First: Happy Easter!
Now: these next few blog posts are going to be in a bit of a jumble instead of going according to the actual timeline of them happening. But since they’re all a week or more late, I figured I’d match the content with the mood of the day I’m writing them out.
And today is a day of pure celebration, for Easter, for time with parents and squadmates, for yummy Peruvian food, and for good rest on bus rides.
So I want to take you back to last Sunday night, the last night of our Parent Vision Trip – a weird Palm Sunday where we didn’t go to church in the morning, but had the chance to worship and share communion with our parents in the evening.
Communion is one of the things I’ve missed the most on the Race, since that was maybe the third or fourth time we’ve celebrated it during these nine months. So when R squad was told that we would plan the last worship night with our parents, I think a lot of us immediately jumped to the idea of communion.
It was a beautiful come as you are/come when you feel led time with our families – very World Race in its spontaneity. I sat and listened to the first song (I couldn’t even tell you what it was) and was reminded of the similarly casual communions we would take at the church camp I went to in high school. In small groups, we celebrated communion in an upper room of the lodge. The most memorable time, we had 12 people sitting in the room.
And most every time, the song Sanctuary was played.
So that is the song that I remember running through my head during our PVT communion.
Lord, prepare me to be a Sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true.
With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living Sanctuary for You.
I also learned a second verse that no one outside of that camp/my church seems to know that goes:
Lord, teach Your children to stop their fighting, start uniting, all as one.
Let’s get together, loving forever, Sanctuary for You.
It hit me, as I sang the song to myself for the millionth time, what I was actually saying. The lyrics are simple and easy to memorize and so, as much as I love the song, I barely paid attention to its meaning.
Until I got up to have communion with my parents for the first time in…over a year, probably. (Being in the choir, I don’t go to the same service as they do very often.)
After living through the past nine months, I mean that prayer when I sing “Prepare me to be a Sanctuary.”
I want to be a sanctuary, a safe place for my teammates. I want to be a sanctuary for the people we minister to. I want to be a sanctuary for my family. I want to be a sanctuary for the random people we meet on buses and places or at hostels or during border crossings. I want to be a sanctuary for myself.
Even more than before the Race, I want to see peace and joy and hope and love throughout the world. I want us bring heaven to earth, not just say by rote, “Thy will be done, in heaven as it is on earth.” I want hunger and poverty and violence and injustice to be erased.
And I want God to look at me and think, “This girl is ready to bring that kind of change about. This girl has Me inside of her. This girl is a Sanctuary.”
He is risen! Amen.
