Well this is a story all about how, my life got flipped turned upside down. (Really, though.)
Story number one:
Last month, in Thailand, my team stayed at an Adventure’s hostel, and had the option of two different ministries. Option 1: work at the hostel repainting the walls, covering up murals and signs to make the hostel ready to receive guests. Option 2: help out at Hope Home, a foster home for disabled children.
And I’ll be honest, I wanted to paint. I wanted a month of manual labor, of repetition and structure, of seeing accomplishment in how much you get done in a day. But for my teammates, the possibility of working with kids had them in tears of joy, because that is where they thrive. When discussing the possibilities of the month, everyone on my team said their preferences, and to no surprise most of my team wanted to go to Hope Home. But I still wanted to paint. So, I said exactly that. Said that I was far more comfortable with a paintbrush, and if I had to choose for myself, it would be staying at the hostel. But I also knew my teammates and knew that their hearts would be broken if we missed the chance to get to interact with these kids. So I let go. I let go, knowing that they would get far more out of our month in Thailand at this children’s’ home, and that I would get more out of learning from them than I would painting walls.
Cue in God and all his goodness: The very first day, meeting with some of the staff from Hope Home, they mentioned wanting some painting done, and asked if any of us were artistic and could paint some things. (WHAT!?) So that month I ended up painting a mural of turtles for the inside of the turtle den they had for their two pet turtles. I didn’t just get to paint over walls, I got to create, and spend my time that month hanging out with the coolest kiddos and getting to do something I loved.
He asked me to let go, so I did, and then he gave me something better in return.
Story number two:
This month in Serbia, my team had what is called an “Unsung Heroes” ministry. What UH is, is basically making connections and finding contacts for people that could potentially be partners with AIM in the future, to host world race or other mission teams. Part of UH is a lot of asking the Lord where to go, what to do, and being really attuned to hearing what he says. And He told my team to go to Nis, Serbia. So we did. Another part of UH, is that because we don’t have an actual ministry host, we are responsible for finding a place to stay, and are given a housing budget to work with. When doing some research on Nis, we found an Air BnB with enough space for all of us, it was under budget, and best of all it was a house, with a kitchen. And I was all for it. Being the treasurer and working with the budget that we had, I was 100% in for booking this AirBnB for the whole month because then we would have a safe, secure place, I knew we wouldn’t go over budget, and there would be no stress in finding a place to sleep. But my team was torn… loving the idea of having a place all to ourselves, but not wanting to limit what God could do if we left our housing up to the unknown. We each took time to pray about it separately, to see what we heard from the Lord about it, and then came back a day later to discuss and decide on what to do.
Okay, so I know that when people say they hear God talking to them, or telling them something, it sounds kind of weird. But I believe that God speaks to us in different ways, and for me, it’s a gut feeling. A whisper of a thought, and the feeling that something is just right. Or wrong. Or whatever it is. Anyways, when praying about our housing situation, I just kept getting the feeling, or hearing from God, that this AirBnB was a gift for us, and that we were supposed to stay there the whole month. And I was SO sure that those thoughts and feelings were from God. I had read scriptures in my quiet time that morning that just affirmed everything I had heard and was so sure that my teammates were going to have heard the same things. (Plot twist: they didn’t.)
All the fear and doubt and confusion.
Long story short, my team decided to book the house for only a couple nights, and then see what happened. And I was really confused, and unsure, feeling somewhat like a fool for thinking I had really heard from God about what to do. And if I didn’t hear from God about this, what other times in my life had I followed that “feeling” of knowing or thinking that God was telling me something, but had been wrong? A little emotional break down and a long conversation with a teammate later, I was content giving it up. Letting go. It wasn’t easy. I was still confused and asking “why?” to God, crying out in frustration that I didn’t understand what was going on, but I let go, trusting that there was a bigger picture I wasn’t seeing.
Again, cue God, who knows and loves us way more than I can even fathom: One of our first days in the city, our last night booked in this AirBnB, we had a meeting with some American missionaries (Who are so, so awesome, and became the biggest blessing to us) and we talked a lot about the city, about Serbian culture, etc. etc. We also asked them for their input/advice about our housing situation, and explained the place we were staying, and our hearts behind all of it, and they gave us the advice to just stay there. Perfect location, had everything we need, so we should just take advantage of it while we were here. YES. Confirmation. We were going to stay here the whole month!
(But maybe not.) We talked to the host of the AirBnb, and he told us that we could stay a couple more nights, but that someone else had booked out a whole week in the middle of the month. So we talked it through, and were okay with trying to find something else to work, because we had already given up this place in the beginning. The end.
(Just kidding.)
We got a knock on the door that night, and in comes our host with a bag of fresh towels and toilet paper and says that he worked it out that we can just stay there the whole month. That we don’t have to leave. (I think we scared the host a little with how excited and loud we were, celebrating the fact that we could call this place home the whole time we were there.)
God asked us to let go, so we did, and then God gave it back. The point of all of this being, that in the end when we found out we could stay there, we were over the moon praising God for it, and immediately all sat down to pray and give thanks for what a gift it was. The gift was so much greater, and we saw God’s hand in it more when we had to give it up.
And that little voice inside me said “See, I had this for you the whole time. You only had to trust me with it.”
