You’ve Been So So Good to Me
Let me welcome you into the past couple seasons in my life.
Arguably some of the hardest.
I think that is why I’m here, writing again.
God uses our pain and suffering for his glory.
Abba, I pray over this blog. Each word.
I pray you restore this year as each sentence is written.
Lord make new wine out of me.
Lord God, I praise you for the valleys.
Lord God, I praise you for the mountain top moments.
Lord God, I praise you for it all.
You’ve been so so good to me.
I can’t help but smile and dance before you.
You’ve broken new ground within the walls of my heart.
God where there is new wine, there is new power, there is new freedom and the Kingdom is HERE.
In these words.
In my heart.
I want to run this race with you.
I lay down my old flames to carry your new fire today.
Okay, lets go allll the way back to Nicaragua, March of 2019.
I remember this moment so well.
The moment God told me, He wanted me to go home.
To surrender the dreams of continuing on the mission field, to buckle up and head home.
To come back to my room in my parents home.
To come back to my hometown.
Looking back there was a lot of shame in coming home.
Not because anyone said or did anything but this feeling of failure.
That is something I battled with a lot this past year especially; failure.
I had experienced all this greatness and to me; I had to come home to the mundane and maybe even the boring.
It’s a lot easier than you think to be “out there” than “right here”.
Even on the hard days, the mission field was/is my absolute DREAM.
I love it, adore it, it’s a passion.
Even getting out of bed was exciting and felt like serving God.
God had so many reasons for me to come home.
To be honest I thought each one would be about me helping/serving ,discipling others.
What I didn’t expect was, it was the OTHER way around!! Haha!
That makes me laugh out loud.
It does because wow, it’s crazy how blinded I was by pride.
I feel like I went into the missions trip thinking I would help so many people in need but in reality the World Race was God growing me more than anything else.
Not what I was doing outside but what He was doing inside of me.
And so was this past year and probably the next and the next and the next.
And the more seasons I walk through the more I realize its less about me and more about him.
It really is all about him. His glory. His plan.
Which I think Im starting to comprehend more and more but honestly its gonna take awhile.
I think most people are in my boat.
Especially if you live in America.
Our culture goes against the very things God represents.
No matter how you were raised this is something we all have to be consistently fighting against.
How easy it is to fall into this cycle of striving and success.
I know I do.
And danngggggg it is SO HARD to follow Jesus and live in America like wow. I have sooooo much respect for each and every single one of you who is following Jesus.
To the ones who know that Jesus is their savior and are attempting this thing called being a Christian. Just know that there is enough grace for you too.
He sees you.
He knows your struggles.
Spring always follows the winter.
Your spring will come.
And probably more winters and springs as the seasons and years go by. But that’s ok.
Cuz he knows every day you are going to live.
He knows it all.
And what a clique right?
When someone tells you not to worry because God knows it all.
Well, this is why; here’s my testimony ; 2020 version !!
January 1st, 2020.
I was all alone worshipping and listening to the Father. Asking and receiving words from Him.
My theme for the year was 2020 VISION.
Which I guess was a lot of peoples haha but I didn’t care because I knew mine came straight from God.
I could feel it and I was so excited!! As I look back I have come to see this theme revealed in my life. My eyes are open and I see what God was doing. I see his hand at work. I understand his complexity more. I understand his love more, I understand a little more what it looks like to follow Him. I understand a little more of the purpose of my life. I understand why you walked through me these valleys as I stand on the mountain top right now.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)
——-—By the third week of January I started to shatter———
Some voices in my life have told me it was satan attacking me.
Which could very much be true, the devil looks for for the ones who stands alone.
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1st Peter 5:8)
I think I was also facing a lot of truth at once about some things in my life that I needed to walk away from.
And it was all crashing down at once.
And I remember literally weeks before hopping on a call with my amazing squad leader, SHOUTOUT TO LUIS!! Sheep sheep!
And I got to share how amazing I was doing and all the cool things God was saying over me and my life.
Going from the absolute top of the mountain and then to be falling so hard and so fast.
It was a lot.
And I remember around the same time God telling me I was entering a desert season with Him.
Over time I realized the desert is a really hard place to be and this was my first time there.
In the moment I was panicking.
I couldn’t feel him.
It was the strangest thing ever to experience because every single time I’ve ever asked for Him, he would be there.
And I believe God is ALWAYS there. And always teaching us…
The desert is a place of teaching.
Looking back I see what he was doing. He was breaking me on purpose.
Sounds kinda mean right?
Well, I needed it!!!!
It’s through the hardest times we grow the most and God had a lot of growing to do in me.
I was becoming someone I wasn’t. I could feel it. God could see it. Satan was using it.
What I had lost sight of since being on the mission field was, its not our plans and its not up to us.
I was putting every little thing on my shoulders.
Like if I didn’t do this one thing that one time than its game over.
There was so much pressure to be perfect and to walk this tiny line to heaven. “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:14)
But no one is perfect!!!! And I’m not making up excuses, I’m letting Gods grace in.
If we’re constantly looking at the right vs the wrong we are heading down a slippery slope of the pharisees vs the road to salvation filled of grace upon grace upon forgiveness upon redemption upon love!!
It’s a beautiful path of getting to live in freedom and not in fear. And I think as humans we could debate again and again about this verse but the truth is, God is MASSIVE. The complexity of God whom breathed life into existence with one breath, like we will never understand how he works to the extent we want to. So, saying and deciding for yourself who is going to heaven and who is going to hell is actual ludicrous. We. are. Not. God. PERIOD. God is merciful and he is just. For God to be just means that he is consistent, virtuous, innocent, and right. HE sees us far above how we will see ourselves and others ever.
Anyways,
Covid hits. Life was roughhh. Life was lonely. God was walking me through very painful things.
But I knew God was good because to me; being quarantined was the best gift yet!
I didn’t have to see anyone for months and it gave me time.
Time to process and endure all the pain I was feeling.
I kept getting this insanely powerful image that perfectly represents the pain I was feeling.
It was the three crosses.
The same three crosses that represent the agony Jesus Christ went through in order to take on the worlds imperfections and sins in order for each of us to get the chance to spend eternity with our perfect Father in heaven.
Except when I saw it, it was me. Nailed to the cross crying out in agony. Feeling so exposed. Raw. The weight of the past months on my body.
It was too painful to look at straight in the face of that pain so I ignored it.
I didn’t want to acknowledge that my life was losing taste and purpose.
I didn’t want to acknowledge that my life had gone sooo south after goin soo north for so long.
I kinda forgot that life is still insanely hard with Jesus.
Like it was easy to stand in front of my church and say GOD RESCUED ME. I’m forever changed and forever following the light back in high school when I re-dedicated my life to Christ.
It’s kinda like marriage.
How easy it is to stand there looking at the love of your life and proclaim all these vows for the rest of both of your lives.
But the ones who have gone through the tough moments of marriage and still stand there next to each other like the very first day they said “I do”.
Wow. That is astounding. If you’re reading this and you’re married give yourself a pat on the back, you got this!
I had the privilege to attend a beautiful wedding in Colorado back in August.
It was especially special because it was my teammate, Amber and my Squad-mate, Brendan whom were both friends of mine on the race.
Their wedding was the most authentic one I’ve ever witnessed and what made the difference was, they had already been married for 6 months.
So, when they stood up there, reciting those vows, they MEANT THEM. They had already survived unemployment and Covid as newlyweds. And as they stood up there and laughed about picking up the dirty socks and doing the dishes, they were doing it out of a place of honesty.
I feel like that right now. Like I know what love is a little bit more. sitting here, writing this and saying “I do” to Jesus.
I will continue to follow you, my Jesus.
I choose you through the good and the bad.
When I went to that wedding I was at some of the lowest points of all of this, that was FIVE months in.
I’m so glad I was though…. because God is good and HE KNEW what I needed when I needed it.
He knew I was in place of such desperation that all I could do was fall on my knees begging for him.
He knew I needed to be reminded what Community looks like.
He knew I needed to be around people so on fire for you.
I remember getting to the airport on the last day in CO and I looked at my squad leader, Luis. I don’t remember what he said but without even thinking, I told Luis I needed to talk.
and thus, began the season of HEALING.
Until that moment I wasn’t ready to really talk about what had happened and thats okay.
It takes time.
Let yourself take the time you need to process and to heal.
It doesn’t have to be as fast as we think it needs to be.
I slowly began to let people back into my life simultaneously releasing all the pain.
And over time I started to feel God come back into my life.
And again, he was always there but I needed to endure those 5-6 months to truly understand the importance of HIM on a much, much deeper level & to come back to his perfect plan for me. To come back to his embrace filled with peace, love, forgiveness, patience, and grace.
I ended up calling my teammate Elena the night I got home from CO and she prayed for me.
And in her prayer she said to me, “God says your community is coming”.
I was so taken back by that. I cried so much that night. My friends!! God is faithful!!
I do want to add that I tried to take matters into my own hands and not once but twice I tried to find my own community. Once in June and once in August.
I couldn’t see past the present. To me, the only options for community were the ones that I could see. It ended with more pain and disappointment but I don’t regret those moments because they brought me here, to this exact moment in time.
And what a sweet sweet testimony to his great plans because these people were so above anything I could ever wish for.
I sit here in disbelief with reality.
Like please someone pinch me.
GOD IS REALLY THIS GOOD?! YES HE IS.
It all started when my older brother, Andrew who went to this bible study a couple of weeks ago attached to Churchome. One of the girls told Andrew that I should come and in that moment God was like, “this is it” & I had this overwhelming sense of peace. Well, just this past Tuesday I went!!! I was so nervous because meeting new people is so intimating but I went anyways and it happened to be the first fall meeting and a reflection on what this group meant to the people who come to it. I sat there on the floor, like a little girl listening as person after person spoke with such tenderness for these people. God was hugging me every single time someone new shared. And wow. I felt sooooo loved and welcomed by each person I encountered that night. All praises be to God!
I thought that night was phenomenal. Like wow, God how could this get better?? Well! I remember back when Covid was just starting to fall on America a lot of the homeless shelters were closing. I remember a girl I know fundraising for this organization & when I watched her videos it was like a punch to my gut. I was in disbelief that there was no plan B for this. That we could just leave all these beloved children of God too literally fend for themselves on the streets. Well, Reach, an organization who goes out and loves on the people of Seattle stayed open. The entire time!!
I was going through so much when I heard this that I donated and moved on. Well, when I heard someone say Reach on that Tuesday night my heart jumped! And my thought process was, “I want to get involved with them, I need to get involved with them”.
So I did. I volunteered Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Not because I was seeking a checklist or even feeding my own pride but because I can’t get enough of these people!!!! Awh, God is so good. Community God had promised just two months prior.
I won’t go into too much detail because I’ll be writing a whole new blog on Reach but I will say, God thank you for your faithfulness and bringing me home. Thank you for reminding what it looks like to see people who walk out love.
God I’m excited for this new chapter.
I’m smiling as I write that…. Cuz I made it. I endured it. Hallelujah.
If you’re on your own cross right now just know you’re gonna get through this. Take it one day at a time.
God is faithful. HE IS SO FREAKING FAITHFUL.
So yeah. When someone says, “don’t worry God knows it all”. Just remember this testimony. I stand here as pure evidence that God knows better than I do. I surrender to HIS master plan.
