On this first day of May, I've decided to lay it all out and share with you all what I've been wrestling with lately. I was pretty vague about it in my last post, so here goes nothing… cue the cold, hard, truth.
When I was accepted to go on the race, I was more single than ever… and loving it. I had been through my fair share of relationships, and I had decided that I was done. I was head over heels in love with my sweet Jesus, to the point that I would wake up in the morning, heart racing with joy, thinking about Him. I looked forward to weekends without plans, as I would stay home alone reading my Bible, journaling, and worshipping. It was so, so lovely and so fulfilling. Friends would try to set me up on dates, but all I could do was laugh as I declined their match-making schemes. For the first time in years, I had zero desire in dating. I was so overcome with love and peace in my Savior that I didn't want to be distracted. I couldn't wait to spend 11 months being swept off of my feet by Him… a love story all around the world.
Now don't get me wrong, there was still a very strong desire in my heart to meet a Godly man to call my best friend and husband someday. In fact, it was such a strong desire in my heart that I would frequently ask the Lord to take it away, because it was too painful to think about if it wasn't in the books for me. I didn't want anything holding me back from my relationship with Jesus anymore.
And then, there came a strangely warm early spring night that I was sitting around a bonfire, and a friendly conversation with a handsome young man about my plans to go on the world race turned into a 3-hour long word-vomit about our hopes, dreams, and our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. At one point, I glanced over in between sentences, and I paused as I heard a gentle nudge saying this is him. My entire body started shaking (for real), and I kept asking "Lord are you KIDDING ME? He is amazing, but I'm supposed to be leaving soon! Are you KIDDING?!"
Turns out I'm not the only one who heard that little nudge from the Lord while sitting at the bonfire that night.
So, this whole story brings me to tell you all about what I'm struggling with now. Although this wonderful, silly, fun, and intelligent man after the Lord’s heart has told me time and time again that he will be here waiting for me when I come home, I am terrified of saying goodbye to him. We have come to be such great friends, and I can be my ridiculously weird self around him and know that he delights in every moment of it (because he’s actually even weirder than I am). I am inspired by the way he cares for and serves others, and I am encouraged by his relationship with Jesus.
So naturally, my flesh is screaming at me to stay. He’s not in South Africa, not in Cambodia or Nepal or Romania. He is here! He was in the same city as me all along, and here he will stay… although I am scheduled to leave. I’m not leaving the country for a few weeks, or even a few months. I’m leaving for almost a year. When we are together, I can’t even imagine what it will be like to say our final goodbye at the airport in 2 short months. It’s too painful to picture. Staying in Pittsburgh would be so much, well… easier. Safer.
And this whole time, even though my flesh begs me to stay, I can hear Jesus whispering in my ear “I need you to let go, Sarah.”
If I let go, I’ll be walking away from my best friend and dream come true. If I let go, I won’t be able to stay and control my circumstances. If I let go, I can’t be certain that things will be the same when I come home in a year.
But if I let go… I will be set free.
Tonight, when I was really struggling with the idea of leaving my sweet friend, I asked him why this lesson is so hard for me to grasp. Just when I think I’ve surrendered all of my will and desires to the Lord, my flesh kicks back in and I want to regain control. His reply? “Because it’s one of the hardest things He could ask you to do.”
And that’s just it. Jesus wants to know if I will walk away from everything to follow Him. He has been stripping me of my material possessions: first my car, and soon my apartment and cell phone. But letting go of the deepest desire of my heart who is there standing before my eyes… now that’s a whole different level of surrender for me.
Am I willing to die to myself to be made fully alive in Christ?
I’ve been reading “Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home” by Richard Foster. He screams out to my soul when he says, “Relinquishment takes us into rugged terrain. The climb is steep, the rocks are sharp, and the trail passes by precarious ridges. From every human viewpoint at times it looks like we have fallen over the precipice to our death. But we know better. We know that we are only falling into the arms of Jesus fully satisfied, fully at rest.”
I must fully relinquish the things that I cling onto if I ever want them to be returned to me. Jesus says that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). It’s the hardest lesson for me to learn, and it is a daily battle for me right now. I can walk away from my memory foam mattress, my Honda, and my smart phone. But walking away from love? I can only hope that He plans on returning it to me in a form that is so much better than what I could have planned on my own. Without Jesus, this would be impossible. With trust in Him, however… it is the gift of a life made fully alive.
