So we just had team changes, and I think we are all grieving about it. It’s important to grieve losses so that we can move on with the future.
I can’t help thinking about what I have left behind. God is deepening my cup with acid and sandpaper. It hurts. It HURTS. These people know me, all of me, and love me anyway. I asked God to teach me how to love and to show me His heart, and he is. But heavens, how can He live with all this pain?
I know I will pour into this next team even harder to honor God and Dar Vida. But every little memory is like a tiny stab. We are still fulfilling our name: giving life. I remember being so mad when Allison prophesied this in Honduras. I choked up when we left her today. I want to be selfish. I don’t want to spread the life. I want my Dar Vida family with all their quirks and things that drive me crazy.
But we will grow so much more apart than we did together. You are calling us higher into deeper positions of leadership, authority, power, and confidence that we could not have while we were together. We are all going to be ok. I begin to understand just a glimpse of Your heart. Separation – You did everything in order to get us back. You are calling me out. I have had courage prophesied over me for so long. I’m stepping into it now. I wouldn’t have chosen this. I have been forced into it. But since I am, I will choose joy. They taught me that. You taught me that. It isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning.
Help me. I’m bleeding. There’s a gash right under my collarbone and the coppery taste is flowing down my chest into my open, surrendering hands. If this gets me close to Your heart, then let it hurt. Bring on the pain. If You can take it, so can I because You have given me power and authority and confidence. I’m not the same person I was four months ago. I’ve grown softer, but my spirit is being fire-hardened. I was overflowing. Now I’m becoming deeper so I can overflow again.
I was going to draw Allison tonight but I don’t think I can. I don’t think I can see again her eyes so poignantly full as my voice broke when I confessed my goodbyes and once again how much they meant to me. I should have told them I loved them Every. Single. Day. I should never have held back.
I don’t want to ever hold back again.
For a minute, I thought that I didn’t know where I belonged anymore. But I belong right here, with You, in the in-between. In the uncertain. For it is in the places where I don’t have control, where I am broken, where I am unsure, that You do Your greatest work.
God help me. I hope I am in this same place again in four months with this new team. People are worth the hurt. I was worth Your hurt. It’s astounding to think about.
It isn’t the end. We will see each other at the end of every month, at debriefs, and maybe there will be another all-squad month. It just won’t be the same. But that’s ok. I just have to grieve for a while. Then I can move on and be poured out again on this new team.
I think why I’m taking this so hard is that I still have doubts if I will ever have a community like this one again. However, now I’m equipped to create my own.
