(Read part 1 here)
Physical Location: Mafambisse, Mozambique. Month 5. Lived in a small, cement-building orphanage in the bush. Third team: Dunamis. May 10th, 2015.
It was our first month as our new team, and we were just getting to know each other. We decided to pray over one another after sharing our life stories of how we met Jesus. My teammates confirmed glimpses of small visions the Lord had been giving me about reaching the edge of the forest and staring out at an open field of wild flowers; none of which I had ever told to any one else. I recorded what they said and later wrote them down in my journal.
These are three of the things the Lord told my teammates about me separately:
- Jordan: You’re standing at the edge of a dark forest full of super tall trees wearing a bright, yellow shirt. God says, “You shine bright in dark places.”
- Joel: Scenery resembles “Sound of Music” on top of the mountain, but everything is covered in purple flowers. You’re spinning around in the fields of sunlight and full of joy.
- Chenea’: You’re looking across a bright meadow at the edge of a forest. You’re standing on the edge of the forest not yet in the light of the meadow in the shadow of the trees. When you step into the light of the meadow of joy, your burden is very light, not just your own burden, but also the way others feel around you.
My jaw rested on the floor during these prayers as they confirmed where I was in my walk with God. I really wanted to believe the visions I was seeing in the forest were from God, and when people who had never heard of my visions before said these things over me after praying for me, it confirmed everything.
“God has really been speaking to ME!” I told my teammates in shock. I never dreamt God would ever want to converse with someone as disgusting as myself, but He called me worthy and loved.
Physical Location: Ziras, Latvia. Month 6. Lived at a rehab center. 2nd month with team Dunamis. June 2015.
I contracted a bad, European flu a couple days after arriving to our ministry location. Every task exhausted me, and I thought that if I rested a couple days, it would go away. A week and a half passed of only watching TV shows, and that’s when my old friend depression kicked in.
I would attempt praying, but I would sit at the edge of the forest, stare out over the wildflowers and see Jesus standing out in the middle of the field. I couldn’t reach Him, hear Him, or contact Him at all. I felt alone and useless.
One day my team leader and discipler, Chenea, asked if I would peel potatoes with her, and so I walked downstairs and sat in a chair next to her peeling potatoes over a bucket. I told her about my depression, and she asked me a question that stirred my deepest places:
“Sarah, do you feel like you’re rooting your worth in your usefulness?”
I nearly sent my half-peeled potato rolling across the cracked floor. She had snuck up behind the enemy lines in a surprise attack, and I didn’t know what to do.
“I’m sorry,” she started as she looked up from her own work, “did that make sense?”
“Yea, uh, yes, I’m just, hold on,” I stuttered. After a minute or so of allowing my brain to catch up I said, “I’m just realizing that years of therapy seeing various counselors and therapists, that they all missed the root cause of my depression, but you just discovered it in a single question.”
She allowed the question to sink even deeper, and I continued, “I only feel worthy as long as I am useful. When I contribute nothing, I don’t just feel useless, I feel worthless as well.”
She continued to walk me through it the rest of that day and the following days. I no longer wanted to do things just so I felt worthy, but wanted to know I was worthy to God no matter what. I also didn’t just want to sit in my room, for “faith without works is dead” and I didn’t want to have dead faith.
Chenea then encouraged me further: “Everything we do has a little sin in it. You have to repent of your intentions and turn them over to Jesus. You can’t just sit in here and do nothing.”
As I realized my worth was not based in my actions, my depression and the lies of worthlessness fled. I began dancing on the edge of the forest again.
Physical Location: Deep in the forest, Estonia. Month 7. We helped run summer camps for ministry. Third month with team Dunamis. July 2015.
My team got the opportunity to run various workshops for the young adults at a summer camp in the chilly, rainy woods of Estonia. The first day of camp, the Holy Spirit convicted me of a lie I had been carrying around for five months, since Nepal debrief. On the second day of camp, I confessed to my team what I had done. (See blog here)
I believe that lie had been distancing me from Jesus, and confessing it brought us closer. The third day of camp, I felt a need to attend my teammate Kyle’s workshop about worship. He had our teammate Jordan lead an activity of finding your secret place with Jesus, and mine is the following:
I was spinning around at the edge of a forest next to a field of wildflowers in a blue dress and laughing. Suddenly Jesus caught my hand, stopping me from spinning. I caught His eye and glanced down at what He was wearing—workout clothes. He said to me, “Sarah, I’ve brought you on this adventure, and I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it, but it’s time to get serious. Change clothes.”
As my dress transformed into workout clothes, Jesus said to me, “This covering of trees has kept you safe so far, but when you get out into those wildflowers, you won’t have this protection anymore. You need to start preparing now, so that you’re strong enough to handle the unprotected storms. I want to prepare you for that, and I want you to know that I’ll still be walking next to you and I will never leave you, but it’s going to be hard. Are you ready?”
I nodded, a little scared of what workouts would look like, but excited that Jesus wanted me to go through difficult trials in order to make me stronger. That was a difficult month for me, and I experienced the most painful workouts varying from heartbreak to surrender to discovering my authority issues.
I think the coolest thing is that the month prior, Jesus wanted to root out my misconstrued view of equating my worth with my usefulness in order to call me into doing things fully and completely for Him and with Him.
(continue reading part 3 here)
