When the race started
out, the question “Who wants to give their testimony?” was the moment you
wished you were invisible. Not because we all loathed our lives and not because
we couldn’t see the Lord’s hand in our stories, but simply because the thought
of getting up in front of groups ranging in size from five to five thousand
people (thank you El Salvador mega church!) was not most of our cups of tea.
Today is the last day
of ministry on the race and three of our teams are out at the ocean with over
one hundred Cambodian teenagers putting on a youth camp for them. What a way to
go out, right?
Now for the last
seven months when anyone has asked me to share my testimony, I have never even
bothered to write anything down. It’s my life, I don’t need the spark notes
version in front of me, and I like to see what the Lord directs me to say each
time. It never comes out the same twice.
As camp was being
planned this week, I was asked to share my testimony one last time on the
race…in the country where it all began for me just under two and a half years
ago…
So, as I sat at the
church last night listening to Peter preach, I began to ask the Lord what He
would have me share with the youth. I started writing but what came out of the
pen was much less the details of my life over the last twenty-three years and
more a summation of a book of the Bible updated for the twenty-first century.
I know that this is
one of the last blogs I will be writing out on the field, and I guess it’s
about time that I actually share my story with you all.
Ecclesiastes is one
of the books of wisdom in the Old Testament…and probably one of the most
depressing reads for the first eleven and a half chapters, leaving about half a
chapter to redeem the otherwise discouraging book. The author takes his sweet
time in telling you how everything under the sun is meaningless, how everything
is fleeting, how nothing lasts, how nothing satisfies…except God. The book is
not just about beating people up with salvation, but about reminding those who
know God that anything outside of seeking a deeper intimacy with Him is hollow.
…and that’s been my
life story…
Our post-modern
generation watches movies to escape our reality. We look at characters and we
wish we could switch places. They always seem to have really exciting lives,
they never have significant struggles with money, they have a great sig-o, good
family life, and great worldly success… Hollywood knows how to sell us stories
that make most of us seek after any number one of those things.
Going to university a
few mere miles from the movie industry, and then leaving around the world for this year
has given me the opportunity to genuinely know people from all walks of life.
If I could sum up what every person on earth has in common–it is searching. We are all seeking after the
one or two answers we think will bring fulfillment. For some of us we think it
will happen when we are finally married, for others it is traveling, and still
others think that when they have enough money then life will really begin.
Enter me.
I am that girl whose
life you have seen in movies. I have always had a loving family, have had some incredible men seriously pursue me, I
have never worried about financial provision a day of my life, school comes
naturally to me…and I love studying, I have always been surrounded by the most
awesomely loving friends, and I have gotten to experience the world pretty
intensely before the age of 25.
In short, I have
always had the life that everyone around me thinks will satisfy, the life your
parents dreamed of giving you, the one you dream of giving your children.
But, having had all
of that? It wasn’t enough. In none of those things alone did I find lasting
joy. As hard as I tried to hang on to each of those things in different seasons
of life, I found myself constantly trying to grip tightly to a fist of sand.
Eighteen years old
and off I go to college knowing emptiness, knowing depression, knowing
loneliness and still determined to make it on my own. And so continued to try
it my way for yet another three years. I found myself always wanting to have
all of the answers, but knowing that I never felt like anyone had an answer for
me. And so, as my life fell apart–as relationships continued to be hollow, as
my schooling felt increasingly pointless, I knew there HAD to be more.
A friend of mine gave
me the Bible around that time, and told me to read the book of Romans. I tried,
but for the life of me I could not understand what any of it was saying, so I
did not touch it again for several months. It slept next to my pillow as a
reminder that maybe there was hope for me.
Then, I signed up for
a class to come to Cambodia, to live and talk to people who had lived through
the Khmer Rouge genocide thirty years ago. I came to live and talk with the
parents and the grandparents of the children who sit before me. I spent my days
asking what justice had meant for them…and all I ever saw was hollow eyes,
blank stares. And I would go home to Phnom Penh every night so depressed, and
then I would see so many homeless orphans, so many child slaves and I would
feel so helpless. And it was then that I came to understand how meaningless my
existence was. It was then I truly knew there was nothing I could ever do to
save people, to help people, to change an entire country–let alone the entire
world, of my own strength.
Enter Jesus.
And two and a half
years later, it is the last night of ministry on my race. I am standing in Cambodia
in front of a room of youth telling them all of this.
They are all
staring at me with beating eyes. I felt the Lord’s love for his children.
I understood why
He had me standing there.
He sent me back here
to pass off everything He has given me, to put the authority of this nation, to
put His heart for this nation in the hands of His children here.
So, tonight. As
nineteen of us sit in this guest house praising the Lord for getting us through
this journey, fifteen Khmer youth are in their rooms just beginning the first steps
of their journey.
My God is a God of
completion–of full starts to finishes.
And tonight, I know
that my Papa sealed off the end of this season.
And He has a new
beginning waiting for me an ocean away.
