Coming into Nepal, I had no idea what to expect. All that I really knew was that it wasn’t nearly as hot as India was, which was enough information to satisfy me. After learning more about all that this country had to offer during our time at debrief, my adventure-lusting heart was pumped; I made plans in my head to hike parts of the Appalachians, camp at an Everest base camp, and go parahawking (look it up, it’s pretty much the coolest thing you could ever get to do).
As we settled into our ministry site for the month, I learned that I would get to teach English and help build a church that was destructed in the earthquake. I was pretty much on top of the world when I learned this because both of those are right up my alley. I knew then and there that Nepal was going to be a fulfilling month.
One week later my adventureous dreams were crushed. We learned that it was unsafe for us to do any sort of recreational activity because of the little earthquakes we had been experiencing and potential mudslides caused by the monsoon season we were in. Instead, our ministry host set in place something called faith day; a day where we go out with absolutely nothing and are asked to put our trust in the Lord to provide for our needs. At first I was bitter about this change in plans, but eventually grieved the loss and knew that God would provide the adventure that I was so desperately craving on our faith day. We were also heading into our week of building which I figured would be an adventure in itself.
Our week of building turned out to be nothing like I had expected it to be. And to make matters worse, I was finally forced to accept the fact that I still have celiac disease after suffering from terrible pain and sickness over the course of two weeks. But if nothing else, I figured that I had faith day to look forward to today.
As luck would have it, I got super sick this morning and almost passed out right before my team was heading out for the day, so I wasn’t allowed to partake in faith day. This left me adventureless, frustrated, physically and mentally exhausted, and feeling defeated.
I was angry with God. I got home and had a long conversation with him (mostly me just yelling my frustrations at him) and finally let my walls down and cried. When I later turned to him for comfort and gave him a chance to speak, he said ‘Malorie I had to bring you to this place to get you to see how desperately you need me. You can’t always be strong and there is no way you will be ever be able to live this life on your own. Put your faith, hope, and expectations in me.’ He also had me turn to three different things in my bible-
1. The story of Job. More specifically, 42:2 which reads “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
The definition of thwarted is ‘to prevent someone from accomplishing something’. Although I accomplished nothing that I had expected to this month, I’m leaving Nepal confident in the fact that I accomplished everything that the Lord had intended for me to from the beginning of time. I may not have gotten to build as much as I expected to, but instead I got to spend time with the Nepali women working at the site and pour into them. Although I didn’t get to go on any crazy adventures, I did get to walk down to my fruit and veggie guy, Ram, every day to build a relationship with him and love him the way that Jesus does. Taking the risk to boldly live out my faith was the adventure that I needed this month.
2. Paul’s thorn in 2 Corinthians 12. In verses 8-10 Paul writes “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
I’m probably never going to understand in this earthly life why God healed me from celiac and then took that healing away. It’s something I’m really struggling to work through right now. But, for the sake of Christ, I am content with this hardship because I am resting in the fact that it will be used for his good.
3. Each week that I am away on the race, my boyfriend and I are reading a passage from the bible together. This week it was his turn to pick and he selected Isaiah 40, which God had me turn to this afternoon. I was immediately drawn to the verses I had underlined just the day before that read, “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint.”
He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23). As Christians we’re not promised that this life will be easy. When we wait on the Lord instead of hoping in our own expectations, though, we can rest assured that He will give us renewed strength to live out the life that we’re called to live.
As I say goodbye to Nepal, I’m also saying goodbye to having expectations. In just two days I will be in Cambodia. All that I plan on taking with me is the pack that I carry on my back and the presence of the God I’m living to serve in my heart.
