It was way back at the end of Month One.
A month where the witch doctor next door, a packed house, screaming goats, sweltering nights and relentless insects made good sleep a distant memory.
A month of continuously submitting and resubmitting every aspect of my life to the Lordship of God and Jesus.
A month of catching glimpses into the very heart of God.
Of Him telling me that as deep as my hunger was…
… as desperately thirsty as I was to know him…
… He was infinitely more invested in giving.
During that first debrief in South Africa I sat down to write in an official World Race journal and the prompt said “Write a Letter”. Without thinking but with a heart bubbling with joy, I scribbled out the following letter/poem thingy…
Dear fear,
You try to keep me safe,
you try to keep me from harm,
You try to keep me some place
without risk or alarm.
You’ve done your best to protect me
from dangerous and uncomfortable situations,
But now I’m stepping out, leaving you here, into uncharted migrations!
God says he will do all of the things
You’ve tried so hard to do.
And best of all, He’ll try to let me live without you too.
Freedom in Christ won’t cast you out but it definitely will bring
A new way of being dangerous and uncomfortable
As I chase after greater things.
So thank you for your work thus far
Thank you for letting me see
That fences, boundaries, rules and boxes
Get blown to bits by the trinity
This year I ask you to go,
to shrink and minimize.
Because this year I have to go
preach and evangelize.
So. Cheesy. And I knew it at the time! Trust me I knew that. I never intended to reread it, edit it or post it on the Internet. But I can’t tell you how powerful it has been to feel a bit of fear creeping up, to consider the option to let my thoughts go there and to stop myself,
“Wait. I don’t have fear. I told it to leave.”
I remind myself that I kicked fear out of my life in Month One and instead I placed my hope in the victory won on the Cross. I spent years of my life trapped in anxiety. Fear and doubt so strong that I couldn’t breath or move or make decisions.
Yet, hidden in Gods heart it was so simple, joyful and freeing to let it all go. The freedom of scribbling out a goofy rhyming poem and laughing with Jesus instead of working, striving or fighting with my own blood, sweat and tears. Because He gave me His. And it freed me of fear. I can’t tell you how it feels to say it, repeat it, feel the truth of it in my bones and to walk in it every day. I can’t tell you because it’s something you need to experience for yourself.
For a while I had to remind myself more regularly until it’s become the new normal. We have to remind ourselves of the truth because we don’t break bad habits, we replace them. We don’t kick out fear without replacing it with faith,
and Faith = Rest.
As I worked on replacing this habit, while reading the bible I would use these words interchangeably. Anytime the scriptures said ‘rest’ I replaced it with ‘faith’ and anytime it said ‘faith’ I replaced it with ‘rest’. Which is why I contend that the Sabbath was never intended to be a day of the week but a position from which we live each moment of our lives… but that is a different tangent 😉
A few months later my squad leader and bff Ariana told me, “Hannah, I have never heard the word fear cross your lips”. It is now the middle of Month TEN and I can only remember one time this entire year when I said it out loud – and that’s because I was considering a decision outside of Gods will for me! How nuts is that?! Especially considering some of the ridiculous, unsafe, daunting, confusing, exhausting, adventurous and random moments that have occurred these past months.
There is nothing special or unique about the World Race or about who I am while I’m here.
Wherever I am in the world, I rest in Him.
Wherever I am, I am unafraid.
