This week I celebrated the end of my 28th year of life and the beginning of my 29th.
The biggest joy of 28 has been positively answering the Lord’s invitation to join Him on an adventure in Cambodia.
While the biggest challenge of 28 has been positively answering the Lord’s invitation to join Him on an adventure in Cambodia.
There has been one question this past year that has surfaced in my mind over an over and over again. I have gone rounds with this question. We have wrestled.
It’s a question that I know we all ask ourselves somewhere; at some point in time or multiples times in our lives. The way we answer this question and the things we believe in our hearts about the answer to this question are the difference between hope, contentment, and joy or discouragement, feelings of failure, and worry.
This year the question of my heart has been:
AM I A SUCCESS?!?!?
If I were to look for my answer in this physical world the answer is a resounding NO and the temptation is to feel the discouragement of failure. My profile isn’t very impressive:
28 years old: NO boyfriend, much less, husband; NO house in my name; NO 2.5 children; NO dog (well I have Maggie, but not in Cambodia); NO picket fence; Only 2 years of clinical hospital nursing experience under her belt . . . and not even 2 years at the same hospital!; NO Masters degree or immediate plan for furthering my education as of now; ONLY $2000 in my 403b; NO steady job paying me $50,000 anymore with amazing benefits.
Not only all of that, but being in Cambodia has provided me with bountiful opportunities to fail at being a leader of a team; fail at starting a ministry; and fail at networking with a couple key NGO’s here.
So in the face of all that I have had to quiet my heart and ask the Lord for his answer . . .
You do not have a house, a plump 401K; or other such things of material wealth; but your inheritance in heaven is great; your treasures are stored where moth cannot destroy and thief cannot break in and steal.
You have no steady job, but you have the freedom to sit in my presence for hours each morning to hear what I am saying to you, and then be moved along throughout the day by my Spirit to accomplish my work.
You have no enormous paycheck, but you have the miracle and joy of living by faith and watching me provide for you as I do the birds of the air and the grass of the fields.
You have failed, and run up against trials of many kinds, but through it your faith, which is of more worth than gold is being refined.
You have experienced incredible brokenness which accompanies the disappointment of unmet expectations and the loss of your plans, your dreams, your will and your desires, but you have gained intimacy with me, the suffering Christ, and your hands are now emptied completely so that I can fill them with my good things.
Your success cannot be weighed and measured using any standard or tool found in this physical world because your success is not physical it is of the Spirit and it is bearing much fruit. Believe that. Believe Me. I am leading you. You, my daughter, are a success!!
MAN!!! Reading that gives me chills and makes me cry all at the same time! Thank you Jesus, that you are the Living God, the God who still speaks to His children and we can know your voice and trust your voice!
So 28 was in summary: exciting; adventurous, HARD, glorious, new & strange, uncomfortable, filled with large amounts of tears and incredible saddness, but also brimming with joy and laughter, stressful, intimate, stretching, broken, playful, ridiculous, peaceful . . . A SUCCESS!!!
