Okay, so today I want to wrap up month 3. El Salvador was a lot of things. The word given to me this month was intimacy. With thorough cockiness, I was convinced I knew exactly what that word would look like for the month. Oh boy, was I wrong again. I thought, “Oh, Christmas! What an intimate time!”
For two weeks, I was in bed, sick, with a stomach infection. Thankfully, I wasn’t sick alone. Unfortunately, we were both separated from our team during this time. Intimacy looked like having my host family, at this point complete strangers, asking me intimate (and slightly uncomfortable) questions about previous relationships, seeing me dirty and unwashed, seeing me too sick to eat, and seeing me pass out from exhaustion on their couch. Once back with the team, intimacy was sometimes unbearable. In our casita, let’s just say there wasn’t much elbow room. I slept two (maybe) inches away from my teammates. This was a whole new kind of intimacy I was unprepared for. It looked like Matti knowing my sleeping patterns, what sounds I make when I sleep, and the worst, one day he said, “So I was watching you sleep (okay…) and I noticed your armpit hair was just starting to sprout.” MATTI! Are you kidding me? I couldn’t help but laugh. Yeah, we have to be that intimate. It looked like Kat knowing when I was in a season of bad dreams or being comfortable enough with me to wake me up to talk. Intimacy looked like pretty much zero alone time, as much of the race does, but this month just a bit more extreme.
With that said, it’s still very easy to escape, avoid, or scapegoat during a season of such intimacy. So much is being seen, walls can feel safer. In the spirit of vulnerability, something that I battled this month, and is still an ongoing battle, is the fight for self love. One day, I came to the realization that I could no longer say “they just don’t care about how I’m really doing”, because it’s not true. The people I’m surrounded with genuinely care about the conditions of my heart. Instead that phrase looked like “you just don’t care about how you’re really doing”. These realizations broke my heart. I was also made aware I don’t let people know how I’m really doing. When asked how I am, I say what I’ve been trained to say, “I’m fine!” And then quickly transition to hear the deepest compartments of their heart. I was stunned. Have I really been doing that? I had no idea. I talk a big game about vulnerability. Yes, I call it out of people easily because I genuinely care, but I use that to escape myself.
“I vent up”
Which I do… but am I? Am I withholding from the Lord? Even in the slightest?
Deuteronomy 4:29
But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
How do I love myself well? How do I find worth in my voice? This is ongoing battle.
Ephesians 6:10-13
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the enemy. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
Recently, I was listening to a podcast from Brian Houston entitled, ‘My Hand, My Heart’. Essentially, it preaches how the Lord has fully supplied us with the resources in our hand to fulfill the spiritual desires of our heart. That sounds easy, right? Well, here’s where we go wrong. We don’t always use our hand. As he explains, our hand looks like us, and quite frankly, most of us don’t like the way we look.
Psalms 139: 5-6
You hem in me, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.
The deepest desires of my spiritual heart long for intimacy with the Lord and His children. My hand is fully supplied to do so, yet I have doubted its capability.
The other day, I was discussing with a friend how doubting or fearing the Lord won’t show up and being shocked when He does is just rude. It’s like when you’re with a group of people and someone says, “Have you been there this whole time? I didn’t notice you at all. Are you sure you’ve been there?”
“Well, actually yes I have, but don’t mind me and my invisibility(!)”
Rude. Right? So why do we do this to God?
Joshua 1:9
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
So let’s stop. Let’s use our hand, our heart, and delight in intimacy.
