganized. Papers aren’t in the right folder, folders aren’t in the right order, all the drawers are mixed around so that when someone starts a conversation with me or asks me a question (about just anything) I say, “hold on let me pull that file up… nope that’s not it, hold on… dang that’s the wrong drawer, just one moment… oh, there it i- nooo, that’s not it either… sorry.” I just don’t know where to begin.
When I wake up in the morning, when I pray, when I have conversations, I feel like I can’t really contribute much cause I don’t know where to start. And I try to process all this stuff we see every day but I don’t know how to. So basically I am praying for peace- Peace of mind, peace of body, peace of heart, so that God can use me even when I don’t have much to offer. I know He does use me as long as I am obedient and step up in trust and hope, but I want comfort that “Things are already better.” (African Praise song).
Thanks for reading.
