I did it! I’m in my last week of the race, and I am at the point where I can say that I’ve done it. I’ve lived life for 9 months as a missionary. I have traveled to foreign countries and experienced new cultures, met new people and lots of them, and I’ve seen things that I never in my life expected to. I gave myself up. I died to self for the first time in my life.
I spent hours on hours everyday for a month in Haiti doing evangelical outreach, days on a Filipino mountain filling in a ditch, hours working in an aquaponics farm in Botswana replanting strawberries and cutting basil, painted a church in South Africa, spent 2 months with the most amazing 15 street boys here in Antipolo, did night time bar ministry in a red light district, and I spent SO much time with little kids from all over the world. I lived it. I lived what I read about in the bible everyday. I sought out that connection with God that I hear about. And I searched for identity in what was not me. I loved, and I served. And sometimes I got tired and sick. I had head lice and the flu and threw up so many times because I wasn’t used to the food. I gave away my time and my wisdom, and I threw away everything I knew and believed. For 9 months I chose to act as If I knew nothing, as if I was starting from scratch with my relationship to God. I preached the simple gospel and I allowed my heart to open enough that I would be changed. I hoped that would be the case anyway. I prayed to the God that I wanted so badly to know, and I asked in earnest if for my sake He would break me. Tear me down and turn me inside out and build me back up. Make me His. Claim me as His daughter and His heir and as a worthy recipient of His blessings.
And I did it. To the best of my ability I lived in every moment and loved life even in the harder times. I met beautiful people that loved me like I’ve never seen, and I have life long friendships that I can count on because I know that they love the Lord as much as I do. I learned a lot about who I am and where I want to go and who I rely on.
I was put in situations that alone I would never have been able to conquer, but I also struggled trying to do things my own way. I messed up and I got lost, and each time I had to realize that my life is not my own. Whether I’m a missionary in Eastern Asia or I am at home in my lofty little life, My life, is not my own.
I was made by God for God. Created for the sake of glorifying Him by how I live my life.
And I did that this year. I’m not saying that it was perfect. I definitely am not saying that I have this life down to a science, but I’m proud of how I lived for the first time ever. I loved God. I loved God before I loved friends, before I loved my family, and amazingly before I loved myself. I learned that the kind of joy I get from putting me second is incomparable. And I learned that the confidence I receive from the father is nothing that I will ever be able to come conjure up on my own.
I learned humility. I witnessed what kind of God I have for the first time, and I saw what happens when we choose to actually give our whole selves to Him. I know that I am nothing without Him and Everything with Him. I know that I am deeply and purely loved and cherished. I am protected and cared for, and I serve a king who desires to share His wealth with me. I know God. I have a relationship with Him. That is NOT something that I would have said 9 months ago.
So, I did it. I was a missionary. I still am actually, for 12 more days before my feet finally touch American soil, and then hopefully through the rest of my life. I don’t know whether that will mean living in a foreign country, doing more missions, or just living life by example. But I know that if I did it already, If I lived it and I loved it so dang much, then I’ll end this season and enter the next with excitement and joy, knowing that I have a God who will enable me to do it again. Tackling each day with a fervent and zealous passion, and in desperate want for people around me to simply taste the goodness that the Lord has so graciously shown me this year.
