Well hello there strangers!
It has been about a month since I last updated everyone about this big adventure via blog posts. Personally, I am a visual person and LOVE seeing pictures over reading a blog (hence why I upload pictures daily). When I do finally say “Heidi, focus and write something!” (haha) writing about the things we do is easier than sharing about my emotional and spiritual journey. So you probably think all I’m doing on the World Race is going to lakes, eating ice cream and enjoying the beach.
It is so much more than that…
In Guatemala, we stayed at AGAPE in Action- a free hospital- and we switched jobs every week. To start off: we cleared/leveled a field on the mountainside to help build a church for the locals and on our school visit we had to -SURPRISE!- make up a new skit in 20 min to preform to the entire elementary school (it was awesome, btw). Week 2, we had house/hospital duty which included cleaning the compound where we lived and doing the grocery shopping and cooking 3 meals a day for 44 people. The final week, we did ATL (Ask The Lord) in the main square downtown where we played some worship music and prayed with people God brought into our day.
Like I said, its easy to talk about what I have been doing, but I’m going to try my best to let you all in on how I have been feeling.
All my life I have been a people pleaser. Ever since I can remember, my choices and actions have come from wanting to make someone else happy. As a child, I got good grades to please my parents. In high school, I went to parties because all my friends went and I didn’t want them thinking I was lame… but I also had to go to church to make my parents happy. I “gave my life” to The Lord and thought that meant the emptiness in my heart would immediately be filled. Recently I realized that I originally started going to Palomas, Mexico every month on a mission trip primarily so people would think I was a good person and because it looked good on my resume. As I got older, I wanted to be successful so people would think I had it all together. The career I chose made me financially successful.
But none of it was ever enough- I still wasn’t happy and I still had a void in my heart.
I never understood why, if I had my life so perfect- supportive family, nice job, fun friends, and a great church- why I was still was unhappy. It wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough, because I had an emptiness that could only be filled by one person… Jesus Christ. I wasn’t focused on pursuing a relationship with Him because I was so wrapped up in pleasing “the world.” I tried pleasing all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons for so stinkin long… its exhausting. But man, does Jesus not love me more than anything in this world could ever provide? He does. I rather give everything I have, every single day for the one person who actually deserves it all. Who gave it all to know me.
A teammate gave me this bible verse:
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10) It literally hit my like a brick recently, I felt like nothing I’ve ever done has any real meaning to it because I didn’t do it for the right reasons. It feels awful to realize that you haven’t really been living…
I encourage anyone who is still living to please mankind, to stop. STOP WASTING YOUR TIME!
Its pointless. We live in a world where NOTHING is ever ENOUGH. You will never be pretty enough, handsome enough, skinny enough, built enough, nice enough, or rich enough, to be enough for this world. But guess what, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE ENOUGH FOR JESUS!!! No matter how nerdy, unattractive, dumb, unfit or unworthy this world makes you think you are, you are more then enough for Jesus Christ. And he wants to love you so much more than we deserve or can imagine. The World Race culture lives in a constant state of love for Jesus and pouring out this love to others, and I realize this is how life should be no matter the location, age, or community.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is made, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church, and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-20)
