I stood up before a prayer meeting at our host church this evening to give my testimony. I can count the number of phrases I know how to say in Russian on one hand but, thankfully, we have Peter, an amazing translator, with us this month and I can speak as casually as I would with someone from my own family with absolute confidence that Peter won’t miss a beat.
My testimony is a long and complicated one. When I look back over the last year of my life, I can hardly believe I’ll ever stop telling the story once I start but I think that’s how everyone feels when it comes to their journey. It’s just been such a long process for me to rely on God, even before this year. Without a doubt, though, my dad had the biggest impact on my faith. His faith and how I lost him are what about 90% of my testimonial story is based on.
When he was diagnosed with aggressive terminal cancer in September ’09, his work family at the hospital will attest that his first concern was how he was going to be able to tell me and my sister that he was sick. It was Jesus who gave him this peace in his heart about his own fate and where he would soon be. That peace was what made me realize that I could no longer live my life in a way that did not match my beliefs. Have you ever just stopped to think about how big of a deal it is that our God loves you so much that He would not only personally teach us how to live but also go through physical pain just so He could spend eternity with us?
I left on the World Race only about six months after my dad passed away. Most of those months in between were spent focusing on settling his estate rather than being able to truly mourn. And for most of the rest of the time in that period, I was trying to pay attention to what God wanted me to do. All I really knew for sure was that He needed to be glorified and that I had a lot of learning to do. This is why I believe He led me to the World Race. I haven’t had much time at all to really dwell and mourn about not having my dad around anymore but in Luke 9:60, Jesus said that our business is life, not death, and life is urgent; go out and announce God’s kingdom.
He personified this with his own actions just before He said this when He learned about the death of His cousin, John the Baptizer, whom He was obviously very close to. If you’ll take a look at the beginning of Luke 9, you’ll see that Jesus left to go be by Himself after hearing the bad news but that His whereabouts were leaked to a huge crowd who followed Him. When Jesus saw the crowd of over 5,000, he had compassion for them and spent the day healing all those who were sick instead of being by Himself like He originally planned. When evening came, this is when he performed a miracle to feed the crowd with just a few fish and loaves of bread. It was only after everyone in the crowd ate their fill and were dismissed that Jesus finally got His chance to be by Himself for a few hours before walking on water early that next morning (that part is described in Matthew 14).
I never knew that Jesus healed and fed those hungry people when He was in a state of mourning. Tragedy was no excuse to ignore God’s will for Jesus and it shouldn’t be for us, either. He would never have asked us to do something that He wasn’t willing to do Himself.
I know God will heal my mourning heart, eventually. It may be a long, drawn-out process but I’m not going to let anything stop me from praising, honoring and glorifying Him all the way through!
