Update: I am in Africa looking out for deadly snakes and avoiding monkeys (that seem to continuously attack my squamates). Also, coexisting with bugs isn’t that bad.
During my time in Guatemala, I learned what it’s like to live when life isn’t easy. I had the opportunity to show the love and joy of Jesus to people who didn’t have homes, or to children whose feet were infected simply because their shoes were too small. It was hard to handle seeing that everyday, but even more difficult to imaging living it everyday. However, God showed me how to thrive and be joyful through every challenging moment.
This season I’m walking through in Africa is different. I realized that half of the things we face in life are hard because we are living in a broken world, and that’s why we need God-to hold our hand and show us how to walk through our battles as his ambassador. The other half of the challenges we face are only there because we put them there, and we need God to show us how to take them away.
I can’t feed the world. I can’t build houses for everyone. I can’t heal the hurt or mend all wounds. But I can choose to love. I can choose to be joyful. I can choose for my life not to be hindered by technology or materialism, and I can decide to not be affected by the addictions to approval or affirmation.
Clearly we all know that everyone has problems, but I think that the culture we live in tries to decide which problems everyone sees. I have no issue admitting that I’m messy or that I really suck at planning and making schedules, but I’m less likely to admit that I am in a constant battle to feel perfect, that the insecurities I deal with are actually rooted with a deep issue of pride and needing to feel like the world approves of everything I do.
I’m still trying to figure out which parts of my personality are mine, and which parts I created to please the world around me. But recently I’ve learned that breaking free of the pressures and standards that hang above my head is easy because they’re only there because I allow them to be.
So instead of letting them hang over me like a burden, I have simply picked them up, placed them on the ground, and told God that I’m ready to hear what he thinks about me.
And being here in Africa, surrounded by their culture and way of life, has helped me do that.
It’s so simple here. The only distractions are the monkeys- and even they are God’s creation. We went to church and we danced and sang and chanted and jumped in excitement and joy that comes with the love and salvation that Jesus freely gave to all of us. All I do here is love on the people at ministry, lose myself in God’s word and in prayer, enjoy relationships with 35 insanely awesome people, and spend time falling in love with the little things (like monkeys and coffee and dancing and rain and birds and candles and laughter and a really soft pillowcase that my mom made me).
I pray that if there’s one thing I take away from the race and bring back to America, that it would be a mindset of letting go of our desire for achievement, perfectionism, schedules, and to-do lists, and instead that we simply live to love.
I pray that our world lets go of entitlement, and walks through life knowing everything we have is a blessing from God. He wants us to enjoy it so why not enjoy it with him? Lets get lost in our passions and use them to fight for freedom and friendships and joy and simplicity.
Lets learn how to fall in love with rain during a drought, and laughing really really hard when you should be crying. Fall in love with precious moments not captured on your phone, and with the feeling of coming home and drinking tea with the people you love after a bad day. Fall in love with seasons and soft pillows and the sound of your own voice. Let the little things in this life show you how wonderful the Lord has been to you, and learn how to say thank you to God by loving the him and the world back.
1 Corinthians 16:14-
Let all that you do be done in love.
