Can I just sit with you for a second? Share some Blackberry lemonade and spill all that is on my heart? Cause if I don't share, then I will either burst or it will all fade, and I don't want either to happen.
I just got back from an amazing mission trip to Mexico with my church and Casa Por Christo. The group of 34 believers built 2 houses for two different families that needed them, shared food and the gospel with under-reached groups in Mexico, and had sweet fellowship that only those with a common bond can share. A trip that, if I'm totally transparent, I almost backed out of. Not because I did not want to go, but I felt as if my heart was not in it. I was struggling with so many different emotions that the doubt that sits on my shoulder and whispers lies almost had me convinced that, because I felt I had nothing else to give, poured out, and emotionally empty, I should not go. That I should take the week off and refill by staying home and not interacting with anyone. A very tempting idea for this introvert. But the voice of my parents, who instilled in me that if you say you are going to do something, you do it, told me I had to keep my word and go. I am very glad I listened to that voice and not my doubt. I might have felt empty that first day arriving at the site we would be building on, but when I left Mexico, I felt totally full. A fullness that only God can give. It wasn't like it happened all at once, but rather the more I worked and poured into not only the people we went to serve but also those that where there to serve with me, I found my own cup filling. It reminded me of the story in 1 Kings 17:8-16 and how the widow's oil and flour did not run out when she did what Elijah and God asked of her. The last night in Mexico at the end of the time of devotion, which that night had been on sacrifice, we partook in the sacrament of the LORD's Table. I sat there holding this empty cup before the juice was poured in, just looking at it. Thinking about how empty I had felt at the beginning of the week, how I was just like that plastic cup, frail, flimsy, and empty till Jesus. Once the juice that represents the blood of Jesus was poured into the cup, it was no longer empty. Then it was like the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear and said, "Stop pouring out in your own strength. Allow me to fill you so that when you pour, it is my strength that is just overflowing out of you. My daughter, rest in my strength, trust in the fact that I hold the pen and plans for your life. Stop trying to run ahead of me. Let me work in my time." That was the piece that made everything I had been feeling the last 3 weeks make sense. I was trying to do everything in my strength. I had to figure out what was next, and I had to make plans for what the future was to hold. Just before the trip, I told a friend that I had a feeling that God was doing something big in my life, but I did not know what, when, or how to prepare for it. I still have that feeling, but now I'm not trying to figure it out, but allowing myself to sit with that feeling and just doing what the last thing I know God asked me to do, which is trust Him and serve Him where I am planted. (This is still a work in progress, and I am nowhere near perfect in this.) Another thought that stuck with me from that last night was something the missionary, Jorge, said. Jorge was commenting on how flexible our group was. We had a plan for the week, but were open to that changing when the Holy Spirit led. He said, "You left room for God to move in your plans." I am not good at remembering to leave room for God in my plans. I like to know what is going on and for life to go according to my plan. There was a lot that happened this week that was not part of my plan. Conversations with people I did not know, a migraine that forced me to stop helping and actually leave the job site to try and sleep it off, a flight that was delayed and then did loops in the sky because of the weather, but they were all part of God's plan. A plan that He had since the foundation of the earth, a plan that included this frail, flimsy, and often failing young woman. God sent a constant physical reminder to me this week of His being in control, in the form of a bracelet that I was given by someone that I have never met before, someone who had no idea what my struggles are and have been. It's a pink bracelet that says "God is in control." I did not know how much I needed the physical reminder that God is in control till I was all by myself, struggling with a migraine so strong that lights and sounds hurt. I don't like to not finish a job, I don't like stopping when everyone else is working, yet I had no control over the pain in my head or how long it would last. Only God has that control; He used that to show me that I have to allow Him to have control and not force my plan when His plan is different. A lesson one would think I would have learned by now... maybe this time it will stick!
