You see, I'm a very strong person- stubborn, proud, independent, controlling, perserverant, a fighter...whatever flavor you want it to have. These traits have progressed from possessing a sin nature, remnants of the life I've had, and just the personality God created me with. Ever since I can recall, if there was something I was passionate about or put my heart to pursue, I'd do everything in my power to fight to achieve or win the battle for whatever it was. Example (not me boasting, but rather displaying my own stupidity): my senior year in college. I was determined (for personal, but mainly scholarship reasons) to finish university in 4 years. I took 27 hours (the normal limit is 18) my last semester, taught preschool, was a Resident Assistant to a hall of girls, co-lead a home group at my church, and was the leader of the Habitat for Humanity group on campus... My average night's sleep was around 4 hours, and by the end of all that I crashed. But I was proud of myself- I'd done what I'd set out to do... And life has always been looked at like this for me, through these black and white lenses. If you feel God placing a burden on your heart, go, give it all you have, and don't pay attention to the pain! And so I went, three years ago, to Kosovo with this mindset... what ensued was what has brought me to the broken, more humbled state I'm at today.
I boarded a plan bound for Holland for two weeks of training with a severe stomach virus. The sickness persisted the entire two weeks there and continued (being added to with a nice addition of bronchitis and laryngitis) on into my second two weeks of training in Albania. I lost so much weight, couldn't talk, barely could climb the stairs to where our meetings were being held, or even open a bottle of water. I was utterly pathetic! The mission organization I'd joined had a staff meeting as to whether they thought they should send me home or not (after I'd gotten up to share my testimony and just stood there weeping). Not really someone you'd want on your field, huh? And through the tears and questioning, all God would tell me was this: 'Your outside illnesses are going to match your inside heart issues until you deal with them!' You see, I'd not only boarded a plane to go somewhere, I also boarded a plane to leave somewhere. I was leaving my mom who was about to have a dangerous surgery that the doctors didn't expect her to live through, a brother who was getting married soon, and a whole slew of other things... Going to an unknown place, not knowing a soul in that part of the world. And I was 'okay'- I decided I'd face these things as they came and ignore them in the meanwhile.
I eventually did get better from those awful bugs and illnesses, but that time in training foreshadowed my next three years. God laid me flat! I can probably go back through all those years and take you month by month to huge, painful happenings that knocked me to my knees. I often put it like this in my journal: 'I feel like I stand up, only to have You knock me down again.' And not just certain situations, but it felt like nothing was in my power or reach to achieve. Example: it's always been a dream of mine to be fluent in another language. Now was my chance! I was sooo excited. I started to catch on quick; picking up phrases and words. People even told me I had a perfect accent and if I would stay longer my Albanian would be flawless... In spite of fighting with all my strength for two years to fully learn the language, it didn't happen. Crazy circumstances that were just downright absurd happened instead, and at the end of three years I felt so stupid and like a failure. Or another example: it's also been another dream of mine to have a house that I could decorate and be excited to live in. When I came back home to the US to raise more support, after living there one year, I spent a lot of time finding bargains on light weight things to fill another suitcase with to take back. I'd originally gone over with only one suitcase. Taking two back this time wasn't too much to ask, right? After all, all the other people I'd been working with had brought like 37 crates or even shipped a huge container... In Paris the flight crew wouldn't let me even try to pay to take it- it had to stay in Paris. My friend tried to ship me the stuff, but one box never made it and the other was in a plastic bag with most of the things missing. That blow felt huge- why can someone bring an entire household of things over, and God doesn't allow my one measly suitcase to make it?!?
These are merely two examples of dozens of ridiculous things that happened during the past few years. And it all left me a bit bitter and questioning God last winter. The last straw was water running down the walls of my bedroom (newly painted, nonetheless) and freezing. It was mainly only doing this in my bedroom... I can't express the pain and death I felt inside me at that moment. My failures and shortcomings during my time on the mission field weren't because I wasn't strong or smart enough- it was because Someone had allowed them to come, and I needed to fail! That left me a bit angry and unsettled, asking a lot of questions that began with: 'why...' Through a medical crisis, I ended up back home, going to counseling. During this time God began to remove the blindfold from my eyes.
It's too long to detail all the lessons and things God has revealed to me during the past months of healing and processing. But those verses are beginning to make sense. God didn't take me overseas to become fluent in a language or make a perfect home or be a part of His salvation to millions- He took me there to mold me, shape me to be more like Him, and yes, break me. Break me of my own strength, my independence, my pride, my idol of success... And He's been teaching me to rest, to be still, to quite striving, to release control, and just trust (Him mostly, but also others). It's been a long process, and I'm still quite in the midst of it all. But the verse hanging over my bed, that used to haunt my heart, is becoming my refuge:
"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."
- II Corinthians 12:9
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