I understood where Mother Theresa was coming from when she said, "Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired."
Those kids challenged me every single day, but sometimes I felt like my heart would BURST if I loved them any more.
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| some snapshots from Deep Roots Day Camp |
"Holding on to what I never had. I feel like that's what I'm doing right now. God wants me. He is holding on so tightly and I praise Him for not letting me go. I can actually feel His grip on my life. But that's about the only thing I can feel from Him right now. I know He wants me to go deeper. He is calling me to something big. He wants me to give up everything to follow, but I don't know where, and I hate the uncertainty. It fills me up with fear and doubt. This is where I struggle, where my faith falls short. This is why I stay standing still instead of moving forward. Will I be okay in the end? Why is it so hard for me to trust?
Sometimes I feel like God might be calling me into missions. Why is that so hard for me to embrace? I say things like, 'I haven't had a specific calling.' but what if this is it, and I'm missing it on purpose? and why am I avoiding it? I am so scared. I feel like going to college and becoming a teacher is what I'm 'supposed to do.' I also have doubts that God would really want to use ME in missions. Like, that is for other, stronger believers. But then there are counter-active reasons to all my excuses.
For my fear--God is on my side. What do I have to be afraid of ? I should be more afraid of avoiding God than I am of anything else. He promised me He would be with me even if it's harder and scarier than anything I have ever dreamed. He is with me.
Against this idea of what I am 'supposed to do' that I have planned--since when have I known what is best for me? God knows what's best for me and He will take me there. My plans mean nothing unless they are to join Him in what He is doing. My whole life will count for nothing unless I am used by Him.
Against my Doubts- I feel as if I can't. Because it's true. I can't. But HE can and will use me to further His kingdom. But I must listen to Him, and I must trust Him, and I must have faith.
I feel like God has been telling me a lot of things I don't want to hear. I long to hear His voice, but I want it to be saying what I want it to say. He doesn't really work like that. I told God to keep pulling me where He wants me to go. I told Him I would follow. The thing is, He HAS been pulling. I have felt His grip, I'm certain of it, but I am still holding on to so many other things. My hands are full of all my plans and thoughts and goals and things and people I think are mine that I want for MY life that I can't seem to give up. My fingers are clenched so tightly holding all these things I feel I should have, it's like He has to DRAG me along. I don't want to let go of this place and these people that I know and love, and I know I'm being silly because I am the LORD's first, and none of that is really mine anyway. I think I'm going to have to give up and let go, but I don't know if I can..."
I lived my life cautiously, not really willing to take any steps forward and a little bit in denial about moving away that fall. If I continued this way, I could succeed in keeping my own desires and living complacently the life that seemed reasonable.
But a few weeks before I moved in that miniscule Muffit dormroom at Spring Arbor University, I made a mistake. It was at a Hillsong concert in Indianapolis that I went to with a few friends. I allowed myself to encounter God and I was flattened. True worship is born when we are at our very least, and it was in this moment that I prayed with all sincerity, "Heal my heart and make it clean; open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like you have loved me; Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your Kingdom's cause, as I walk from earth into eternity."
I don't think I really wanted to see the unseen. I don't think I knew, I really don't think I even know now, what it means to love like He loves. I certainly didn't know what it would feel like to have my heart break for what breaks His.
BUT God will ruin your life if you let Him, and after meaning it when I said "everything I am" He took me seriously and got right to work on taking it all.
