This is going to be a long one, and may be all over the place, but that’s okay.
Even though I just arrived home after spending a couple days in NYC with my mom, dad, and best-friend, Morocco is still on my heart. So why not share the adventure?
What a month it was. Challenging, personally, as I began to feel the coming moment – what I feel right now – but I saw God move even despite what my feelings tried to contain. For months I tried to put it off, thinking by casting it aside it would somehow lessen the pain that I knew was coming. But God is greater. He is stronger.
Coming straight off El Camino de Santiago, where the entire trek was more individualistic, the desire to grow close as a team was desired by everyone because we did not want to ‘check-out’ and miss out on all that we had in front of us for that month. We did not want to simmer on the cauldron of what he was doing, because we know that the testing of our faith produces perseverance, and constantly refining of our inmost being, our strengths to become stronger, knowing that is what He wants to do every single day to make us into His image; one that is full of a peace that surpasses all understanding, fully equipped for every good work, firm and true, fully present of the momentary and infinite. We did not want to retreat or relinquish the ground He had given to us just because we were coming upon a transition that did bring with it some uncertainty of what may come: old fears, old habits, old lies. But God is greater. He is stronger. He is a good father to those that seek Him earnestly.
So we didn’t. We refused to lie down. We chose into Him.
We were supposed to have a host, but that fell through almost instantly – which was unfortunate, but everything can be used to make Him known. So we set out seeking opportunities and to be led wherever His Spirit was prompting us. He did not disappoint. Our final month, some of the girls were able to help out an orphanage for a day (they wish they could have gone more, but timing didn’t work out); we helped out some workers with their business, painting or cleaning; we poured into our AirBnB host and his family, and by the end, everyone was in tears even if we didn’t speak the same language; the guys and I ran a 10k; we went to an international church (which opened up tons of other doors); we met a solid believer community and were able to pour into them, and they in us; and we smuggled in bib.les that were in Arabic!
We just decided to have fun with Him. We chose into that.
Nevertheless, the impending flight back home rested on my mind. And I felt like I was hit hard by something out of nowhere. Tons of emotions, thoughts, and who knows what else.
That’s when my teammate Ari reminded me of something with profound wisdom. She put it much better than I can, so I’ll just summarize what she said. “I’ve seen these past couple weeks hit some people really hard. It’s like this. The entire year we kept hitting the devil in the face, month after month, pummeling Him with victory after victory, knowing that God was doing something in and through us. Now, it’s like the devil is on the ground, struggling to get up. When we backed away from him in fear, he got up one last time, taking a dagger and driving it in between our armor. So now, instead of walking in the victory of the battles we’ve won, with win after win against him, we now only remember the wound we just received. So the whole year no longer has any power. With one blow he could take us down and remove any victory we had won through Christ.”
So I have to choose. So I am choosing. I choose to walk in the victory of what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will do. I choose Matthew 6:25-34, which says,
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
With all that He’s done I don’t have to worry, or walk around wounded, but can walk confidently in what He’s done in and through me, what He will continue to do, knowing the days ahead are also His. I am held. Each day, I choose, and having done all to stand, stand firm therefore. Truth is not perspectival, it is not diluted, it is not half-measured. The truth of what He says about us is that we are His children, co-heirs with Christ, and by His great love for us, “we have a light that shines out of darkness and can take emptiness away” to fill it with something no one can quantify.
Going forward, there is a simple guideline as to how I will live, summed up in 1 Corinthians 13:
“If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Thank you for following me, praying for me, and supporting me during an incredibly transformative year. I cannot wait to tell you all about it in detail.
Lastly, I want to leave you with an awesome song. Check it out below.
