Okay, it’s about time I got a little bit real.
Not that I haven’t been, but lately I know my updates have been a lot more logistical and matter of fact (which is still important) but I want to share more of my heart this time because God is doing huge things.
Each month has been so different. In Nicaragua, I had so much time to be disconnected from distraction and I rediscovered an interest in processing my thoughts through writing. I was really excited about blogging that first month and the Lord taught me a lot about being still enough to even learn things worth writing about. Last month in San Jose was much faster paced and I learned a TON but didn’t slow down to process it enough to share very much.
But let me tell you, a LOT has been going on in this brain of mine and I’ve been itching to express it. This post is about to be a few paragraphs of introspection about stuff that’s important to me which I think is worth sharing. So here we go…
I want to intentionally say to everyone who has supported me in fundraising: THANK YOU. You’re here with me. What I’m getting the opportunity to do and be a part of is because of you. I wish you could all be a fly on the wall and see how you’re making a difference not only where my fingers and feet get to touch, but also in my life (big time). But since that isn’t quite possible, my words and pictures will have to suffice.
What I’ve learned about myself…
I didn’t expect this trip to teach me so much about myself. I can honestly say I’ve had breakthrough I didn’t even know I needed. I feel like I actually know how to tell my testimony now and I’m hitting a really sweet stride in my faith walk that I know is going to be sustainable when I go home.
Certain aspects about the timing of this trip worried me. I felt like this upcoming summer I needed to nail down a marketing internship and this semester would’ve been the time I figured that out. I pursued so many dead ends and went down so many rabbit holes trying to set something up before I left for the race and it was really starting to stress me out. Nothing panned out and I left for this trip having no plan of what I’m going to do this summer when I come home, which goes against every fiber in me that clings to the security of plans. But choosing this trip has meant derailing myself from the mental timeline I’ve plotted out and it has turned into the most freeing and enlightening experience.
I think if I would’ve jumped right into an internship this summer without taking this detour of the world race I might have crashed and burned inside. I never realized until now how intensely I was striving. I never realized until now how I was relying on my ability to excel and achieve in all the various facets of my life in order to feel okay. I knew in my head that God loves me and I can’t earn his grace, but I didn’t realize until recently that the truth of that simple but weighty promise hadn’t made it’s way down from my brain to my heart.
I already mentioned that I’ve been learning about this in a blog from Nicaragua, but guys, I cannot tell you how strongly this has become a theme for me in these weeks and how hard God is trying to impart this into my understanding. A baby seed was planted all those weeks ago when I reluctantly admitted that maybe, just maybe, I do have issues about my worth that I bury under piles of accomplishments, certificates, scholarships, nice texts, and words of approval. In the weeks that have followed, little drops of reinforcement have been nourishing this seed of understanding, reiterating the Lord’s love for me and urging me toward the freedom of just being in relationship with him.
Now I feel like I have this fragile little plant that seems too good to be true springing up in my soul. I have to fight the urge to protect it because I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and stomp all over it. I’m waiting for something to happen that wrecks my new perspective and plops me back at square one. This natural tendency comes from being used to the way the world works. Everything and everyone is going to eventually disappoint me in some capacity. But every day that I wake up and choose to seek the Lord expectantly, he’s been blessing it. I actually believe in my heart that he won’t let me down. In my heart, like physically I feel the weight of that. I’ve never been able to say that before.
I know things aren’t going to always go my way and I’m still going to have seasons of major disappointment and heartache, but I feel like I’m getting it. Not that I’ve figured it all out (or even come close), but I’m realizing that it’s such a journey and every day for the rest of my life I could learn something new and God will never run out of things to teach me. And I’m okay with that and even excited about it. That’s so big for me. I’ve accepted the fact that faith is different. It’s not something you get an A on or “figure out”, get to the end of or achieve. It doesn’t fit into a category. It’s a heart posture and a hope that doesn’t make sense and a peace that passes understanding and grace we don’t deserve, and walking in the truth of that is exciting.
Our ministry host this month is really into personality tests and discovering how to best use our giftings. I recently took the Enneagram and I’m pretty sure I’m a 3, which is the achiever. That was affirmed by the destiny assessment we took here at Ocean’s Edge which told me I am a “strategizing director”. I have a love/hate relationship with personality assessments like these because a) I feel like all my answers to the questions depend on circumstances, and b) I think we can use these tests as excuses to operate in the negative extremes of certain personality traits because we think that’s “just the way we are” and we can’t help it.
Regardless, I always seem to end up categorized in some sort of competitive/achievement oriented/structured group. Sometimes admitting these tendencies can make me feel like I’m too rigid or controlling. But in devotions we learned this week that when these tendencies are manifested in a healthy way, I get to mirror the character traits of the Abba Father slice of the Trinity. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit characteristics are energetic, passionate, and outside the lines, and the Jesus traits are loving and patient. I definitely think we can work to have all these characteristics, but it’s okay to lean a certain direction because God’s big and we all get to mirror different pieces of his character. And I’m learning how to walk in that and own it in a way that honors the Lord and the people around me.
Which brings me to… Ministry this month!
I love the order of our trip itinerary (lol, my personality case in point). I love that we started in rural Nicaragua, got a taste of Jacó during debrief, went to the Awakening conference and were fired up for our month in San José immersed in the city, and now we get to end back in Jacó Beach doing ministry I can really get behind.
The whole motto of Ocean’s Edge is missional living. They take a really practical, sustainable, everyday approach to loving the community around them. Missions for them isn’t necessarily going far away and doing crazy things but figuring out where your giftings are and using them in practical ways to make the lives of people around you better and love them towards the Lord. What a good mindset to get into as we transition toward home after this final month.
Based on our personality tests, our ministry hosts have split us up into projects for the month where they hope we will thrive according to our strengths. I am SO pumped about one of the things in particular that I have been getting to do. My group is working on the Jacó Beach prayer initiative which involves creating an index of all the businesses in town, sending people into them to gather information to put on the Jacó Beach Info website linked to Remax realty and offer free advertising in exchange for the opportunity of getting a foot in the door of the businesses to ask them what they need prayer for and form relationships. All of this involves a lot of spreadsheets, writing little advertising blurbs, website editing, and organization of information, and that’s totally in my wheelhouse. It’s so affirming to get to do something somewhat business related and not only have it reinforced to me that this is a career path that trends toward my strengths, but also that it can be used in missional living. Christians and business are so not mutually exclusive (a whole other topic for another day).
I’ve also been taught that just bringing the fruits of the spirit to a work place is living missionally. One of our hosts talked about how when we focus “vertically” on our relationship with the Lord it fills up our vase, and then the overflow “horizontally” to people around us becomes natural and less of a chore. She told about how she shined the light of Jesus even working at Ulta back home just in the way she handled difficult customers and hard conversations with coworkers. People could tell she just didn’t get rattled easily and her identity was tied securely in something greater, and she had an uncanny ability to have empathy for people, not through her own strength but calling on the compassion of Jesus. I want to be like that. That makes me feel motivated to work anywhere. Knowing that ultimately my shortcomings don’t define me and I get to call on the strength and patience I can receive through God to handle things with grace is empowering.
So that was a lot of what I’ve been processing lately. Long story short, I really love it here in Jacó, this trip has been amazing in a lot of ways, and it’s nuts that there’s only 3 weeks of these 3 months left. But I’m pumped to maximize the time I still have here and starting to get excited for how going home is going to look different from when I left.
