I’ve heard that month four and five can be some of the darkest. But in the dark it is much easier to see the light…
There have been a lot of hard things happen at home that are out of our reach.
At least, for our squad, this last month has been a pounding of one hard news after another. There have been at least three deaths, a marriage separation, a friend going home from the field, co-ed teams splitting and rejoining the girls and guys separately to create new teams, alumni team leaders leaving, the first official team change coming at the end of this month, leaving Asia for Africa and more—walking through the process of grieving all these things is something that we are all learning how to do in this season.
My squad leader told me that perhaps the hard things happen when you are on the field because God wants to do his work at home with you not there to step in His way. That blew my mind.
If everything stayed the same at home the whole year, that would be terrible. God is still at work and moving, and we want to see people be transformed throughout the year, so when we come back, it is full of His glory, and there will be stories of His work shared from both sides of the globe.
I have seen his glory this month. I feel more alive than I have in months and more aware because I am no longer in a fog and surrounded in confusion and bound in chains of lies and wounds. Walking along the street, the gentle rustle of leaves next to me, the soft thick wind in my face, and the cats skittering by fills me with so much joy that I just wanted to dance and sing out His praises. I see Him everywhere.
I found out some hard news from the morning of the same day we got new teams. All day I was one word from hysterically crying, and I did, thankfully in the presence and comfort of some of my teammates. I knew it was coming, and I told them months ago that when it did happen, I would not be ok, and I wasn’t that whole day. But something inside of me couldn’t let me sit in the grief, though deep down I wanted to keep feeling this. I literally could not lose the hope that God is still at work. That hope helped me see the big picture. The picture that He will always finish what He started, and He was just answering my prayers of breaking me and everyone around me, that He may mend us in deeper understanding of who we are and who He is.
There is an old, dark wood upright piano in our little women house we call home this month. I get lost in playing over the keys and just worshipping in the Spirit or feeling the vibration through the music. It is the same comfort I get from holding and playing a guitar, from sitting on a horse bareback feeling his gentle breathing, watching and listening to horses in their natural state in the fields…maybe that’s how I connect with my heart and to heal it.
I am learning that I didn’t learn how to express the emotions I feel, though I can see others emotions, but even then I rarely get the courage to do things with them.
Since I rarely know how to describe what I am feeling, I search it out from other people to just grasp a single heartstring of mine and hear its gentle song and maybe understand why it feels the way it feels. It is a mysterious and wonder filled journey Yeshuah is taking me on.
Chosin, the team of seven women that make up this team for this month. What a blessing I needed. Having a group of women to just talk girl talk, wear the leggings, no bras, and have vulnerable conversations is amazing. We WANT to spend time together; it isn’t forced; it is just made cuz we want to because we truly love each other, and that is so beautiful to me. It is something I have hardly seen in my almost 22 years of life. It is the family I needed to help me walk through learning the balance of trust and vulnerability, being loved and sought out for me, learning to seek people out and be myself wholly, laughing at the most random things, getting so many squirrels in the conversation that you had no idea where it even started, and just talking about life freely. It is a gift I was so blessed to be given in this season.
We were born to be loved, every one of us. But He doesn’t promise us a life without pain. Don’t focus on the pain. For in focussing on the pain, you can lose focus on Him. Keep your eyes on Him and don’t waver. He will bring you through this. He will never leave you.
Whoever reads this, you have a purpose. You were born to be loved. The pain you feel now does not compare to the complete love that He wants to show you.
Don’t become the judge and take God’s place, for everyone has their own story that Abba has written for a beautiful glory. Keep your eyes on Him. Don’t doubt His goodness. He wrote the story and then placed you in it because He will equip you for the season.
He has and is and will always shower us with blessings. Just ask. He wants you to see them, to see Him.
The splashes of the pain that comes from sin filled world can wash us into wholeness.
