I just got back from GA yesterday, after spending a few days there for a missions conference with the folks I met down in Haiti. It was great to see them all again, but it was also really, really difficult for me. You see, God has placed in me this desire for Haiti, but He has also placed in me a "knowing" that I am not allowed to go...yet. I am waiting. I am sure you can imagine how hard it is to wait on something, when everyone around you is practically dancing down the path that you desire to be on. Yes, I learned a lot and I am happy for them and I am more than happy that I was included in the conference, but my heart got broken and tried on so many different levels. One level is a lonely level. Another level is an insecurity level. And those two combined, make a really, really, self-centered level.
I have a void in my life, and it's a void that has been there for as long as I can remember. It's a void for community, true community, and fellowship. There are not many people that I can relate to, or people that understand my heart's crazy desire to be in deeper relationship with Jesus, and I don't mean that to be a prideful statement, it's just the way it seems. The problem is that the people that do understand and share my passion, most of them live at least 2,00 miles away from me across the ocean, in some foreign country. It's hard to build relationship and community with people that live a different life, in practically a different world. So my goal is to build that kind of community around me, with the people that God has placed in my life, and it is definetly not the easiest task I have ever set out to do, but it started because of the people I met in Haiti. Anyways, all that to say, I got to this conference and because the people there have different lives and are all very close to each other spiritually, mentally and emotionally, i had a lot of trouble feeling like I fit in this time around, and most of them were so tired that they didn't seem to have them emotional reservoir they needed in order to try and invest in new relationships. Needless to say, I had a pity party and fussed a lot at God about allowing me to be there at all. I figured I could be lonely all the way in VA and I didn't need to travel 500 miles to be lonely in GA. I got an attitude adjustment pretty fast for that thought. As it turns out, I wasn't there for me at all. I was there for Jesus, and some people that He met me there with, who needed some TLC. It did take me about a day to start trying to look outside of myself, but Jesus was super patient with me and gave me scripture after scripture of encouragement, and still ( even with my bad attitude) allowed me to minister to other people in His mighty name. I am pretty humbled about that. I even met some people who felt the same way I did and we were able to all encourage each other and pray together, and it was awesome. I was even more blessed, because the ways that Jesus used me to minister to people, were by things that He has been showing me and teaching me over the past few months, through various tough situations, and it was SO totally worth, every difficult moment, to be able to offer compassion, sympathy and encouragement to other people who were going through similar situations and then to hear them praise God for His sweet compassion and grace. There are a lot of things that I am still working through. There were some dissapointments here and there, and some hard truth's that were spoken to me, and I really don't have any idea what the big plan is for later on down the road, but I know that God has something special in store, and I can't wait to see what it is...I didn't feel courageous when I was there, I didn't feel compassionate or happy. I felt lonely, angry, scared, hurt and dissapointed, but I was still willing to be used by Jesus, even though I didn't understand what was going on, I still wanted to somehow bless Him through all of what was going on inside of me, and from that desire He blossomed a sprout of courage and from courage a bit of hope and from hope a little compassion, and so on and so forth.... His power is perfected in my weaknesses, and it is a beautiful thing to behold him taking my wicked and dirty heart and turning into something beautiful that reflects the goodness of His being, of His nature. I was so blessed by Jesus.
That's exactly why it's so hard leaving camp each year; it's that true community formed on sacrificial love. When I'm there, I see the church as Christ has truly called us to be, and when I leave my heart is broken because I'm unable to find such a community anywhere else. "Void" is the perfect word for it, and it hurts. I'll be praying that you find a community like that sooner than you get to go back to Haiti.
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