Most days, I am happy. I am excited that God has called me on this incredible journey. I live a very good life, and I am blessed beyond measure. Most days, I am happy, but today is not that day.
Tonight, I am scared. I am sad. I am broken.
Since I have started this new journey, these feelings have been there, I have just chosen to ignore them. I have been pretending like this doesn’t scare me, but if we’re being honest, I’m completely afraid.
I am afraid because I know that my world is about to be turned upside down. I am afraid because I know that God is calling me to a bigger adventure that will last longer than 9 months. I am afraid because I know that I am not meant to live the comfortable life that I have always dreamed of living. I am afraid because, now that God has shown me these things, there is no going back. I am afraid because I have never spent a significant amount of time away from my family, and I’m about to move across the world. I am afraid because I will miss them, I will miss my friends, and I will miss my comfort. I am afraid because I know that my life is never going to be the same.
Since a young age, I have always struggled with the desire to be in a relationship. I always wanted someone’s affection, but even more so, I have always wanted to love deeply. I have always loved and cared for people deeper than I understood. I have always had love to give, and while at times it has been painful, I know that God created me for this reason.
I remember the day I decided I wanted to teach. I went to the Dollar General and was standing in line behind a very low income family who was buying their groceries. Their young boy, about 3 or 4, was struggling to lift a gallon of milk onto the counter. I was watching him, smiling, admiring his determination. When he finally got the milk on the counter, I couldn’t help but praise him and give him a high-five. This small gesture prompted him to show me his light up shoes, show me how far he could jump, how he could hop on one foot, and tell me about his pet turtle. While he was beaming with excitement, telling me all the things he wanted someone to care about, his mother screamed profanities at him for bothering me. I knew that all this child wanted was someone to care about the small things, to show him positive attention, to give him affirmation, and to love him deeper. My heart broke for him. I realized that there are so many children who don’t receive adequate love and affection at home, and I knew that I had been given an abundance of love for that reason. It was at this moment that I knew I wanted to be a teacher.
In October of 2012, I took 2 weeks off of my first semester of college and went to India to work with an orphanage. When we got there, we built bunk beds for children who shared a room with 50-60 others, slept on concrete floors, and didn’t own their own pillow or blanket. I fell in love with the children there, but one young girl in particular, Rani, touched my heart deeply. The children of the orphanage came from varying backgrounds. Some of their parents had AIDS and were forced to give their children to the orphanage because they were too sick to care for them. Some children had parents who were alive and healthy, but simply had too many children to care for. Some had aunts and uncles, and some of them had no family at all. Regardless of their backgrounds, all of the children had someone to visit for a while during holiday. Each child had a family they would spend the week with, and each family came to pick up the children during the last few days of my visit. Because all of the children were leaving, my team and I had the last few days to relax on the 3rd floor, which we had to ourselves. In order to get to our 3rd floor, we had to walk up the single staircase that passed the room in which all of the girls slept. On my second to last day, I walked up the staircase, passed the second floor, and saw Rani sitting on a bed by herself crying. Curious, I walked into the room, sat next to her, and asked her what was wrong. Her mother had not shown up to pick her up for the holiday. All the other girls were gone, and Rani had no idea why her mother had not shown up. Her heart was broken. So I layed with her. I let her cry. I hugged her, I played with her hair, I tickled her. We colored, I taught her how to spell my name, we wrote words in her treasured notebook, and we spent the rest of the day together alone. In that moment, I knew that I had been given an abundance of love for that reason.
I just finished my sophomore year of college where I have been studying elementary education. I chose this major because I love children. I love to serve, I love to laugh at farts, I love to see the joy in children’s eyes, and I love to know that I am making a difference. Most of my colleagues chose this major because they want to teach in public school in Texas. I thought that’s what I wanted to do, but God has been whispering bigger plans in my ear. I don’t know what will come of them, but I know that I will most likely not end up doing what I have planned for my life. I know that God will take my gifts, my desires, and my knowledge of elementary education and He will find a way to use them for a purpose greater than I have imagined. I don’t know if I will move to India and continue to work with an orphanage. I don’t know if I will end up in Africa, Asia, or some random country I have never heard of. I don’t know if I will work in an orphanage, a school, a village, or a refugee camp somewhere. All I know is that God has been whispering something different in my ear.
These whispers have been going on for a while, but they were really reaffirmed today. I have been visiting my parents these past few days and I decided to read a book called Kisses for Katie. This book is about a young girl who planned to go to college and live the American dream. Before she attended college, she took a year to teach kindergarten at an orphanage in Uganda, and ended up living there permanently, adopting 14 children of her own. I don’t know if God has that planned for me, but reading this book definitely reaffirmed the small whisper that God had something very, very different in mind for me.
And if we’re being honest….that scares me.
What about my dreams? I want to meet a handsome, charming, Godly man who loves music and adventure just like I do. I want to fall in love, I want to get married, I want to have children of my own, and I want to live a comfortable happy life. But God has been telling me something different. I don’t know what He has planned, but I know that it’s bigger, and I know that it’s better. I know you’re probably thinking “Well if it’s better, shouldn’t that excite you?” Yeah. It does. It’s really exciting to think that God has planned my life so far in advance. It’s exciting to think that He has orchestrated every aspect of my life, and he has made me with an abundance of love for a reason. It is exciting to think that my life could be greater than I ever imagined. But at the same time, it is terrifying. Living the life that God has called me to live, while very rewarding, requires great sacrifice. It requires me to be selfless. It requires me to give up the picturesque life I have always imagined. It requires me to give up the world and focus on God. I know that sounds so easy, right? I’m going on this awesome mission trip, and I’ve grown up in church, so it must be easy for me to focus on God, right?
Wrong.
My heart wants so badly for God to use me in mighty ways, but the devil is trying so hard to bring me down. He knows that there are things that I want from this world. My family, my home, my comfort, a good relationship. These are all things that are so hard for me to let go of. It breaks my heart to think that these things that I have always cherished may not be mine forever. It hurts to think that the dreams I have always had for myself may not become a reality. It’s hard. It really is. But it’s necessary.
So if we’re being honest here, I am excited. I really am. God has called me for great things, and I have no doubt that I have a beautiful, full, blessed life ahead of me. But at the same time, I am scared. God has called me for great things, and with that comes great sacrifice.
I have learned that it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to hurt. And it’s okay to be broken. Tonight, I’m going to let it all out, I’m going to cry, and I’m going to cuddle with my daddy. Tonight, I am scared, but I know that my fate lies in the hands of the perfect creator, and because of that, I have peace.
It is well with my soul.
