After a week of laying cobble, painting a fence, cleaning cabins, cutting grass with a machete, and doing other small tasks that mean the world to our contact, I was able to go into town on our day off. You may have noticed that due to my random mid-month communication via Facebook and blogs.
Then this morning (Sunday) we went to church here at the camp. YWAM in La Paz has a program called King’s Kids. These are kids aged 12-20 who are interested in missions and just so happened to be at our camp this weekend. We were asked last night if we could put together a program for them for church; songs, skit, a small sermon about missions, etc. And I somehow ended up being the Good Samaritan in our skit.
After church I rested. I began reading a book on a friend’s kindle called “One Thousand Gifts” and knitting with supplies I found in Coroico. I am working on a hat that will keep me warm in our next location, which rumor has it, is in the mountains of Peru. (That’s subject to change since it happened once already).
As I read, lounging on some half deflated inner tubes that the kiddos use for river rafting, I fell asleep. And this was a good sleep. A peaceful sleep.A sleep that I think God used to speak with to my very soul without me knowing all He had said. I woke with a sense of calm that is unlike me. I don’t want to speak death over myself, but I do have the tendency to worry about everything. To kill my hopes while expecting the other shoe to drop, and to allow circumstantial disappointments to determine my emotional state for the day/week/month.
At the moment of waking from this unexpected nap, I felt two things. First of all, that this is a month where I need to learn to have Grace with myself. I am my own worst enemy and to quote my Squad Coach, “Give yourself a break!” And second, that I need to stop aborting my hopes due to fear and pessimism. The analogy that I was given was, “Caroline, you are pregnant with hope. As a Christian, you are expecting the great things that God has in store for you. But due to fear, and lies from the enemy, you abort before you bring your hopes to term.” And it is true…I sometimes give up my unborn hopes to carry the expectation of disappointment instead. I have even caught myself saying, “It’s better to just expect the worst, and if things work out, then you can be pleasantly surprised.”
But, as a child of the Most High, why should I expect the worst? Why should I abort hope just because there is a risk of loss? If I continue to choose that life, then it isn’t much of a life now is it? Perhaps, instead I need to choose to trust in God’s plans for me. That every little disappointment was allowed by the one who has the roadmap to my life. And that perhaps, I don’t need to complain when I have no way to even guess what the big picture happens to resemble.
So just as I learned last month in Haiti, to trust in God’s sovereignty in providing more than His leftovers for today, this month I am learning to trust God’s sovereignty in providing for my future hopes. For God knows the desires of our hearts, and it does not joy Him to disappoint us. If His plan goes left, when I say right, then I must trust that left is the better road. And perhaps this will help keep me pregnant with hope. Please keep me in your prayers as I attempt to walk forward in this.
For a note on the random things, my personal blog has an update at carolinesadventuresinlife.blogspot.com.
