Grateful

So driving home tonight, I had some of the sweetest time with God, and He brought some huge revelations to me, making a few things really ‘click’ for the first time since being back from China. The whole time it was happening, I just wished I had a recording device in my brain, so I could play it back for others to hear, because I just knew I wouldn’t be able to put into words what happened in that car. I’ve already tried to share it with a friend once, and pretty much faced what I figured I would… there was just no way I could figure out how to explain in words what I experienced. I doubt I’ll be able to do it justice here either, but every now and then I can communicate better through writing, so we’ll give it a try.

So recently I’ve been pursuing a few different job opportunities. I’ve been interviewing with a church for a children’s ministry position, and I talked today with someone about an internship opportunity with a ministry in Ireland. Earlier this week, I was stressed beyond all get out about this church position—wanting to be open to whatever God wanted but struggling with fear that I would make the wrong decision and I guess, ultimately, with some distrust of God about His plans being the best. I wasn’t myself for quite some time… But yesterday, after meeting again with the pastor, I was overwhelmed with peace that God was going to lead me in whichever way He wanted. I had been so anxious that I would make a decision out of selfishness and mess things up… but I knew in that moment, that as I was seeking God, He would really lead me, and I would know what to do. Then today I met with the gentleman I refer to as ‘the Ireland man’—discussing that opportunity. It sounds like an incredible ministry, and I was excited about the possibilities there. I talked to my brother on the way home tonight, telling him about the different opportunities and just catching him up on the things going on. And for some reason, when I got off the phone with him, I just felt this surge of gratitude… I realized that I was so excited for whatever God has next for me—no matter what that is. I was reminded again of the adventure of life and how beautiful that adventure is… including the not knowing part. I just felt this excitement about life that I haven’t felt in a while. And during these grateful moments, I realized something else. I am not the girl I was before I went to China. Before going to China, if you were with me at all or were reading this blog at the beginning… you know that I was absolutely terrified about going. I was basically a nervous wreck for the months leading up to it, as well as for a significant amount of my time there. In fact, it wasn’t just China that scared me. Life was just scary to me. Carmen did an awesome job of challenging me, bringing me out of my comfort zone, and helping me get past that fear a little bit… but I was still pretty scared… insecure… and many other different not-so-wonderful things. Now I won’t pretend that I have none of that left. But as I thought back even just on the past week, I was rather intrigued… Thinking over this church ministry interview process and possibilities and this Ireland potential, I realized how much less scary life is to me. In fact, the Ireland opportunity was one of the most exciting things I could think of, and I was rather hoping that would be the door I was supposed to go through… yes… I *wanted* God to open the door of me going to another foreign country… to be involved in a ministry with which I’ve never had any experience… working with people I don’t know from Adam… That was exciting to me… not scary, not something that invoked the, ‘Oh no, I hope God doesn’t want me to do that one’ emotion… but exciting and wonderful. I then thought about the desire I’ve had at times even to go back to China and go to language school there… or to go to South Africa to work with a ministry I heard about there… and even just the different way that I interact with strangers and the more freedom I feel to be myself and let people know me… life has such a lighter feel to it… like I’m not so tense and uptight… like I can enjoy it. All of these realizations may seem insignificant to you, and maybe this is part of the reason I feel like I can’t explain what I experienced in that car tonight… but they are huge for me. It just hit me that God allowed me to go through the pain and struggles of China—not only to somehow use the broken, messed up, struggling individual that I was there to somehow touch the lives around me because He is so gracious—but also to grow me and to bring me over a massive obstacle of fear in my life. I don’t know if you read my blog post about the lotus flower, but it talks about how the lotus flower grows up through the mud and mire in the water, towards the sunlight, until it rises above the water as a stunning, beautiful, pure flower. The lotus flower can’t skip the murky, muddy stage… it would never make it to the top of the water if it didn’t push through the mud. Likewise, God takes us through the mud in life in order to bring us up above the water. In the middle of my time in China, I didn’t know why I was there or why I had to struggle so much. But looking back, I see the way that He shaped me and brought me through the mud of fear in my life. I never could have done that shaping on my own. Yes, I realize that I have much shaping left… but I am so grateful that God allowed me tonight to see some of the shaping that He did through my pain and struggles this past year. The freedom of living without the kind of fear I used to live with… it’s a beautiful thing. Life has a sort of freeing joy that I may have never known without my China adventure.

I can only begin to imagine and be excited about the growth He wants to bring through His next adventure.

He is so good.

So ultimately, as I read over what I just wrote… I know that I have failed yet again to really express the incredibly bright light, radiant joy, overwhelming peace, and beautiful gratitude that God gave me tonight. But know that He blows my mind… I know there are both mountaintop and valley experiences, and I won’t always ‘feel’ as shaped, renewed, refreshed and free as I do right now. But it seems that with every mountain God brings me to the top of, it gets easier to start climbing the next one… maybe it’s because He has shown Himself so faithful to bring us to the top of the mountains before—no matter how hard the climb and how long the journey… maybe it’s because each mountain gives us conditioning and training that make us a little bit stronger for the next climb… maybe it’s a combination of those two and more… but whatever the reason, it’s a beautiful thing! So let’s keep climbing the mountains… and maybe we’ll even reach the point where we get enough perspective to enjoy the climb and not just the tops. ;)