*This is a two part blog of my time in cambodia.
A short six days where we watched in agony as worlds got flipped upside down, because a man these people loved had been arrested. A man who had “helped support them, was paying for their daughter to go to school, taking the pastor to get medical treatment in Vietnam each month to stay healthy. “
But this man was also deceptive, he pursued his own selfish desires, of which landed him in jail and closed down his organization, leaving a lot of people stuck. The most reassuring thing about this family was how much faith they had in God. They know, somehow through all of this that our God is still good and provides.
As a team we experienced a lot of heart ache that week. We learned how to be vulnerable together and talk about what was going through our heads. Know we were always safe and taken care of, we actually were moved to thailand early and worked with ministry here.
How many of you tear up on a regular basis?
How many of you you swallow those tears right back down?
how many of you are actually OK breaking down into tears ?
I am serious, if the spirit led you, if you heard a story that broke you, made you weep, if you just needed to let some out, how many of you could actually do this comfortably without trying to cover up that you were in that state, or till you are away from the world?
I will be the first to admit to you that I am in no way comfortable doing this. It is one thing to sit at a funeral and be breaking down, but other than that you were dang lucky to see me cry. It would take pulling teeth from even my best friends to get me to open up and say the things that had bottled up that were threatening to emotionally make me break down into sobs.
As I sat in a hotel in the middle of Phnom Phen, Cambodia talking with a fellow Squadmates, you could hear the frustrations welling up in my voice, a mix of emotions was flowing through my veins and there I was again swallowing the tears back down, trying to keep them from over taking me. But they won out, the tears sprung to my eyes and I started shaking my head as much as I tried to push them back, sternly telling them to stay down. Instead, they just kept welling up.
As if on queue my teammates stumbled into the hallway as I burst into full fledge ugly tears — my heart was broken. It was breaking for the family we left in the small Cambodian village. For the first time on the race I felt like our time in Prey Veng is what I was expecting from The World Race and I was thoroughly enjoying being out in a small village. It felt like being in small town Montana or up at camp again. Places like those rejuvenate me. I was only given 6 days there. In 6 days we loved harder then most of us probably ever had in our lives. So many lessons happened in that short week, so many that I have yet to even know. But what I realized that God has been trying to teach me about is crying. He has been trying for the last four months to redeem my idea of weeping.
I remember once when I was younger, sometime during middle school I believe; My mom sat me and my sister down and told us “Sometimes you are just going to need a good cry, and you need to do that. Take that time and let it out.”
I truly regret not heeding that warning, because instead I took the worlds advice. The world that tells us we always need to have it together. That crying makes one weak, over dramatic, incapable, and unstable. So many things for such a small action, an action that can help with so much, it could heal someone, help someone feel connected, create bonds, show love and mercy and most importantly communicate Gods love.
The verse from John 11 has been running on repeat through my head, ya know the one, it is the shortest sentence in the bible “Jesus wept.” Two words is all it took for them to describe what was happening. No drawn out, elaborate fluff, just “Jesus wept.”
Simple and to the point, I mean if it is ok for the Son of Man, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, for the GUY who PAID the ULTIMATE SACRIFICE for us can weep, why is it a sign of weakness?
Why has the world fallen into this trap that we are weak if we cry about anything other than death, if we cry because everything is just to overwhelming, or because our heart breaking for another, why are those things not worthy to cry over? By keeping up this ideal we are instead making people less healthy. Those who bottle up their emotions instead of let them out are in fact more unstable than those who let them out.
