As tomorrow is my 25th birthday, I’ve been doing a bit of reflecting as I’m facing some big life changes in the coming weeks and months. As I look back over the journey of the last year and where its taken me, I’m brought back again and again to the amazing healing, hope, and restoration that I’ve found in my Heavenly Father. I am not the same person I was a year ago; I’ve been changed and continue to be changed through the Truth in Jesus Christ.
At this time last year, I was preparing to go to Afghanistan with my church for a two-week trip. For me, this trip was an opportunity to see if God really was calling me to serve him overseas as well as experience missions in a new way. While we were on the ground in Afghanistan, we were able to participate in some amazing projects including helping in a school for street kids, spending time with women in a small village as well as girls studying at Kabul medical university, we visited a pediatric burn unit in a hospital, and helped with a health clinic in a refugee camp, among others. These were all incredible opportunities that God has used and continues to use in my personal life, but I feel that the best experience wasn’t what projects we helped with or what we did.
It was in Afghanistan that I finally faced some big issues in my life and personal walk with the Lord. Somehow God gave me the courage to look at some of the biggest wounds I had sustained in the past and decide that I wasn’t going to ignore them or continue to hide anymore. It was a pivotal moment in this last year, and I can still remember everything about that moment: where I was sitting, what I could see and hear and smell, and how I felt when I decided that I wasn’t going to pretend anymore that I was someone different than who I truly was.
And so I faced all my hurt and fear and pain. It has been far from easy and has taken a lot of support from my family and friends, but I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. Through the journey, I’ve fallen more in love with God and who He is. I have a better understanding of His compassionate heart for the broken and hurting people in the world because I came to understand His compassionate heart for me. I know more of God’s passionate love for all people, no matter what life has done to us, what decisions we’ve made, or how far we believe we’ve fallen from grace. Our God loves us past all the mistakes and failures, He loves us to the very basis of who we are because He created us and we are image-bearers of Christ.
I honestly don’t know if I would have this understanding and deeper love of God if I hadn’t been through fire. I used to think that I was beyond redemption; now, I know that I’m forgiven, clean, and made new in Christ. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Jesus and His sacrifice for us all so that we could be connected back to God.
The verses that have come to mean the most to me are found in Isaiah 61:1,3.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted
And to proclaim that captives will be released
And prisoners will be freed.
To all who mourn in Israel,
He will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
A joyous blessing instead of despair.
In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks,
That the Lord has planted for His own glory.”
I’ve be released, freed, comforted, and have been given a crown of beauty for my ashes. How can I not want others to know this same redemption and freedom? This is what is at the very base of this journey with the World Race. I am set free so that I may show others the way and I want everyone to know what its like to live in this freedom. I saw where I was a year ago and I see where I am now; I am overwhelmed with a deep and joyful gratitude that I’m not who I was.
At the very root of my desire to participate on the World Race, it can’t be about me or what I want. It can only be about glorifying God and proclaiming Him in all the nations. If it is for any other reason, then what is the point? For “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…” (Philippians 3:8). This is only about God’s glory and His glory alone.
