So here I am. The end of month 8. 3 months left. What do I have to show for it? Am I a different person? Am I new, transformed, whole? The Race is far from over, but is it all I thought it would be? Physically? I got “Mono” in Thailand. I have some sort of disease that is causing my legs to itch constantly. My hair is falling out, my body has aches and pains all day long. I used to think I was so tough. Mentally. I can go from joyous to shattered in a day. “How’s your heart? What’s God been telling you?” The questions I hate and are sure to show up at every debrief. I tell myself I hate these questions because I hate vague questions. I need specifics. In reality it’s because I stopped trying. somewhere after Malaysia I stopped trying to grow. I got wrapped up in Cambodia and Africa and I forgot why I was really out here. Sure it’s to help people, and that’s that answer I always say, the one that makes me feel less selfish. But I came out on this journey to find myself. I was lost, broken, hurt when I left home. I was far from a completed masterpiece. Who was I?
I left Oklahoma to find myself. I did good in the first 3 months. The Father uncovered hurt after hurt. Lie after lie. And slowly I started to understand myself. I started to fully know who it was that God created. Then Thailand happened. And as I laid in a hospital bed all alone as a nurse put in a second IV that hurt more than anything I have ever felt physically, I lost it. Something I didn’t even know existed broke. My faith, my trust, my love was deconstructed down to this base level where I wasn’t who I thought I was. Malaysia, He was silent. One of the quietest He’s ever been. I was constantly looking for a way to make Him love me more so He’d talk to me. I was scratching at an open door.
So how do you explain that now that you are in the place you’ve longed to be. Everyone knows that you have been waiting for this day for years, and now that you are in Africa, you’re miserable. Uganda was not pretty, not the landscape, that was beautiful, my heart. I felt like a failure. I had created something in my mind that couldn’t be matched. Without Africa who am I?
I have forgotten my first love. I have forgotten the one who gave me the heart for Africa. I forgot the love that held me many nights last year when I didn’t know where love came from. I forgot the faithfulness that lead me through a windy path to the Race. I forgot that my Daddy who loves me held my hand while an incompetent nurse re administered an IV in my bruised hand. I had forgotten that love, true, real love requires work. Requires time and energy.
Intimacy. I hate that word. It always creeps me out. But that is the key, the goal, the answer if you will(And I will). That is what He is calling from me for the end of the Race. Not demanding, He knows how stubborn I am. He knows how faithless I am. The on;y problem is, I have no idea how to achieve intimacy.
