First off, know that this blog is a little different than all my other ones. I feel like God wants me to be brutally honest about what I’m going through right now. Know that change is not easy when you’ve been a certain way for so long. Know also that when God calls you to change, provides the opportunity, & then you take it, there’s no looking back. I am inexplicably thankful for everything God is doing in my life right now. So, hang in there & make sure you read the end of this- it makes sense when you get there. Without further adieu, le blog:
My hands are hot. My body is sunburned. My feet, ankles, legs, thighs, sides, back, arms, hands, fingers, shoulders, & neck all itch from mosquito bites. I’m sweating. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m thirsty.
I. Am. Miserable.
My misery, however, does not stem from the physical. I am weary emotionally. As I look up at the sun beating down on me, my mind flashes back to some of my favorite memories from my past.
I miss my best friend. I miss the good times we used to have together roaming the countryside at night while blasting our favorite songs in the car, watching scary movies till 3 in the morning, getting into trouble together, night swims, & our late night snacking rituals.
The more I indulge in pleasant memories from the past, the more memories begin to bubble to the surface. In a matter of 20 minutes, I’ve gone through my entire stock of middle school memories. I move on to high school & then college. I begin to realize just how many memories I have- family vacations, church services, school lectures, random conversations with strangers, tv programs, past romantic relationships, days off, & nights out.
I have enough memories to keep me occupied for days at a time. I noticed at some point on the race that the more I remember my family & loved ones, the more I seem to miss them. So thinking about them is hard for me because I still have another 6.5 months or so before I can see them. And yet, I can’t seem to stop thinking of them- this leaves me feeling exhausted & very home-sick.
My emotional pain is caused by several things: bad memories from the past; good memories from the past; knowing that when I go home, everything will have changed; constant feelings of loneliness, sadness, loss, & failure; & this creeping feeling that no matter what I do, I will never be good enough for God to use me in a powerful way. I’m struggling to believe in myself these days. I listen when people tell me I can do something & I listen for God’s voice on a daily basis. I yearn to hear from him. Some days, that’s all I want. That’s the only thing that could possibly satisfy me- hearing from God.
I’m fed up with the World Race. I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m tired of processing. I’m tired of serving, I’m tired of community & putting others first. I’m tired of waiting my turn & choosing to be helpful. I’m tired of ministry & living in uncomfortable conditions. I’m sick of eating the same thing over and over again & either feeling like I have not enough of the food I want or too much of the food I don’t want. I’m over being open with my team mates & I am exhausted by the idea of telling my life’s story even one more time. I started this race an extrovert & I’m watching as I become more & more of an introvert as time passes by.
The World Race is hard. All I want to do is give up & go home.
Still though, this is not the cause of my misery. My misery comes from something even deeper.
It’s a feeling of impending doom. If I’m honest with you (& trust me, that’s all I ever do in these blogs), it’s the fact that God has called me to missions work. I am terrified that this sort of lifestyle is the one he has called me to. One where I don’t quite have a home address, I don’t have reliable communication, I don’t get to see my family when I want to, I don’t get to celebrate holidays or special occasions the way I’m used to, & I don’t get to live my life the way I thought I was going to get to. The hardest thing of all to accept though is this: because God called me to be a missionary, that means that I can’t do my profession on my own strength. It means that not only do I have to rely on the strength & abilities of other people in my life but also that I have to rely on God.
Trusting God is much easier said than done. It means that when a dear friend of mine passes away while I’m gone, I have to miss the funeral, let go of the situation, & let God handle it. It means that when my family is going through hardship & I’m overseas & can’t do anything to help that I have to let go & let God step in. It means that when I am having an emotional breakdown & can no longer handle everything on my plate that I have to allow God to come into my life & carry me the rest of the way. It removes control of MY life out of MY hands & into the arms of Jesus.
I don’t know about you, but that thought is scary. I have to admit that I am not very strong right now. I am struggling with doubt. I have reservations towards God. I’m worried (for some strange reason) that God isn’t going to be able to handle my problems. I’m scared that he’s going to lose interest & give up on me. And then where will I be? I’ll tell yah- I’ll be thousands of miles away from home in Africa. I’ll be in a place I’ve never heard of surrounded by people I hardly know.
I’m struggling.
Why?
Why did I come on the World Race? It’s the question I’ve been asking myself every day for the past month: God, why am I here?
When I signed up for the World Race, my life was in shambles. I was struggling to not be depressed every day. My two jobs were doing nothing but stressing me out & making me feel inadequate, my social life had taken a turn for the worst, there were rumors spread about me, I had given up on all of my dreams (the few that I actually had), my dad was talking about moving my family across the country (my family at this point had been the only constant factor in my life), & God had just reminded me (again) that I was not supposed to be engaged to the man I wanted to marry.
I was at the end of my rope.
I took a week to get the application filled out. I hardly had the motivation to get it done. The only thing that kept me going was God. I needed to get out of there.
On one of the worst days of my life, I got a call from adventures in missions. After making sure it was indeed “uhm…vah-shhh-tee will-us?” on my end of the line, I was informed by the man on the phone that I had been accepted “as long as [I] agree[d] to seek counseling to the World Race!!” I couldn’t believe my luck. The moment I heard the man on the phone say that, I felt something inside me shift. I think it was a layer of shame, pessimism, & disbelief sliding off my soul. I felt lighter, I felt energized, & I felt hopeful.
I thought to myself, “this is it!” This is my ticket to ride. This is how I’m finally going to get my life back on track.
Almost a year later, I’m laying in a bunk-bed in Salema, Malawi (Africa) thinking similar & opposite things. So much has changed since I applied to the World Race. I’ve broken up with my fiancé (it’s almost been a year now), I’ve quit one job & was “suspended” from the other, half my family has moved from Ohio to California, I was wooed & then heartbroken twice, I’ve made new friends & lost contact with old ones, one of my beloved other-mother figures (the mother of one of my best friends) has passed away from cancer, life back home has gone on without me, & I’ve learned an inexplicable amount about myself.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I am NOT who the world says I have to be. If there’s two things I’ve learned, it’s that I also happen to have redemption, rehabilitation, refinement, & freedom in Jesus Christ.
See that’s the interesting thing about World Race misery- it’s necessary for deep life change. If I hadn’t been miserable, I would’ve been able to keep up a facade. A facade that would have screamed “everything is okay & I’m handling myself well. I don’t need anyone’s help! Leave me alone.” But because physically, emotionally, & spiritually everything was constantly changing, I eventually broke down. I didn’t just break down once, or twice, or three times. No, including the one I had tonight, that puts me at about 15 or more breakdowns in the past 5 months.
The beauty of that is this: every time I let go of my idea of perfection, every time I opened up to a team or squad mate about what I was dealing with, every time another wall came down, & every time I let God do the work instead of struggling to carry my load & others’, was another strong step forward in my walk with God. My “weakest” points on the World Race have easily been the defining moments of my life’s 180° turn around. I’m not just learning to let go of who the world told me I had to be, I’m also learning to firmly take hold of who God CREATED me to be.
He made me with intelligence, encouragement, wisdom, strength, courage, leadership, & love in mind. He made me after his own image. He made me to stay standing when others fall down. He created me to be a warrior in his name.
But something I’ve struggled to accept as truth is the fact that warriors tend to get wounded in some way. It’s the truth- I’ve been hurt. Heck, whether you realize it or not, you’ve been hurt in some way or another at some point in your life. Not just once, but probably repeatedly (like me). Time & time again, I’ve been pushed down & had my face rubbed in the dirt. I’ve given up on myself & what I believe in more times than I want to admit. At the same time that life has been good to me, it’s also been incredibly difficult to keep going.
I never realized that my emotional & spiritual well-being needed to be a priority.
The World Race has taught me that. It hasn’t just been the experience to open my eyes to just how much help I needed, but it’s also been the gateway & road to receiving that help. Through the very team mates that I spend every day with, I have received hours of attention for therapy style talk-it-out counseling. The J-squad squad leaders know more about me than some of my closest friends & my paid therapist back home.
I was wounded emotionally & spiritually when I started the World Race & I had no idea. The way God explained it was like this, “yes, you are my warrior. But you are injured & I’m not going to have you on the battlefield with open wounds. First I have to heal you.”
In the time since Haiti (the first month of the World Race), that’s certainly what God has been doing. He’s been healing me. He’s been allowing me to be miserable so that my walls would come down. So that I would get sad or angry or depressed & let go of my need to be perfect & look perfect & have everything together. He allowed me to break time & time again so that I could finally heal properly. After years of pushing through the pain, I’ve finally learned how to push INTO the pain & then finally how to come OUT of the pain. It’s been a very long time coming & I know I’m not done yet.
That’s why I’m miserable again. I’m miserable because God is growing me again. He’s breaking me down once more & creating even more space in my heart for himself.
My constant prayer is that God would change me, break me, & remake me. My new team’s name is “Gold” which means a lot of different things to each of us. The main thing that I’m focusing on though is the refining process that gold experiences. My old team’s name was a Greek word that means “to be emptied of” (Kenosis) and after team changes, I realized just how much process I’ve made while on the race.
In my time with Kenosis, God helped to empty me of the lies, shame, guilt, & self-hatred that I had been carrying for years. Now that I’m on my new team, I’ve added a new prayer request: that he would refine me.
So while I’m miserable here in Africa, I can’t help but to be incredibly thankful. I’m miserable for a reason. I’m away from my family & loved ones for a reason. I’ve taken time away from the hustle & bustle of my “normal” life for a very big reason. I needed to be healed. I had open wounds that needed attention & that’s what I’m getting here on the World Race. The race to me is another chance to start over. Another chance to get back on board with Jesus & his plan for my life.
So, now that I’ve walked out of my past, I’m eager to fly into my future. Earlier today while I was fighting off another emotional breakdown, God told me, “you can’t learn to fly in one day, Vashti. First you have to learn to walk.” And later the same day, when I was, again, trying to fight off a sob-session, he pointed out that “it’s going to take a lot stronger of a vessel to soar into [my] future than it did to fly out of [my] past.”
That, to me, means more misery. It means even more walls coming down, & even more opening up to team mates & those who want to hear my story. But! It also means more growth, more opportunities to be the light that God has called me to be, more chances to serve the only One worth serving, & even more opportunities to uncover God’s plan for my life.
The race is my chance to drop my net & follow Him (Matthew 4:19- “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”) And while following is hard, leading my own life without any help from God is always going to be more difficult.
These few verses are helping me =o) check them out for yourself!
Jeremiah 29:11-14a
“(11) For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (12) Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. (13) You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (14) I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.”
On a personal note, I’m now 75% funded and still need just under $4,000 by March 1st. If you’d like to donate, you can click on the link that says “support me!” & follow the instructions to do it online. Thank you so much everyone for reading, following, supporting, & praying. You all make this work a lot easier.
Until next time,
~ Vashti W.
Ps: Malawi is not the best when it comes to Internet. I’ll be posting blogs as much as I can from here on out. Keep posted for Unsung Heroes Blogs!
