“Waiting is not a passive verb. It’s an active verb.” – Professional photographer and good friend, Loren Benoit 🙂
What a crazy month this last month has been! So much has happened since my first blog, but I want to share specifically about some new friends I have made and what I’ve learned from them. Hopefully this will encourage some of you, if you find yourself in a similar place!
Some of you may know that within the first 2 weeks of being back home, I held a yard sale at my parents’ house to help raise money for the WR. Long story short, God exceeded all of my expectations financially and has gracefully given me some of the most generous neighbors I’ve ever known. But finances and the World Race aside, God taught me something else that day about who he is.
Towards the end of the day, a young married couple showed up with their two little girls. As they were preparing to check out, the wife approached my makeshift checkout table, and looked over at my [shamefully sloppy] poster about the mission trip. She asked “So you guys are Christian?” I nodded yes, and she proceeded to tell me about how they were Christians too but that they had been looking for a church.
In a burst of unquestionable trust that can really only be attributed to God’s relentless determination, I wrote down my name, church and phone number on a piece of paper for her. I told the lady (her name was Claudia) to let me know if she ever wanted to come to church with me to let me know. We talked a little longer before they left. A couple of weeks went by and then I got a text from her one day. She wanted prayer for her daughter who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes right before her 3rd birthday. We texted a little bit more and, again rather not in my own doing, invited Claudia and her family to meet up for breakfast last Sunday before going to church. Before we parted ways, the Lord nudged me to pray over them before they left, and when I looked up Claudia was in tears.
Honestly, I don’t know where Claudia and her family are at right now with everything. I so SO hope and pray that her daughter gets healed and that Claudia’s family finds a church where they can belong and get involved. God needs to bring both of these things about, and I’m confident he will in his timing.
Aside from providing you with a couple more prayer requests this week, I wanted to tell you about Claudia’s family for a couple reasons.
The first reason is that one of the coolest parts for me about this mission trip journey is discovering a different perspective on the concept of missional living. If I really grasped the idea that God deeply loves everyone – as in EV-ER-Y-ONE – and wants them to know him personally, who I am day-to-day should be a missionary. Not “missionary” in the sense that you have be living in a third world country and wear camel’s hair (thanks, John to-the B) to be considered a missionary, but missionary in the sense that Christians’ lives have a purpose that is God-glorifying. Life ain’t about me, which is such a good thing! Instead, life GETS to be about the source of all of my goodness, all of my healing and freedom and forgiveness and joy…it gets to be about Jesus. When it comes to the World Race, I feel at times like I am just waiting, like I’m in a period of no significance, of no real purpose other than preparation. But, as my friend Loren has so astutely pointed out, it isn’t “just waiting”. There should be nothing passive or lackadaisical about it. How we live our lives, how we shine Jesus through us and who we are now matters just as much if not more than our future lives will. God has been patiently teaching me this through Claudia, through my job, and through my interactions with my neighbors. There’s a big difference between waiting time and wasting time.
The second reason I shared about Claudia and her family is because she has reminded me of the reality of pain and of hardship in the world. My life hasn’t been a story wrought with impossible circumstances, of unexpected loss, of immense sorrows. I often need to be reminded about the depth of pain and sadness and their steadfast grip on so many people’s lives. I believe this is something the Lord wants to remind me of prior to going on the World Race, where we may be seeing and hearing from many pain- and sadness-stricken hearts. It’s a lesson in compassion, a lesson of having and communicating sincere empathy. Please pray that my team and I would be empathetical and also hope-centric in our service to people!
I want to begin a new trend where I post a youtube video with a song that is currently impacting me (music and lyrics are a significant part of my life). This blog’s video is a song called There May Be Tears by Scott Cunningham Band.
Thank you guys so much for all of your support!!
