i know it has been a while, but i honestly was trying to think of what to say. there is so much to write about but actually putting it into words...well that's the tricky part. where to start? well i headed to panama for the second time and to just say in the simplest of forms...it was AMAZING!! it still amazes me all that i learned on this trip, but also all that God reminded me of. you see, i'm very much the kind of person where i feel that i have to know everything that is happening in my life. i create to-do lists every single day without fail. i map out what my week is going to look like, even my month. for me it's so that i don't double book something or someone, and i can make time for other things. but when it comes to my relationship with God...there is just no easy way to do it.
most things in foreign countries are extremely slow. nothing really starts on time or ends on time. for a task oriented person this can become a problem very quickly. it was in these moments though, when God just spoke to me about refreshing. this word has been on my heart for a good 2 years now. i never really understood it until this trip. refreshing literally means having the power to restore freshness, vitality, energy, etc. this was my first trip as a leader, and i was very much nervous. a lot of the kids i had grown up with or was friends with their older siblings, and i just didn't know how it would look as not only being a leader for the first time, but also an intern.
with all that in mind, there was this room that we all met in every night to go over things that had happened in our day, and things for the next day to come. to say the least i have never seen a room like that. the first day we walked in, i know for me, i questioned what was i doing? was i out of my mind? the floor was red and looked extremely muddy in certain parts. and dead bugs littered corners and under windows. the walls were an off white from the years of fading and having no paint jobs preformed. there were 2 pictures on the wall, one of a creepy looking Jesus and the other of a creepy looking man who we would later find out was the Catholic Pope. but it was in this room where i was reminded and refreshed. it was also the room where i heard God so clearly. my BattleRoom...
leaving that room every night was hard for me. this past year i have felt powerless. that everything in my little world didn't belong to me and it was being stripped right out from under me. my whole world was crashing and falling apart. i needed to make a change in my life so i did. but i still felt that something was missing. i wanted to feel that cool breeze when God walked pasted me, i wanted to feel his arms holding me when i was facing the hardest months of my life...i just wanted more. it was in this room that we deemed our BattleRoom where i found this clarity. God reminded me that i didn't have to know all the answers i just had to know the answer to the right question at the right time. that He was there for all of those hard moments. and he reminded me of all these things while i was holding the hand of a girl who was facing all those things on her very first missions trip.
i not only bonded with this girl, but she reminded me of the simplicity of God's love. you see i love this girl like she in some way belongs to me. i wanted to take all those things that she was feeling and throw them in the trash. God spoke to me in those moments and said: "you see you are my arms right now...you are the hands that are drying her tears with those tissues...you are my love to her. Carolyn i sent people in your life at the time that you needed them because they were my hands, my cool breeze, my arms, my love. i have told you i will never leave you nor will i forsake you, so why would you think otherwise." i was dumbfounded and in many ways, i still am. but all i know is that i got my refreshing wind. i fill full and complete for now. i know it doesn't last forever, but i am in awe and thanksgiving for the times where i do have these moments.
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