This week was amazing. I wish you could have been here to enjoy it with me. Before I go off of this week though I just want to say: this could be a long post.
Sunday night found me upset in the parking lot. I was crying and I could barely think. I simply wanted to leave and not come back. I was leading "Discovery" in the morning and I had everything ready, but I was getting so stressed about other things- like my 15 page research paper that I could not find any new information on and the fact that I did not feel 100% safe around one of the guys here. And so on, and it was all just really overwhelming and frightening.
Looking at my life today, I find I am afraid of a lot. And it is really saddening. How am I to tell others of my great God when I am often too afraid to open my mouth? Out of fear of being wrong, or starting a fight, or not being understood. How am I to tell others about the redemption of Jesus Christ when I am too scared to allow Him to redeem me? What are they going to do- look at me and say sarcastically "yeah, that has worked out well for her". And you know what, it would be true. I have not let God fully redeem me. But not just the things that mean I will change: I am scared of the dark and reading aloud (because I get agitated and start to slur and lisp my words) and sitting and having a meaningful conversation. I am scared of meeting new people and being honest with those I do not know super well. I am scared of being accepted for me (yeah, not rejected) and being loved for me. I am scared of not knowing myself and what I am thinking and feeling, but at the same time I am comfortable with that. I am scared of loving only to lose. (I hate losing.) The list would take too long to complete...and it is depressing. (;
I live in a place of constant fear. In any situation, if I let myself, I can find a reason to be afraid. But that is not who God has called me to be. I shared about Memuyl and Thai and Singo and Mae and Pon and all the others whose names I have no idea how to spell or never heard how to say correctly. I shared about how I felt brokenhearted each time we left a location. But one thing I realized was I was the loser each and every single time. The people I met will never know how they effected me. They will not know the lessons I learned, nor will they know the true,genuine love I felt for them. And that is okay. It is not relevant to where I am going with this. The point I am trying to make is this: I faced my fear. Without realizing it at the time, but I did. (I cannot really say I have been working on the scared of the dark one, but my roommates do not seem to mind.)
God has more in store for me than I can imagine. And I have a GREAT imagination. For those of you who have ever read or heard something I have written, you know firsthand I am speaking the truth. So if I imagine something awesome for my life, how much more spectacular is God imagining something? But I have to stop being afraid. I have to be willing to try.
So back to this week. Monday morning I am leading Discovery. Discovery is based off of Psalm 104 (I think that is right). So I read through the psalm a few different times before I saw something that really stuck out to me. In verses 5-9, the author of the psalm is talking about the flood. I began to look at the folklore (Folklore is simply a unwritten story.) of the flood. I looked at the different cultures/societies that have a story of the flood, which are a lot. Then I began to look at the flood itself. Water was destructive. The flood (water) destroyed the Earth. People, animals, just life- destroyed. It made me wonder, was Noah ever afraid of water after the flood? I know I would be. Each time the skies opened up I would look for the rainbow- even before the rain ended. As I am thinking about this, I wonder how has God, in a sense, redeemed the ocean (water)? I looked up information on the water. The water provided over half of the oxygen we breathe. It is life-giving. It went from being destructive to life-giving... it has truly been redeemed. As I looked at this on Monday morning, I could not help but ask where is it God is saying this was once destructive in your life, but I am going to redeem it into something life-giving? For me there are many places. What about for you?
Then our speaker arrives and the first thing out of his mouth is "Just try. Stop being afraid and try." This was exactly what I needed to hear. And I will probably need to hear it again before the month is up. (Yes, I am aware there are only two days left.) This was so profound to me because of what my friend and I had discussed the night before and because of the fact I had been wanting to try but I was too afraid of failing.
The next morning John, our speaker, shows up and says I have a word of encouragement. What he said definitely did not make me feel encouraged! He said this: You will fail. I first felt defeated and really confused, but as I began to grasp what he was saying I realized how encouraging it actually was. I will fail. I will fail when I try. But that is a part of learning and growing. As a child, how many times do we stop and think before we fail? How many times do we fail? How many times do we let that failure stop us from trying something else?
I let it stop me from trying everything, but now I refuse to let it hold me back. I want to be a child. Ready to learn at all times. Whether it be from my friends or family or from someone who is trying to teach me how to do things their way in their culture. I want to learn. Like a child. A child who is not judging others, but simply willing to learn.
That is what this week was all about. Being like a child. Being willing to learn the way Jesus did. What an example we have in Jesus!
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