Hello from Nepal. This month I am stationed on a Yak Ranch in the Himalayan mountains near Pokhara. This place is insanely beautiful. When I wake up and look out my window I can see some of the tallest mountains in the world, capped in snow. At night we lay out on the ground wrapped in huge, crazy cozy Nepali blankets (when we can handle the cold) and look at the magnificent sky. The stars are more apparent and numerous here than anywhere else I have ever been. When we go down or up the mountain we take a bus, or what I like to call the Nepalese version of a roller coaster. The drivers of the very colorful school buses go horrifyingly fast down an uncomfortably slender path carved along the side of the mountain. If you can remain in your seat you should consider yourself blessed. One old woman grabbed my upper thigh and held on for dear life the entire way up. I didn’t judge her. If you struggle with the slightest motion sickness, you will throw up. Bumpy doesn’t really capture it but when I think of a word that does I’ll let you know.
Since being here the Lord has taught me a lot, and I’d like to impart a bit of that wisdom onto you.
I’m attempting to read through the whole bible, 3 chapters of the old testament and one of the new per day. When reading through Matthew 26 I reached verse 39. It reads “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” Wow. I couldn’t go on. I just read it over and over again. Jesus utters this in the Garden of Gethsemane awaiting his destiny… to be crucified. As I read this I thought about the Father and his feelings. Jesus asked God to spare Him pain. He is a human being coming to his Father to ask for what He wants… just as I do everyday. I can’t even imagine how much God wanted to save His son from that pain and how burdened His heart was for Jesus in this moment. Jesus did die on the cross, and the Father couldn’t even look. This was the perfect will of the Father and His plan to save all of humanity, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t break the Father’s heart.
Why does He allow bad things to happen to us? Because His plan is bigger than just us. He adores us with all of His heart, and I believe He really wants to take the cup from us. He wants to take away our pain in those moments we think we can’t possibly go on, but He knows the whole plan. He knows that shielding us from pain isn’t always what is best for us and for humanity. If you notice, Jesus asked His dad to take away the pain if it was possible, but ultimately gave himself to the Father’s will because He trusted in His wisdom and His intentions. We have to follow Jesus’ lead. Yes, bad, painful things happen. Yes, we can ask the Lord to heal us or take away the pain, and I believe if our Father knows that is what is best for us, He will. It pains him to see us in pain. But sometimes He allows it because He understands that pain is how we claim victory. So often, it’s these experiences that He uses in such beautiful, magnificent, triumphant ways in His big plan. It’s our choice if we want to submit to His will for us. Jesus could have called down legions of angels to protect Him and bring him up to heaven (Matthew 26:53). He could have avoided all the pain… but He didn’t. For us to become the people able and willing to fulfill His will for our lives, sometimes we must endure pain. Sometimes it’s the only way.
There will be pain in our lives but He redeems this pain and makes it into our part of His beautiful story. I know some of this first hand. I know the physical and emotional pain of trauma. I know how frustrating it can be to cry out to Him for relief and not get it. I know the pain on my earthly fathers face when watching me experience this, and I know that my heavenly Father must be in even more agony. He wanted to take away that pain because He loves me so much, but He couldn’t. He knew that He was going to use that pain to change my heart. He was going to completely uproot all of my ambition and motivation and call me to give it all up and follow Him. He knew I wouldn’t do it without first realizing my fragility and what really mattered in life. He knew I needed to learn some things to fulfill my part of His plan, and this was the only way for me to do that. So
He allowed it and I imagine He couldn’t look as my leg was being scrubbed and I was screaming for His help. I imagine that’s the way He feels whenever He sees His children in pain… but His intentions are good and He is going to work it together for good.
My first week in India I sprained my knee… dancing to Justin Bieber’s “Sorry”… yea, I know. Not a very Holy way to injure myself. I wish it occurred trekking through the Himalayas or saving a child from a leopard, but it didn’t. When this happened I was angry. I asked God why He would bring me all this way to allow this accident… in such a seemingly meaningless way. Then He brought me back to launch (our training before we departed America), when He spoke to me “Stop calling this an accident. I don’t allow accidents… Everything I allow has a purpose to be used in my kingdom.” I chewed on that. It’s hard to take in. We have free will. Awful, painful things happen in this world. But He is sovereign and He only allows things that will ultimately benefit His greater plan. We don’t and can’t understand this because we can’t comprehend how much greater His plan truly is. But He used my month in India so powerfully. Due to my accident, I was alone a lot… and the Lord used that time to totally transform and posture my heart for this year. I also was able to form a lot of deep relationships… like with Jeremy, a thirteen year old who spent all day, everyday, nursing me to health… or Anna, Abigail, Fabie and Hazel, 4 little girls who lived next door to me and taught me so much about childlike faith… or my doctor who I witnessed to and became buds with… or Ringlawm, my new best friend who drove me all over the place and even took me shopping and endured me trying on half the dresses in the village. I would have never created such deep relationships if it wasn’t for my injury and I would have never learned so much about love from these people. Now I find myself thanking God for it.
So, after all of this I have resolved to, finally, submit to His will and to stop resisting the pain. I realized that God transforms the worst pain into the greatest beauty. Sometimes we have to undergo some pruning before we can fully bloom into the beauty He created us to be. I want to be used as a humble vessel for His will to be done – even if that means I accumulate some brokenness along the way. Broken vessels are the easiest to pour out of anyway.
