On mondays we have discipleship, we usually have worship and one of our coaches, or a guest, shares a message with us, we eat lunch and then we start an activation process where we go out into the community and put the things we’ve learned into practice. Monday’s have grown to be one of my favorite days
of the week. weird. In all honesty I hear from the Lord more on Mondays than I have our whole time in Costa Rica. This monday, I was feeling tired from an amazing, exhausting weekend at
camp (blog to come!!) I knew we would be going out on Ask The Lord ministry and truly I wasn’t very pumped about it. Anyway, I grabbed my rain jacket and began the walk to public transport.
On the way to the area, a park where a lot of homeless people live, I was praying that God would reveal to me someone or something he wanted me to minister to. Clear as day the Lord told me
that one of HIS children needed to be welcomed back home, that they have strayed and are now feeling ashamed in asking the Lord for help. They needed to be told that God was persuing them
and waiting for them with open arms. I hid this in my heart and didn’t think I would need to use it.
We arrived at the park and there was only one person sitting under the awning. This woman caught my eye immediately and I watched as she folded plastic bags in her lap. One of my squadmates Jessie
(this boy literally runs to fufill the will of God when he hears his voice. So inspiring!) walked over to her and sat down, at first she ignored him but eventually she said hello. Lindsey (another
fearless seravnt) joined them and immediately asked the woman if she was hungry. Linds felt God tell her to bring money with her to the park to feed His sheep. Lindsey and a couple of others
walked to buy the woman something to eat. My heart was incredibly drawn to her. I walked over and sat down with Trevor and Tyler (amazing men of God) to talk to her through a translator. When
I sat down by her I immediately became overwhelmed by the fathers love for her. She opened right up to us and told us how ashamed she was to be talking to us. She cried and apologized for it,
she told us how dangerous it was for her to be on her own, she admitted to substance abuse, she told us about her crippling anxiety and insecurities, about how her boyfriend wasn’t faithful to
her but still a very jealous and violent man. We talked to her for a little while about her walk with God and how she knew Him but fell out of an intimate relationship. We began to pray for her
and Jesus put the words He spoke to me back into my head. We told her how loved and treasured she was, I told her that God was waiting with his arms open to welcome her back to him. At first
she just started to cry and asked us what “fear” meant to us. In my soul I knew that she heard the truth but was too much in chains of anxiety to accept it and walk through it. I began to think
about a small girl who’s life was taken over by anxiety since the age of 5, the fun things she missed out on, the sleepless nights, the terrifying thought of being alone, being too afraid to live
life to the fullest. I asked if I could share my story with her. I shared the faithfullness the Lord has had on me. I told her how I had lost complete hope and accepted my watered down
version of life, how I got to a place of surrender and brought my anxiety out of darkness, how the Lord has turned it to complete light beams and how He has freed me so that I can free others.
We cried together. She sat procressing while we continued to tell her about her value and how earthly things may fail us but our Heavenly Father never will. She looked right into my soul, she
stared at me with curious eyes, with loving eyes, maternal eyes. She told our translator how beautiful and young I was and how she wished she could be my mother so she could protect me. My heart
broke for her and I wanted to be the one to protect her. We continued to talk to her about hope and freedom. Trevor shared a testimony about someone being broken free from drug addiction.
She was constantly asking for more prayer. She was HUNGRY, in a way she didn’t even realize. We covered her in prayer. We continued to beg God to show her how truly loved she is.
She seemed to come to a little bit of peace. However, the Lord kept blanketing me in the love He feels for her. He overwhelmed me with the ache He has to bring her home. He knocked me off
of my feet with his persuit of Glenda. We sat with her while she ate the food they brought her. She was constantly holding our hands and thanking us. She had a thankful heart for the
things the Lord has given her, she only believes that the world gave it to her. She began to feel ashamed and embarassed of us watching her eat. We told her that the Lord does not bring condemnation
but redemption. These words truly freed her. I leaned over to give her a short and sweet hug, she latched on to me and started to sob and to cry out the Lord and to me. I truly felt the pain
that the Lord felt watching her hurt. As she buried herself in me crying and screaming I began to collapse into a fit of tears myself. I wanted to keep telling her how loved she is for the rest of my life,
I wanted to tell her about learning to trust the Lord and relying on Him. I wanted to sit on that street corner and hold her for the rest of my life. I have never felt anyones emotions as strong.
As we said our final goodbye after a minute I started to pray and ask God why I felt so overwhelmed and heartbroken. The Lord showed me that my prayer “break my heart for what breaks yours” was
coming to life and how bad it hurt. He is going to allow me to feel the deep darkness in people so that I can carry them out into the light. I don’t quite understand the details of this yet, I’m
not sure how often I will feel what the Lord feels or how strongly it will make me feel but I know that in order to persue God and to see him move in my life, I have persue every part of him.
That starts with his heart. Glenda taught me a lot about the Lord in the short thirty minutes I sat with her. I believe that the Lord put her into my life for a reason and I will see her again in
eternity. He is working on her heart, I can feel it.
