I’ve always felt a call to higher places. Not necessarily on a mountain top, although I could talk all about the mountains that I’ve climbed to get where I am today. But higher places like empathy, compassion, and servitude. The high place of daily sacrifice for the least of these. For the underdogs and the ones who’ve been the most mistreated, the most humiliated, and the most unseen.
As a person who’s felt all of those things, in addition to crippling anxiety and depression, I feel a responsibility to be a part of a higher purpose: the eradication of the lies of the enemy over people’s lives. I want to see people transform. I have a deep desire for people to be known, and loved, and seen. But this feels vulnerable, and I don’t like being in the spotlight.
Brene Brown talks about vulnerability in her book Daring Greatly. She says that “Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose…” If you’ve known me in the past 4 years here in San Diego, you know I’ve been vulnerable; and that it’s been this exact vulnerability which has allowed deep wounds to heal, chains and curses to be broken, and my faith in God to be restored.
So much power has been the result of my vulnerability. And as a result of deep healing and restoration in my life, I know without a doubt what my identity is and what my purpose in life is. If being vulnerable has been the catalyst for setting my future in motion, then I know I must encourage those I encounter to be vulnerable as well. How can I do that if I don’t continue to be open and honest about my own broken heart? Or if I don’t take risks? Risks like signing up for an 11 month long mission trip around the world.
To me, vulnerability feels like pulling apart my ribcage and exposing my heart, and then allowing all to see what’s inside. It feels like entering a stage with a thousand other guarded and hurting people watching—showing them all the secrets I’ve kept hidden. And maybe, it looks like hanging on a cross. The most vulnerable, and the most broken for all to see. Vulnerability and the spotlight are my Altar Call. And the mission field is my purpose.
