So as I’m sitting here trying to think of a blog to write, I am brought back to the question of why am I here? During one of our session meetings at our debrief in South Africa, this question was brought to life for me. It brought it back to the forefront of my mind. Why AM I here? I am here to live out life with a mission. I am here to live missionally, I am NOT on a mission trip.
So what does this mean exactly?? What does that look like? When I first came here, I thought that I was going to be “helping to save the world.” I, whether I wanted to believe it or not, had this savior complex in a way. It was engraved in my heart and mind that I was going to have a huge monumental impact on every single person that I came into contact with in every way possible. Now that’s not to say now, that I still don’t want to see some miracles happen. It’s not to say that I don’t still want to see people get healed, or that I am not expecting to see change happen in these people’s lives in a grand way, I am just realizing that the reason I came here is so much more, and that just isn’t going to happen every single time.
We came here to live out of a LIFE of service. Not just 11 months of “being a missionary.” Honestly, that is not the reason I came. I came to learn to yield to what the Holy Spirit inside of me is speaking. I came here to serve the people in every single way possible. When I first got here, I was very “list” oriented in the sense that I saw it as I needed to do this, this, and this in order to have it be called worthy of serving and kingdom building. Well, in the slowness of last month, as well as much of the downtime that we actually do experience on the race, I am learning that I have to truly LISTEN, and be aware of EVERY situation in my life. This doesn’t end after the race. There are people everywhere who are in need of something. Whether that looks as simple as sitting under a tree with an old woman, not speaking any understandable words due to a language barrier, painting a school, or praying over a woman who is blind for her sight to return to her. All of it is relevant, all of it is why I am here. I am here to be of service in practical ways, and I am also here to learn to yield to the Holy Spirit in my life.
I am learning so much about what it looks like to live this crazy life of surrender to ourselves, sacrifice, and learning that our expectations of what things may be, may not always turned out in the way we had planned. I am learning so much patience, and to open my eyes to what is around me. I feel that so much life and opportunities for love can be missed if I am constantly looking for ways that I thought it was going to pan out. Ha! I guess the joke’s on me!
God is showing up! He is giving me opportunities to love on children who are so starved of love that they literally fight and push each other off and away just for the chance to be held. He is allowing me to pour into my teammates and squamates when they are dealing with healing really hard wounds. He is teaching me to allow myself to slow down, and not need to DO anything sometimes, other than simply spend time with him. But he is also breaking me. He is breaking my previous crutches of relying on other PEOPLE to fill the cracks in my heart, and redirecting me to see him in EVERY situation. He has been ripping the bandaid off my wounds and breaking down the cage walls that I have had up for so long that prevented me from TRULY feeling authentic emotion, in order to truly be able to express the love that he gives. He is showing me that love is not always what we may think, and that being of service to his people doesn’t always have to be in the grand gestures. Sometimes, more than anything, HE wants to minister to ME. I am not on a mission trip, I am simply learning to live out of a place of being loved, and allowing the outpouring of that love that then, and only then will allow me to truly do what I came here for.
