In advance, sorry for the poor formatting – these Peruvian internet cafes have confusing keyboards and not very reliable internet. This makes for a difficult writing session haha. Anyways, onto the good stuff!
The following blog post is a conversation that I had with God two days ago. I was having a very hard time accepting my worth as a human and realized that even after all the progress I’ve made so far, that I still have quite a bit that I’m struggling with emotionally. Keep in mind that some of this was truth spoken into me by team mates and other parts are truth given to me directly from God. I hope you enjoy. Never stop pushing into God. He loves you so much =o) Well, here goes-
God is calling me to walk in faith that I might not know what He´s doing but that He IS doing something. I need to trust Him to take care of me. Trust that He will not let me go.
Even when I´m terrified that I´m being stagnant and therefore God will leave me behind, I must keep in mind that what I´m doing (or not doing) has NOTHING to do with my worth. I am God´s and He will never let me go.
So with all of this said, why am I still struggling with the lie that I am not good enough to keep someone around or hold their interest? Even more painful is the lie that I´m not captivating.
There are hummingbirds all over Tarma, Peru. This says to me a few things – God does find me worth it. I AM CAPTIVATING. God DOES love me and will keep me all the days of my life. I am a cause worth going to battle for and once I have been defended and won over, I will continue to be good enough to keep the attention of the one who has saved me. I will always be good enough for that. God please plant this lesson deep within the wound that still covers my heart. I am so thankful to You for having saved me.
He calls to me now, ¨My Beautiful Hummingbird.¨
I think I may do a three day fast (that´s the longest we are allowed to fast for on the race). I also think that I really do want a hummingbird tattoo.
**Side note – hummingbirds signify everything I want to be as a person: they are captivating, beautiful, able to fly away to adventure, or hover and stay a while if need be, they are focused, determined, willful creatures, and something worth talking about and paying attention to. I love hummingbirds and seeing as how I´ve wanted to fly ever since I can remember, they make for a very encouraging reminder of what I aspire to be and do with my life.**
I need to follow God. No matter what it is that He´s calling me to – this may mean being present or it may mean something completely different. Whatever it ends up being, I must be sure to follow whole-heartedly.
Everything that I´m still ashamed of has nothing to do with who God created me to be. Did God create me as a monster? No. So then what did He make when He made me? What were his intentions? What were his plans for my life?
He´s watching me grow. He´s watching with loving eyes as I mature in faith, in purpose, in Him. He never wanted me to experience the bad things that I have but it is because he loves me that I had the option to go through those events. He has given me the free will to choose which way my life will go. That said, it is for freedom that I have been set free. He wants me to walk in total freedom side-by-side, hand-in-hand with him.
He is truly with me. He reminds me of this at my weakest points, ¨I am with you,¨ He whispers. It is in my weakness that his strength is made obvious – and it is perfect. The song Be Still by Steffany Frizzell-Gretzinger comes to mind (I highly recommend giving her a listen!).
God wants the best for me. His best for me does not include living my life with a still broken heart. I will not be progressed out of this season of my life with wounds deep within me. He still has his healing hand on me – the process is not yet complete.
Therefore, I must have patience. I must also have faith; faith that He, in being an all-knowing and all-loving God, will not lead me into a place that would prove to be more than I can handle. I have a ways to go before I can be considered ¨ready¨ for any such place. He is leading me through this time period slowly.
I will never be able to navigate successfully throughout my life without Jesus. I want so badly for Him to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay. I beg Him to cradle me and to let me feel His presence. And yet, every chance I get I´m jumping from the safety that is his embrace and trying, once again, to run my life by myself.
Jesus has made me dependent on him. I am horribly unsatisfied with my life when I am the one running it. Why do I try to take control so often? It´s never worked before. What makes me think that my ideas or my plans might be better than God´s?
I need to change. I need change in my heart so that when I stumble into a place of dissatisfaction I know to re-surrender my life to God. I need change in my spirit so that when I become full of myself or when I lose sight of what is important, I will be able to humble myself before God and once more let go of whatever façade I have allowed to overtake my life.
Lord, it is my soul´s cry, ¨change me. For I am nothing.¨ I find myself needing to add to this prayer though. For it would be a lie to say that God sent Jesus to die for nothing. Jesus died for me – so that I could go on, blameless, to live with him in heaven for all eternity.
Jesus would not die for nothing. Therefore, I mean everything to Him. In the eyes of my Savior, I am captivating. To him, I am mesmerizing, breathtaking, his beautiful creation; I am Vashti. I am everything.
I am changing my prayer today, ¨God change me. Humbly I lay at your feet – I am nothing but by your grace, Lord, in your eyes, I am everything.¨
Help me to change my perspective, Lord. I cannot do this on my own. Help me to rest in patience when you are holding me. Please give me the wisdom and clarity to know when to be still and when to jump up and fight alongside you. Please continue to have patience with me as I slowly mature in You. Take my heart, Lord. Mend it, heal it, fix it, and change it. It is my wish that I would know no other way to live other than at your side. I am so thankful, God, for your sacrifice. Help me to change so that I will be able to truthfully declare Job 23:12, ¨I have not departed from the commands of your lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.¨
**Job 23:8-17 is what I have often seen as an accurate description of my spiritual life: ¨ But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. (9) When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. (10) But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. (11) My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. (12) I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasure the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. (13) ´But he stands alone. And who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases. (14) He carries out his decree against me, and many such plans he still has in store. (15) That is why I am terrified before him; When I think of all this, I fear him. (16) God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. (17) Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face.´¨**
In this life, it is imperative to have faith in the one true force worth having faith in: God.
God is the one that makes life worth living – He is the one who makes my story worth writing and reading.
In Donald Miller´s book, A Thousand Miles in a Million Years, he discovers that ¨the great stories go to those who don´t give into fear¨ and that in order to have an epic story, ¨the thing a character wants must be very difficult to attain. The more difficult, the better the story.¨ He goes on to explain that the greatest stories ¨are the ones in which the character´s very life is at stake.¨ This means that ¨there needs to be a question as to whether the character will make it, whether he will defeat the enemy or the enemy will defeat him.¨
The next thing Miller points out is that the character´s ambition has ¨to be sacrificial¨ and that ¨the protagonist has to be going through pain, risking his very life, for the sake of somebody else.¨ I can´t help but think that Jesus lived the greatest epic ever told. In Miller´s example, Jesus is the protagonist and I am the ¨somebody else¨ that he not only risked his life for but indeed gave his life for.
Once more I am seeing that to Jesus, the only one who truly matters, the one that we will spend eternity worshipping, the greatest protagonist in the greatest epic of all time, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, I am everything.
This is truth; truth that will never fade and that will last for all of eternity. This is truth for me and just as important, this is truth for you. To God, you are everything and the sooner you make yourself nothing at His feet, the sooner He will prove to you your true and lasting worth.
Take this in and don´t let anyone tell you differently. We are everything to Him who died for us.
God is calling you to live a better story. Listen for him and allow him to rewrite your life. Don´t give into fear, take a risk, feel more emotions, go out, do something, and let your life become something worth talking or writing about. God has an epic for each of us. Don´t allow yourself to go unpublished just because you never gave God a chance. Let him in and let him change you for the best. It will be difficult but I promise you, you won´t regret it.
Until next time,
– Vashti W.
Personal UPDATE!! – I have reached the $9,000 mark! Praise God!! I now only need another $2,000 to reach my $11,000 deadline by December 1st. If you are able to, I would highly appreciate donations! $5 is welcomed just as much as a million dollars would be. Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support. The World Race would be much more difficult without you (honestly, without your financial contributions, I wouldn’t be here at all!) God is moving mountains for me, everyone. I pray that He is doing the same for you. Thank You! All of my love =o)
