I hate it when there is too much space between writings.
Travel days will do that.
We traveled 11 hours in a van.
Spent 15 hours sitting in a train station in Moldova.
Rode 16 hours on a train to Kiev, Ukraine.
And finally, one and a half hours in a bus to the little town we'll be residing in this month.
So, I sit here to write, and I wonder if it's time to update on logistics or update on the journey the Lord is taking me on.
This blog will consist of both. Because most of the time, it's in the logistics that the journey takes place.
This was true with the above logistics.
Leg one of that race to Ukraine, I was in a van…a van with seats facing each other. I'm not sure what happened, but getting out of that van at 5:30 the following morning was a feat. Lifting my bag was an even bigger feat. I placed my hand on my lower back, and I would have sworn that there was a rock growing on my bone.
I couldn't sit without feeling it. I thought walking would help…it didn't. I thought stretching would cure it…nothing. I thought surely getting to lay flat on the sleeper train would just ease all things…it was worse…it felt like I was laying on top of a rock.
Ugh.
I'd rather be sick than physically hurt.
Then we got off the train…and I had to carry that bloody pack again.
I may have cursed it…at least three times.
I suddenly had a dire need for a husband…I'm sure he would have carried it for me.
Or he would have known me well enough to have gotten me an airporter bag with wheels…I'm certain of it.
So, the bag was placed in the bus…finally. We stopped at a gas station. I got out to go to the bathroom. As I crossed the parking lot, a car was coming so I attempted some pep in my step to get out of its way…that shot pain like no other into my back.
Ugh…I can't even jog…
We get to the house we're living at, and we have to climb some stairs…with our packs. My teammate, Jacquelyn, grabs mine. I urged her not to, but she did. I wanted to cry. Cry because I was grateful, and cry because I was embarassed…and felt so helpless.
And I just wanted to eat. Not because I was hungry. There was candy on the bed for us…so sweet of our hosts…and I just wanted to eat it all. Because somehow, in my head, that would help things.
Why am I sharing this? Because my helplessness brought out the worst in me. I couldn't do anything I wanted to do. I couldn't do anything I liked to do. In response to that, I searched for either things I could blame it on (not having a husband) or things I could do (eat).
Those responses were ways I used to cope with things. And they're so ingrained that they creep back in. They creep back in sometimes when I'm tired, uncomfortable, or…helpless.
And I hate them.
The next morning, I read these words in Isaiah: "For your desolate places and your land (once the scene) of destruction surely now will be too narrow to accommodate the population….The children born during your captivity shall yet say in your ears, The place is too narrow for me…" Isaiah 49:19-20
In case you read this and you wonder what in the world this has to do with what I just talked about, I'll try to explain where it fits in.
There are ways I learned to cope, ways to reason and think, and ways to respond that were born throughout my years prior to walking with the Lord and even after the walk began. (Those are the children).
But one day, those places in my mind (that were once scenes of destruction) will be filled with something different…if I continue to allow Him to fill it with something different…and it will be too narrow to accommodate those things anymore.
Now, that's hope. When we will finally view helplessness and discomfort as an invitation to walk in the strength He's been offering the whole time. When we can celebrate when we are at the end of our strength…because that IS when His begins.
And to think that it's in those situations that my most common prayer is for the Lord to take me OUT of it and for Him to FIX the situation. When He's, more often than not, saying to me, "Kacie, I brought you TO this exact situation…to fix YOU."
Thank-you, travel days, thank-you.
