Tonight I was looking back over some of my journal entries from a few months ago, hoping to find inspiration to journal again. I pick it up so rarely these days, it is beginning to collect dust. In one entry, I asked God to allow me to feel, something, anything, because so often I walk through my days in a numb, mundane state. I had been living life on autopilot, working a lot, of course, and going to church, but not growing, changing, feeling. And when I did feel anything negative, I tended to push those feelings down and not face them. So I asked God to let me feel emotion and help me to deal with my emotions, even the bad ones, just for the sake of not being numb.
Yeah, well, God is funny when it comes to answering prayers. Its almost like He says “Oh, that’s what you want? Well, I’ll show you”, though maybe not quite so vicious. God answers prayers in His own way, in His own timing, and in our best interests, though it may be difficult to see at the time. So in my instance, He brought all of the hurts, the insecurities, the doubts, and the pain to the surface for me to deal with. Only being the insanely busy, and insanely human woman that I am, my “dealing” was not what God had in mind, and it lead me down some really dark roads to try to escape my pain.
All this to say, though I am far from being dealt with and far from being healed emotionally, I have been looking so forward to the adventure I am about to embark upon for the fact that I will be forced to go to God with everything that comes before me, and my focus will become much more consumed by Him. This of course will be influenced by the people I am around and the challenges we face, that will force me to be in prayer and to “deal”. I am praying even now that I will find healing to my dark places in the light of Christ on the mission field.
However, at the same time, I am trying to remember that this trip is not about me (six months before take off and I am already having problems realizing this fact?). This trip is not about my healing, my need for God, my desire to see the world – while those things are all very important and will be constantly addressed, my purpose is to “go out and make disciples of all nations”, to heal the broken (besides myself), and to share the all-encompassing love of Christ to the world. Essentially, it is not about ME.
“Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.” -Proverbs 4v25
