I am just a bunch of broken pieces, a broken vessel. The world has been telling me lies about who I am and that I should be the most important thing, that my intentions should be more important than the Lord’s intentions or the intentions of others. When we allow the Lord into our hearts, we allow Him to crush those misconceptions, but we have to let Him do what He wants to do. Woah, He’s so cool and His ways are so much better than my own.
This past Monday I got a taste of what it’s like to step into being a vessel of the Lord. Every Monday is called “Discipleship day” for my whole squad at the base. In complete honesty, I didn’t really like these days at the beginning. The mornings typically consist of sessions and then, in the afternoons, the squad breaks into groups and we head out into different parts of Costa Rica for something called ATL (ask the Lord). Before we head out, groups typically circle up to pray and ask the Lord who or what He has placed on their hearts to minister to. After we pray, we share what the Lord has revealed to us. This is when the discouragement kicks in for me. People being sharing very specific images or words that the Lord revealed to them. I sit in jealousy and comparison and discouragement that I didn’t confidently hear anything from the Lord. Then we head out for the day, with discouragement still hanging over my head. Often, as I try to be where my feet are, I am absent-minded thinking about how I wanted the Lord to specifically speak to me and how I wanted to be the one with the crazy-cool story at the end of the day. It took me about 5 weeks to figure this out, but I was making everything about myself. I wanted the Lord to reveal something to me because I wanted to be the one that healed someone, or spoke into someone, or prayed over someone. I wanted to do it with my own intentions in mind, not the Lord’s intentions.
My journey with the Lord has come a really long way since the beginning of the race. I have grown in so many different areas, and the Lord has really been ripping out the weeds in my life. One of the main things that the Lord has been walking me through is truth. My sweet squadmate, Abby, was telling me one day about a list of truths that had been given to her. These truths come straight from scripture. I asked her for the list and began to look over them, realizing that really didn’t believe any of these truths to be truth. As I sat in a place of disappointment with myself, the Lord slowly began to press these truths on my heart. They’re powerful truths, things that I had never taken the time to even consider before! For the past weeks, the Lord has slowly been weaving these truths individually into my heart and my soul. It’s been super difficult, with a lot of brokenness! I never realized how insecure I was about myself. But the Lord has been speaking truth into my broken pieces. One of those truths specifically is found in Ephesians 2:10. It says that I am a m a s t e r p i e c e created in Christ Jesus in order to walk in the good works that He has prepared for me to do.
Once I began to understand these truths that the Lord says about me, something began to change inside of me. My desire for intimacy with the Lord started to grow so much. The need for more truth in my life was suddenly made so much clearer. My intentions are slowly changing – to please the Lord instead of trying to please other people and myself. The Lord is really working on my heart. I am starting to step into the masterpiece that He created me as. As I begin to do this more and more, I am starting to recognize the opportunities that the Lord has put before me. He gave me the coolest opportunity last Monday, an opportunity to walk in being His vessel!
This past Monday I woke up in a different mindset. I didn’t dread the day. We had breakfast prep, so we had to wake up a little bit earlier than everyone to make pancakes for the squad. We had a morning session and then we had lunch. For lunch, Abbygirl and I walked to the park that is about 5 minutes away from our house. We had a sweet little picnic while water-coloring and just spending quality time together. We went back to the house and they told us where each of us would be heading in the afternoon. My team was assigned to a park in Tres Rios, a place we had never been before. As the locations were being announced, my thoughts started randomly racing and the words “pink hair” came into my mind. For some reason, I knew that this was for the Lord. It was really weird because I didn’t sit before the Lord and pray for Him to reveal someone or something to me. I didn’t compare my thoughts to others, I didn’t even ask for it. He just gave it to me and He gave me a confidence about it. As we started to head out for the day, my teammate Avery asked me if the Lord had spoken anything into me for the day. Typically, I would’ve just brushed it off and said no because I had never experienced a confidence from the Lord before. The words just rolled off of my tongue without me even thinking about it, “I got the words pink hair but I’m not sure what that means.” Avery instantly responded with “Ok wow I’m so excited.” We took the public bus into Tres Rios and walked from the bus stop to the park. On the way, I thought to myself that I was just going to sit in the park and pray for the people until I saw my pink-haired person. A few of my squadmates had gotten to the park before us and they were sitting on a bench waiting for us. Our group walked over to them and, I kid you not, sitting on the end of the bench was a Costa Rican woman with pink hair. My stomach dropped to the ground. My eyes locked with Avery’s immediately. She started laughing so hard and I felt like I was going to throw up everywhere. Avery walked over to me and told me that we had to go over to her. I was so nervous, I started telling her that I didn’t want to and that I didn’t have anything to say. In that moment, the Lord took my nerves and threw them out the window. I knew that it wasn’t about me. The Lord was calling me to be His vessel, He was going to give me the words to say. It wasn’t about me at all. Avery and I grabbed the translator and awkwardly approached the sweet pink-haired woman. I walked up, said “hola,” then asked our translator if she would translate for me. I said that the Lord had highlighted someone with pink hair in the park and then we got to the park and I saw her sitting on the bench. As soon as it was translated, the pink-haired lady started to tear up. I asked her if I could pray for her and she told me that she needed a lot of prayers. She said that, last Monday, her husband left her. In that moment, my heart absolutely exploded with love for her that was straight from the Lord. I was given the opportunity to pray over her and pray for the healing of her heart. I prayed for her to understand how much the Lord loves her and I wish that I could’ve expressed to her how my inner heart was feeling, how much the Lord loves her. After we were finished praying, she told us that the moment was straight from the Lord. The Lord used me to speak to Gabriela’s heart! I never want to stop being a vessel of the Lord. I gave her a big hug and we left the park for the day.
We got back to the house and I really didn’t even want to share my testimony of the day. The whole experience wasn’t about me at all. It was about what the Lord saw in this sweet lady who was hurting with a broken heart. He wanted to show her how worthy she was and how much He loves her and I just got to be the deliverer of His word to her! If this would have happened to me when my heart wasn’t prepared for it, I would’ve been jumping out of my seat to share because I would have wanted everyone to think that I was the one with the crazy-cool story! The Father’s timing is perfect and He prepares our hearts for true intimacy with Him. He has created you as a masterpiece and He has ordained the steps ahead of you. Costa Rica has brought so much growth to my heart, to my soul, to my mindset! I am a learning to walk in being a vessel of the Lord, even if I might be a broken vessel, as He continues to weave truth into my heart.
