Recently, God has been teaching me and my boyfriend (who is on another squad) some pretty honest and truthful lessons. After reading his last blog about not responding to God's call to always give to the poor, I realized some hard lessons from God (check out his blog here). (If it doesn't work as you click on this, his website is jan-luetjethoden.theworldrace.org
God has been teaching me a lot about what it means to be honest with myself and my thoughts. This is HARD because a lot of the time I am not the happiest and nicest person I try to portray. My thoughts don't match my words or actions.
Recently, I have been realizing that I need A LOT more quiet time and personal time than I am allowing myself to have. This is not something I have EVER had to do or create before. My life has always had more personal time than large group time.
My life is different now.
I constantly am around anywhere from 6 – 30/40 people. I am NOT used to this.
THIS IS HARD.
Last month I found SO much peace living in a village. We were only with one other girl's team and had a lot of free time. I was able to be peaceful and get away. This month will not be that way for most of the month (more info to come).
Currently, I am sitting in a coffee shop that we live above and am having some personal time. I am sitting in the back corner on a couch drinking a berry smoothie. I expect to be alone.
One of the team leaders comes over and starts talking on the phone. I get annoyed. My team leader comes over and asks if she can sit on the couch with me. I say “yes”, but get annoyed. I am NOT alone and my perfect plan of getting peace is not happening.
I start complaining to God and essentially demanding for peace and my personal time. “God, I know I need quiet time and time away from people. Why can't I get it?”
“Christel, your life just looks different now. You are living with all of these people. You need to learn to find peace even amongst all of these people. You need to find peace in me and not in your circumstances. You can NOT control your peace”
One more thing, “If you are having your quiet time in the future when you have a husband or children and they need something, will you get annoyed at them then?”
God put me in my place. These are my brothers and sisters. Yes, there are a lot of them. Yes, I don't know them all on an individual basis. Yes, I need quiet time and yes, I need group time. However, God knows that I need all of these things. Who am I to say no to a brother or sister who needs to talk or who is trying to relax as well? It is not my space and my time and my circumstances. They are all God's
Honesty definitely is NOT easy, but it is the only way you can change. I am praying that God changes my heart for the people around me because I know I need help. I can't change my heart on my own.
I need God and His love.
