If I’m being really honest, its been a really tough run this year. I feel a little like I’m always battling something with every last piece of me and maybe that’s how we’re supposed to live our lives, or maybe I’m just a silly human punching the air in front of me instead of just letting God direct me in the way He wants to. Or maybe it’s a little of both! This last week and a half has thrown yet another big curve ball that I just was not anticipating and left me more vulnerable than I have been in a long time.
The first lie that settled on my shoulders is the very first thing I felt. When I opened those x-rays I had never felt more defeated. I had been resting, drinking water, praying for healing, choosing joy, believing that those bones were going to knit themselves together just like the first doctor said because I was so sure that the race is where God wanted me and was doing all the right things. This last month was the type of month where I woke up and could not even find it in me to open up my eyes and sit up, let alone crutch through a full day of ministry. It was a very real form of relying on God to just get me through each day which is beautiful, but also really hard.
Looking at going home after month 8 right before heading to a country I was really excited for to face one of my biggest fears- surgery- without any preparation or warning certainly didn’t look like a gift to me. My heart was with my squad, my team, and still wanting to pour out everything I had in those last few months. Actually, that’s where my heart still is at! But God has been telling me that this month back home is a gift and I am going to believe that. He has a funny way of turning our disgust into slightly sheepish praise as we realize that He really is a Father who loves us more than anything and who sees a whole lot more than we can.
Something the Lord has been teaching me very clearly and the sentence I heard from the Him when I asked Him if I should go home is that “God gives good gifts.” Through a handful of painful lessons He has shown me in the past few months to trust that His plan is better than mine even when it doesn’t feel right, even when it doesn’t look desirable, and even when it is the exact opposite of what I want. Being a follower of Christ means trusting in your God with all of you!
We always think that we know what is best, but then God turns our “I don’t want that” into a “But Father, I don’t deserve that” as we discover the good gift He had been trying to give us all along.
I’m not sure that I understand this gift He is giving me yet- I’m still in the post-surgery I’m-just-trying-to-sit-up-and-remember-my-own-name stage still, but I’m trying to practice thanking my Father for every good gift He gives me. I keep trying to wrap my mind around everything as I’m sitting in my bed at my parent’s house eating French toast with a kitty on my lap when a few days ago I was bound for Vietnam with my team. I guess I’m learning that I don’t have to get it and that I don’t have to even have a plan and I’ve always known that, but it is so much harder to actually play it out.
Even with God, I don’t really have words yet. I don’t know where I am at or what I am feeling or what is next or what I need. All that I’ve done in those free, quiet moments is worshipped and sang and it has brought me so much peace. It’s funny because all of these words that other people have written have been speaking where I just can’t lately and usually I’m an original kind of girl who never runs out of words. I’ve actually felt a little guilty lately in not being able to give my words to God, but yesterday He showed me something so beautiful.
I was in my living room feeling really lonely, lost, and in a lot of physical pain and just started to write all the words that I had felt in the last week. It all started with that first lie of being defeated when I opened up the x-ray in Cambodia and more and more piled onto my shoulders as I was vulnerable and too tired to fight anymore. There was a fair amount of them and it hurt me to know that I could still believe these things after all the Lord has shown me and brought me through. I was feeling so guilty- like I had failed the Lord and was bringing myself down to this dark place and backsliding.
And so I confessed; I started to repent of not trusting in Him, for giving the enemy a foothold, and so on. You know what? God told me to stop! I got this picture of Him picking me up off of my knees, lovingly holding my face and pulling it to look into His, and showing me all the love, tenderness, and joy He had in His eyes. He told me that I didn’t put myself in a bad position, but that I am in the very best place; sweetly broken and wholly surrendered. In my pain, my weakness, my vulnerability to attacks, He was going to be glorified as He was my only sustainer. Friends, the One True King picked me up off my knees when I tried to worship Him in the way I thought He deserved- in repentance. And you know what?! I instead worshipped Him with praise as the words brought to memory one of my favorite songs and replaced the guilt in my heart with joy!
I don’t get it. I found out in Cambodia that I needed surgery on the 28th and two days later was on a plane to America and then two days later was pulling myself up onto an operating table. That’s crazy! It has been horrible and wonderful and the hardest, most beautiful thing I have ever been through and a ridiculous roller coaster of emotions and experiences. I’m still floundering a little trying to figure out which way is up in this wave, but I know that no matter what God gives good gifts and for that I will praise Him.
I challenge you to pray that God turns your pain into a hallelujah; it’s going to be hard, but it will be worth it.
{saying a last goodbye to my squad as they got on that bus to month 9 in Vietnam and I headed to the airport}
