Missionary. I am a missionary.
How weird those words sound to me. Even signing up for this adventure I wasn’t really thinking I’d be a missionary I honestly was thinking about the growth I would get and it just never really clicked with the term missionary. Which is comical considering that’s exactly what this trip is but that’s not how I was looking at it. I just hit two years sober this past week so I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on these past two years.Two years ago those words wouldn’t even come close to someone’s lips when describing me. Maybe words like I need a missionary. Or I need a miracle just to save my soul. Well turns out, that’s exactly what I got.
I get caught up sometimes in miracles being physical healing or God bringing someone back to life and with that I can miss the most important miracles. What has happened to me over the past two years is nothing short of a miracle. There have actually been many miracles leading up to this point. The miracle that I’m still alive for how stupid some of my actions were when I was out of control drunk and drugged out of my mind. Honestly, I have seen some of the videos of myself on not one but multiple nights and I cannot believe I am walking around still breathing. The miracle that I didn’t allow the devil or depression to take me over the edge I so clearly saw. The miracle that not only has my soul been restored but my deepest wounds have been healed. And the miracle that now I, once one of the furthest from a “Christian” am now in a completely different environment surrounded by people I’ve only known for a few months, surrendering some things I could have had to spread the message of hope and love.
That’s what this is to me. It’s about seeing where I was and how God helped me. And now it’s about finding others who are where I was. Lost and broken and allowing God to meet them where they are through me. Something so simple as a smile and letting someone know that they are loved and seen. Letting them know that there is one person out there who truly loves them for what they are. For where they have been and the things they have done. None of that matters and they are loved. So I guess if that’s the message of a missionary then I am one. It looks a lot different than I ever could have imagined but it sure is a sweet life.
God is good all the time.
Thomas Pond
