This will be difficult.
Since February, I have been planning to make a great leap and embark on one of the biggest adventures of my life - two months in Swaziland. God has been incredibly faithful in providing the means for me to go, and I have been overwhelmed by the support I have received from family and friends. Before actually leaving the country for our African destination, our team goes through a week of training camp at the AIM training compound in Georgia. Night 3 of training camp, my world falls apart.
Through a number of painful circumstances and prayers, God says something along the lines of 'your number one mission is not to save the world, or go to Swaziland, or whatever else you have been preparing for. your number one mission is to trust Jesus and be obedient to that calling, and now is not your time to go to Swaziland.'
What else can I do? Where do I go from here? I am back in Birmingham, more confused than ever about who I am, who God is, why all this has happened. I am full of fear and sadness and guilt and feelings of failure. My strongest impulse is to isolate. What will people think? What does this mean for me? What am I doing here? Am I crazy? Is this all just a big mistake? What is true? Why am I still afraid? All of this is a mystery to me.
In some moments I am at peace knowing God is a god of redemption and power, not discord. Most of the time I just want to crawl out of my skin and disappear.
Now, as I'm unpacking my suitcases and washing red Georgia dirt from my clothes and reading birthday cards meant for July and notes of encouragement for the mission field, I feel like a grieving person cleaning out the house of someone who has just died.
Here is what I am sure of:
1. I am creation. Because of Jesus, God looks at me and sees no flaw.
2. God is sovereign.
3. God is the God of the oppressed in Birmingham AND in Swaziland. There is God's work to be done everywhere.
I apologize for my candidness here, but if we cannot be honest with one another in the body, then where can we truly be who we are? And now I invite your honesty. Feel free to ask questions or speak truth to me.
"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..."-Joel 2:25
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2 comments:
You are awesome !! ....glad you are "Here in the Kingdom"- Ken and Deb
If we attempt nothing great, our success is assured. Your faith is evident in your desire to attempt great things, and in your acceptance (however disappointing and confusing) that this adventure isn't going to happen.
After 6 years of preparation for going to Africa, when we were six months from leaving, Marsha was diagnosed with cancer. We were very confused. I still don't know why that happened as it did.
Actually, we spent 4-5 years preparing to go to Brazil. Picked out Goiania, captial of Goias as our target city and visited there. I took a year of Portuguese and studied Latin American cultures, before circumstances led us to switch to Africa. Was all that study wasted? I still can't figure out a 'reason' for what happened . . . and I am not sure that God was making it happen like it did. Maybe he did, maybe not.
I don't have any answers, but I could mulitply my own stories of attempting great things in faith and having them not work out. I guess my point is that if my experience means anything, don't read too much into this trip not working out for you.
We are called to be faithful, not successful.
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