Beautifully In Over My Head

Here I am sitting in a room crammed with 6 sleeping pads with absolutely no space to walk in between. I hear motorcycles rush past my screen window. I smell all types of rich food from the vendor across the street that no one particularly desires to smell at 7 am. I sit here so completely disconnected from anything familiar. So far from home. My heart is heavy. Why did I decide to walk away from all that I love? There is only a placed expectancy for the Lord to move because there is really nothing of me here. My heart is open, ready for Him to fill the space I’ve made for Him. I’ve rid my life of the comfort of family, loved ones, a bed, a closet with endless amounts of clothes, familiar food, expectations of normalcy, constant cellular connection, home territory, busyness, commitments, jobs, dates…. And yet, no wonder I often had such a hard time connecting to the Lord or feeling His tangible presence at home. We fill our lives with so much extra stuff. We make ourselves so busy. We are so quick to take on another task or commitment. My life was built up of cushion, and it was often hard to find Him amongst the millions of pillows I could easily fall back onto. Happy, content, comfortable. And perhaps, just perhaps, we use this endless list of stuff and to dos to bolster our hearts up enough to believe our lives aren’t empty.

And now I’m stripped of the cushion. I’ve lost control. My heart cry has been, “okay Lord fill my every gap and hole. There’s a lot more room for You to move, so…will You move? Have Your way in me.” Right now I’m walking by faith, not by sight. But the sight will come. I am staying in a small house with my 5 teammates, our translator Kwan, a local woman named Som Pien, and a rat we’ve decided to call Templeton. We are staying just on the outskirts of Klaeng, Rayong. We are working with the local Pastor and his wife Joy in anything they need. In the next 3 months we will be teaching English at 3 different schools and to an adult group that meets in the evening. At church, we will be leading worship, sharing testimonies, and helping the children rehearse for their Christmas show. In the compound we live in, there is a park right across the street that our team is hoping to spend some time at to love on the local kids. It’s our first day of school tomorrow!!! After 42 hours of travel, major jetlag, a little heartache, Thai cultural training, 1 day of incessant puking, some awesome prayer and worship, lots of rain, market adventures, home and people sickness, I can say I am ready for what the Lord has for us in the days to come. Further and further my heart moves away from the shore, whatever it looks like whatever may come, I am yours God.

No song could speak my heart better at this time.

“In Over My Head” 
By: Bethel Music/Jenn Johnson