One month done. WOW.
Looking back at our time in the Philippines it’s so beautiful to process and see all that the Lord did while we were there, and what He’s continuing to do. We got to see the church be the church, learn from kids who knew more about the Bible than I did (seriously, these 9 year olds were crushing it), form friendships with some kids that live under a bridge, and my very favourite, spend a month living life with our CG boys!! Basketball, Shopwise, movies, Robinsons mall (every single day) and McDonald’s was the basis of how we spent our time, and I loved every moment of it.
With that being said, the goodbye sucked a little bit.
As I spent time with the Lord processing leaving the Philippines, He showed me how vital the goodbyes are. Each of us here came on the race with the prayer in our heart that we would leave looking more like Christ, and this is how it happens.
Papa told me that every time we allow ourselves to say goodbye, He’s bulldozing down the walls of our heart and making us to look more like Him. But He can only do this if we allow ourselves to love before saying goodbye.
To help me understand He reminded me of a wineskin – I know, I was confused too, but it’ll make sense soon.
In the Bible they talk about wineskins a bunch, but I wouldn’t say it’s something I’m exactly well-versed in. But here’s what I do know: A wine skin was made of goat skin and its purpose – you guessed it!! – was to hold wine.
When you put new wine into the wineskin, the wine would ferment, sweeten, expand in size, and the wineskin would stretch. So if you looked at a new wineskin and an old wineskin, the old one would be way bigger, and the wine inside would be much sweeter.
What Papa showed me is that it’s the same way with our heart.
Every month He gives us new people to love – our people. They pour into our hearts just like new wine is poured into a wineskin. But I think it’s actually the goodbyes that act as the fermentation stage. It’s the goodbyes that stretch out our hearts and sweeten our love. And while it’s painful and uncomfortable, it leaves us with bigger, more malleable hearts – it forms us into who we’re meant to be. It perfects the love inside of us.
We need that fermenting stage, that goodbye stage, to make everything a little sweeter.
So as sad or hard as goodbyes might be, I’m happy to know that God is making my heart a little bigger and my love a little sweeter every time.
