13 DAYS until launch!!
Quick location update: I have moved from Colorado (my home for the past 4 years) back to my parents’ house in rural Kansas outside of Wichita. All my college stuff is packed up neatly in my room, and we’re anxiously trying to finish up the last minute stuff without forgetting anything (talk to the bank, sign up for frequent flyer miles, figure out which electronics to take so I can occasionally check in with mom and dad… you get the picture).
My time so far in Kansas has been great for my introverted self… I can spend hours and hours doing this and that around the big house by myself (coffee on the front porch in the morning, reading in a hammock in the evening, mowing the lawn for 5+ hours, throwing out some of my old junk, researching countries with a cup of tea…. I could entertain myself for days).
In a way this time has been great and very refreshing, but it’s also made more room for anxiety and doubts to creep up in me. I even made a list the other day. Essentially, it boils down to a whole heap of fears: of being inadequate, unprepared, unwanted, unimportant, too timid, etc. Nothing Jesus can’t handle. (Side note: Even with these anxieties I have no doubt the Lord wants me on this trip. I’m scared enough I think I’m going to pee my pants sometimes, but I know I’d still be at peace about it.)
If you’ve been reading my blogs or know me very well, this kind of makes sense with who I am. If you haven’t or have a bad memory, quick recap: I was convicted at training camp of living in fear and not in trusting God with the gifts and talents He’s given me to USE to love His children and further His Kingdom, but at training camp I felt washed of a lot of that fear and like God started cutting that out of me. The whole time I was being soaked in His love as He convicted and washed me of the fear and timidity in my life, and He gave me a glimpse of how He wants me to live as the strong and powerful woman He’s made me to be.
Another thing that happened at training camp that I didn’t mention in my last blog is our training on prophecy/words of knowledge/whateveryouwanttocallit. Long story short, I was prayed over by some of my squadmates who were basically asking God to speak to them so they could speak it to me. Kind of like those moments when people say “God told me that you’re going to marry this person.” Only not really. The purpose of these words of “prophecy” is to strengthen, encourage, and comfort one another… yeah. Sure. I probably butchered that explanation.. but hopefully you get the idea.
Anyways, here it is: one person had a vision of me trying and trying to punch through this suffocating plastic barrier, but it just kept stretching and wouldn’t actually break. She said I was so close to getting through, but that I was just getting weaker and weaker trying to punch through it. I couldn’t do it by myself no matter how much I longed to be free of it.
As hard (and weird) as it is to describe, that’s how I’ve felt a lot of my life, especially recently. I just feel hindered by something- something more present leading up to launch- and part of me wonders if I’ll ever make it through the “plastic” or figure out what it is that's holding me back.
I’m reading through this devotional book called “Come Away My Beloved” by Frances J. Roberts. It’s older, but it’s kind of like "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young. Pretty much all of them seem to apply to me when I read it, but this one seemed particularly fitting with this blog. It’s long, so I’ve only put a few paragraphs on here.
Head into the Wind
O My beloved, be not anxious concerning tomorrow. Thou shalt encounter nothing of which I am not already cognizant. My mercy is concealed within every storm cloud. My grace flows beneath every cross-current. My wisdom has conceived a solution to every perplexity.
…Do ye fear the weakness within thine own self? Lo, I have put it there to drive thee to Myself. I may never answer thy prayers to be made strong, but I will give you the same promise I gave Paul, that in your weakness I will be your strength. For it is still true that My grace operates most effectively when ye have a conscious sense of need – yea, even a desperate awareness of your own compete helplessness.
… You do not have to be other than what I created you: human. You are only obligated to do that for which I created you: glorify Me. Stand back! Let God be God. Let man be man. Once ye accept your limitations and settle the fact once and for all that I will never ask you to perform Herculean feats, ye can begin to learn what I really have in mind for you.
I am not discouraged with you, but ye will become discouraged with yourself if ye are not able to comprehend the truth of what I taught through Paul, that it is the foolish whom I use to confound the wise, and the things which are nothing, to shatter man’s pride in the things which he has made himself.
I am the Ruler, and I will reign. Ye can resist Me, but it shall be inevitably be to thine own destruction. Love Me and trust Me, and stay in a place of humility. As it is written, “Humble thyself under the mighty hand of God, and He will raise thee up.” Mind you, He will do it. Ye need not raise yourself.
You need only stay humble.
I know He’ll get me through this. And it won’t be “just enough” to “get through,” He is capable to do far more than I could ever hope or imagine, and it’s going to be INCREDIBLE. As scared and wimpy as I probably sound, I am exited for this journey, and I want God to change me. I'm exited to jump off of waterfalls, to eat crazy food, to experience squatty pottys, laugh a lot, see people changed in real ways, to step into FREEDOM and to see God MOVE. This pre-race emotional mess is part of the journey too.
“But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord you God, the Holy one of Israel, your Savior…Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”
