Insanity at it’s best.

 

I can get away with it this time. This time is different. No one needs to know what
I’m going through. They wouldn’t care anyways. So I’ll just hide it. I’ll hide
my pain.
I’ll hide my jealousy. I’ll put up my shiny plastic mask
again. Here goes another wall put up! “I’m fine!” I say. That’s what
you say, right? And then I wait. I wait for someone to come find me.
Because deep down I want someone to care enough to come. That means they were
thinking about ME! “Are you okay?” is the question I long to hear. “I love you”
is the response I seek with all I have. But I don’t want to come across as
weak, do I? Keep feeding them “I’m fine!”. They are pursuing me, that’s what I
want, right? I’m being filled by their
love. I’m being filled by their pursuit.
Then why do I still feel so empty?

 

 

I was fuming. I
was confused. I was distraught. And so these are the ranting questions I was
throwing up at God as I sat on the floor in the back corner of the back of the
plane from Seoul to Atlanta, almost to the point of hysterical crying.

 

Oh God, I don’t want to go home. Why is it
this hard? Why does it have to be like this? I feel like such a failure. I am a disappointment. I
want something to show for my time there. I wanted an outcome. And while I have
a handful of stories, none really blow anything out of the water. They aren’t
“Hollywood-worthy” moment stories. What is everyone back home going to think?
Was I not strong enough? Was I not good enough? This wasn’t how it was supposed
to happen! IT WAS SO UNEXPECTED. I need to know what to do now, where to go,
what to say, God….

 

So I sat and listened. And through my tears and heartache,
this is what I heard.

 

 

I promise to love
you when you feel like no one else does. I promise
to never leave you. I promise that
when you seek ME with ALL that you have, you will have that joy again, and
everything else will fall away. I promise
that you can not fight this on your own. I promise
you are nothing without me.

 

And from that simple phrase, those two words, peace filled
my mind. Even if it was only for a second. It was enough to cling to. It was
enough for now.

 

 

 

I expected to be in Thailand for 3 months. I was gone for 3
weeks. And now I am back home in Boulder, Colorado. That is a BIG unmet expectation. I expected my
homecoming to be exciting and joyful, not confusing, unexpected, and full of
grief. But while sitting in my grief and heartache of not being with my team in
Thailand feels so good to my flesh, it’s kind of defeating the point.

 

God called me back home because I have some deeper heart
issues that need to be dealt with before I can be the best I can be out on the
field, and Thailand wasn’t a safe environment for me to work through it all. I’ve been running my head into the same wall over and over again, and the most unloving thing God could do is let me get away with it, let me get away with my sin and my disobedience. So, because He loves me, He brought me back home. And it hurts. It’s hard. But if I dwell on where I’m not, I will never
grow where I am. While pondering all of the “what ifs” and “if onlys” keeps
my mind occupied, it only leaves me with doubt and frustration. When I would
much rather be using a squattie potty instead of a western toilet, be washing
my clothes in a bucket rather than the washer, be eating spicy Thai food
instead of sandwiches, feeling dirty and grungy instead of clean and fresh,
living out of my 40 lb. backpack instead of my closet, and sweating incessantly
instead of sitting in my comfortable air conditioned house…HOME is where God wants
me. HOME – the place that I have run from for so long. And although I don’t
understand it AT ALL, He promised me that it’s going to be worth it. And
although it does not mean that the consequences will go away, it does mean that
the condemnation does.

 

Halfway around the world lies the one thing that I want.
I’ve discovered my innate desire for adventure, my passion for the hurting and
the lost and the broken, my longing to be used by the Father. I’ve learned that
I AM LOVED, despite what I feel. I’ve learned to LISTEN and OBEY. If I had to fly 11,000 miles around the
world for God to break down that final wall, well, I follow one pretty rad God.

 

I’m sick and tired of singing my same ol’ song off a broken
record. I’m fed up with doing the same thing over and over and expecting
different results. He’s giving me a new
song. And He is telling me this….

 

IT’S
TIME. This is your time. RISE UP, MY DAUGHTER. I promise to use you no
matter where you are in the world. And when I have refined you to perfection in
ME, when you are ready, I will send you.