I am going to do my best to put what God is doing in my heart into words, but no amount of words could accurately portray what has happened this week. There are a series of events that came to a crashing, very haunting, conclusion on Thursday.
First, in order to understand the state I was in, you must know that my nightmares came back starting last weekend. Now, you’re probably thinking that nightmares are nothing and you can shake them off, right? Not these… When I have nightmares and, more importantly, when I remember them, they follow me around like a dark consuming cloud of depression. My mind plays tricks on me and tells me they’re real. Nightmares filled with death, destruction, abuse, people hunting me, people dying, and so much more creep into my conscious mind and cling to me throughout the following days. Most recently, my nightmares hadn’t been effecting me directly like they used to. I would wake up after a horrible night’s sleep with a weird feeling and be ok, just drudging through the day from lack of sleep. My nightmares became so bad that I wouldn’t be surprised if my brain shielded them from me so that I wouldn’t remember when I woke up.
This week was one of those with little sleep, waking up scared, being able to kind of shake it off because I don’t remember details…
That was until the dream I had Wednesday night… But I’ll explain more later.
Another thing that is crucial to understand is that there was an evident war going on inside my heart and mind for my soul. I was being struck by fear at every angle. Thoughts flooded my mind like… “I can’t do this…. 11 months? That’s so long!”… “How can I be doing this to people I love? Putting them through all of this?”… “Who am I to think that I should be doing this. I am probably projecting my desire to travel and calling it ‘God’s call to missions’”… “I am so selfish, I’m not going to last the whole 11 months”… “I won’t be able to raise the money by the deadline this month… Maybe I just shouldn’t go…”.
Not only with the World Race but within my church community here in Kansas City as well… Thoughts that I didn’t belong, I wasn’t meant to be spending my summer in Kansas City, that the training camp I am apart of learning ministry isn’t where I am meant to be spending my time, that people didn’t want me there… And so on. The enemy was feeding on my deepest fears, enhancing them, prying and picking at my homesickness to tear me down.
But, in the end, truth remains. In the end, I found my way back to the only voice that matters. The One that says “I called you to do this. You are my ambassador, my living vessel that will bring love to those who need it”, the One that first asked me in September of last year “To the ends of the earth would you follow Me? There’s a world that was meant for your eyes to see”, the One that calls be beloved, daughter, and disciple. The One that reassures me I am exactly where He wants me to be. That fights for me, on my side, every single day and protects me from those harmful lies that try and deter me and take me away from His calling. The one that reassures me that what I am doing is for Him and that is the ultimate and only good thing I will ever be capable of, following Him. That reminds me the people who truly love me are encouraging me, on my side, and would never make me feel guilty for following God’s call. The One that tells me He is the One who put my passion for others, missions, hurting nations, and traveling in my heart for a reason.
The last thing that occurred this week, that brought all of this to a head, making me realize the significance in it’s entirety were the events that followed yesterday. Yesterday was the first day of the training camp I am apart of in Kansas City. And three days out of the week it consists of sitting in a classroom like setting learning about applicable ministry studies and teachings, they’re called tutorials. Yesterday’s was on the redemptive nature throughout History. How there is this common theme throughout History of God’s salvation through Jesus and that it is still occurring before us, that we are apart of it, and carrying out the story ourselves, as disciples. During our time at tutorials, something was said to trigger me remembering the dream I had the night before. I am comfortable with sharing this dream because it is one of the least graphic and disturbing I’ve had…
In my dream, I was diagnosed with a terminal illness that would have required me to suffer greatly before the end. It continued with my mom deciding to kill me to try and put me out of my misery but me quickly deciding not to because I wasn’t quite ready to see Jesus yet. So, I opted for suffering and letting my body kill me naturally. All the while, not telling anyone of this to try and prevent them from being hurt. Now, that dream has no immediate significance except the intense feeling of dread that I had when I was faced with death. In the dream, I knew I wasn’t ready to go yet and that I had so much still to do and wanted to do. And the realization of why cut my life short when I can have more time, time where I am suffering, yes, but time none the less.
Like I described how my dreams stuck with me earlier, this one was no different. Once I remembered it, I gave it the power to haunt me and affect my thoughts and feelings throughout the day. I felt isolated, so I tried to isolate myself, trying to process and work through the feelings of this dream so I could get over them as fast as possible. What I didn’t know is that facing my fear of death in my dream could lead to an important face with reality. This next part I write is through partial tears, tears of fear, love for my perfect Father, joy for the work I will be doing in the next year, and strength that could have only come from me being broken and Christ coming in to give me His strength.
The gravity of what happened in tutorials within my heart and mind didn’t truly hit me until later. The battle that had been waging in my soul was over, Jesus came out triumphant, I chose Him and His call to missions again. During tutorials yesterday, I was hit with a question, inside my mind, and no doubt from the Holy Spirit. The question?…
“If I told you, you were going to die on the World Race, would you still go?”
Two things happened immediately when that question ran through my mind. The first, I wanted to run, hide, and turn around immediately… Every fiber in my being told me to get the heck outta there and self preserve. The second, without hesitation, going against everything my body was telling me to do, I said “YES”. I responded yes! Because I am not meant to give up a year of my life for this, to treat this as a year away serving… My LIFE is for serving. I am not giving up a year of my life, I am meant to give up my entire life to my Abba. And if that means, at some point, I die while serving, even on the race, then I have done my part.
“To the end of the earth would you follow me?” has a whole new and revived meaning… God is calling and saying “Are you willing to follow me to the end? Even if it means death?” and I am answering “Yes”.
