Alright so today we opened up with ATL which stands for “ask the lord”. As soon as I heard that we were doing listening prayer I started to completely dread it. We sat as a whole squad and were supposed to be praying and listening to God asking what He wanted us to do that day since it technically was a ministry day even though we weren’t going to our care-points. I sat there for like an hour, daydreamed about home, thought about a yummy waffle a couple times, I even fell asleep. In the end I didn’t really hear any direct clear command from God. I left feeling so freaking frustrated. I was cranky because I was like “I never hear the Lord. I know He speaks and leads other people to do things… but me? Nah He doesn’t do that.” So since I had like no direction I just decided to spend my day doing something that I know is good and something that makes my heart happy. I decided I’d make a run to the store (much needed, we were out of water) and then also get the ingredients to make no-bake cookies for all 50 of us. For some reason cooking and loving on my squad makes me feel so happy and makes me feel like I actually have a purpose. I talked to my team of girls and it turned out that some of them also struggled during the ATL session and thought it would be fun to just cook and serve the squad so that’s what we did.
We went to the store. Had conversations with locals. We ended up dancing with a lovely worker who was curious as to why we were so happy and smiley. A couple of us got proposed to by kind Swazi men (this is a regular thing). It was actually so much fun and it felt really good in our hearts (as cheesy as that sounds). When we came home we made the cookies, making sure that no one came in the kitchen so our dessert would be a surprise and then we started on dinner: chicken curry and rice. It was soooo freaking good.
Shad, our squad mentor, has told me a couple times since launch that I just need to be myself and that all God wants from me is to just be me. You’d think that would be simple, but sometimes being yourself when you’re overwhelmed with the emotions/craziness of life is a little hard. Today it finally clicked. I was trying so hard to be like my squad-mates, sit still, listen to ambient worship music and just sit with the Lord and figure out how I was supposed to spend the day (all things that I struggle with). In the end I just ended up doing what felt right and what felt good in my heart. There was no audible voice or even an overwhelming urge, just the simple thought “well I would enjoy doing this and I know it would make the people around me happy, so I guess I’ll do that.” I look back on today and feel completely fulfilled with how I spent the day and I have no doubt in my mind that how I spent it is how God wanted me to spend it despite there not being a clear command. I’m slowly finding comfort in the understanding that yes God speaks, but He doesn’t speak the same way to everyone. My God doesn’t have to be the same God as the person sitting next to me knows and loves and that’s okay.
