It’s 9:30pm. It’s that time again..time to slowly saunter upstairs and start my (procrastinate-and-do-anything-else-but-actually-go-to-bed) routine. But first- I get my glass of ice water. I always get my glass of ice water. So, I make my way into the kitchen and open the cupboard.
Empty. Whaaaat??? We have like a million cups in this house.
Oh yea – they are all in my room. It’s a cycle and it happens about every two weeks or so. And it’s funny to me because I never actually notice that I have a million cups (completely full of water and at risk of spilling on very important items) scattered around my room until this exact moment in this ‘cycle’ of mine when the cupboard is empty.
Woof. I don’t even drink the ice water. I simply fill the cup, bring it up to my room, set it down somewhere it is very likely to spill, and then completely forget about it until I can’t perform the routine anymore because all of the cups are not in the cupboard where they belong but are instead littering my room. (Or until I receive a text from mom that says something really sassy like “12 cups.” Yes, I still live at home. So sue me!)
Well the way it always ends is with me attempting to quickly and non-chalantly smuggle a mile high stack of cups into the kitchen and wash them quick enough and get them back in the cupboard before anyone has the time to count how many I was hoarding this time. It’s not easy, folks.
There are 14 cups in my room right now. 14 cups. (Light bulb. This is why they call me messy Jessie.)
Well the timing of this particular occurance in this so-called ‘cycle’ of mine was rather ironic. The past few weeks, I’ve been the cupboard. I have felt empty. There has been a lot going on in my world and it has left me feeling a bit exhausted…drained..I know you know the feeling so I won’t elaborate. I’ve had little time to actually begin any preparation for the trip, and believe you me, the to-do list is daunting.
Passports, travel insurance, shots (please, anything but shots), support letters, fundraising, freezing loan payments (or just paying them through 2014? Your guess is as good as mine!), purchase gear, purchase ticket to training camp, purchase ticket to launch, sell all my things I don’t need anymore to raise even more money for all the things I know I’ll forget, research every type of unknown creature that could be found in every country and how to repell the living guts out of it …for my own sanity, I will stop there. Deep breath, one step at a time.
So as I was saying. I’ve been feeling a little bit empty. I’m an empty cupboard. Where are the cups?? They are in my room. They are always in my room. And then it hit me – the cups are hidden in my room. No – not those cups. (Well, yes, those cups too.)
Lord, You alone are my portion and my cup;
You make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
Psalm 16:5-6
How often do I take the gifts, love, and security of the Father and shove them away, hiding them in some place I cannot see them? And then complain that my cupboard is empty. Surely I am not empty. The Lord is my portion. The gift of eternal life is my lot. Our inheritance in heaven is far greater than any treasure we could find on this earth. Surely we are not empty.
As I was getting into bed on this particular night I was doing a lot of thinking about the race (big surprise). I started to feel behind. I’ve got to send out those fundraising letters. (This was actually intentionally avoided as I struggle with and strongly dislike asking people for monetary support). Nah, I’ll just keep trying to craft ways that I could save up to meet my first fundraising deadline.
Well, just for the heck of it, I’ll log into my account and make sure it’s still sitting at zero.
Wrong. It was not sitting at zero. I refreshed the screen a few times and double checked my login information just to make sure this was actually my account. My stomach flipped, my hands got shakey, and (more than) a few happy tears fell down my cheeks.
To those of you who have contributed to my journey thus far, thank you. Your encouragement, prayers, and support (emotionally and financially) have meant the world to me. I am completely humbled and grateful and cannot express to you enough what a huge blessing this is to me. To see God move in the hearts of my friends and family and prompt them to help send me out on this journey is….I don’t even know. I honestly cannot find the words for it! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Every prayer, every penny, every word of encouragement…it all helps, multiplies, and overflows.
‘God does not call the equipped, He equips the called.’ I am ill-equipped. I make a lot of mistakes and I need a lot of grace. Thank you for being the body of Christ and helping equip me for this journey. I cannot do this on my own.
My cup runneth over. My cup, it can't contain all of Your glory.
