I Should Be In Romania Right Now

The below blog was written about a month ago. I never finished it until now and my words from a month ago are ironically ministering to my heart as I sit and wait to launch onto the field already a week late. I’m supposed to be in Romania right now.

---

 

Hello!

 

I’m writing from a coffee shop in Fort Smith, AR. A place I feel seemingly displaced and have been asking the Lord to show up for me here. Ironically I just ran into the pastor of my sister, Courtney’s, church. It was his church that first showed me the presence of the Holy Spirit and started this crazy faith journey.

 

Coincidence? No way.

 

God has been doing funny little things like that for me for a about a month now and as I reflect on his constant pursuit of my heart against all my running and hiding I am humbled.

 

He never leaves.

 

If anything, we leave Him.

 

You probably think that missionaries have really strong unending faith. You probably think I do and most days I do too, but I fall like the rest of us and I struggle and wrestle and I forget God sometimes even when His work is the work I’m chasing.

 

A relationship requires communication and time spent in order to thrive. I know that, but in the rush of taking care of everyone else, I neglected to care for my relationship with Him pursuing pleasures in an effort to comfort my wavering heart. I filled the time I should have been spending with him with just about anything else – food, friendship, entertainment, even ministry.

 

That famous line “bind my wandering heart to thee,” hits me every time. “Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love,” – Ain’t that the truth.

 

I’m convicted. I have been for weeks and this is the written process of me crawling back to him and telling the world that though I fail, He never fails me and if I fall a thousands times, it’s a thousand opportunities to let Him pick me back up.

 

He’s worth it. I know it. He’s worth everything we give up for him. I know that too. Now if my heart could catch up with my head, we’d be in business!

 

I wrote a little chorus last night that says “Hallelujah to the one I love, you must be worth it for all I’ve given up. Hallelujah to the one I trust, you must be worth it for all I’ve given up.”

 

Can I be honest for a second? Sometimes my flesh still wins and I wonder if his commands are actually true. Sometimes I stick my heels in and say “Ok I’ll be obedient,” but everything in me still wants to sin and give in to my flesh.

 

And then I’m faced with the question – Is he worth it? Does he have the right to rule over my life?

 

And the answer is always yes. The creator has the final say over HIS creation.

 

In my running and struggle and apparent battle wounds from the enemy, the distance from the Lord has been felt. My fault of course. I was beginning to feel the impact of the arrows while we were still on the field at final debrief. It’s a time when Squad Leaders are supposed to be top of their game because we run debrief and “work” it in a sense.

 

I was moving through the motions and breathing in and out but I was hurting inside. I was convicted and felt far from him and honestly was listening to the enemy far more than I should have. That’s when a friend shared a vision of the Lord shaking me with both hands on my shoulders. The Lord was asking me to return, calling me beloved and begging me to wake up.

 

He knew I was wandering. He knew I needed help. How kind to show someone that vulnerable piece of me and prompt them to deliver that secret message no one could have known.

 

He sees.

 

I’m pondering that now. I’m currently reading Genesis with a friend and the part where they are naked and hiding stuck out to me so wildly. God doesn’t rebuke them, he appears to them and the text is so beautiful. It says, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze…..So the Lord God called out to the man.”

 

“At the time of the evening breeze” – makes you sense that calm, warmth at sunset. Can you imagine the sound of God walking at sunset towards you? He didn’t come in fury or anger. He came on the evening breeze to ask man, “Hey where are you?”

 

It slays me every time. God is omnipotent. He didn’t need to ask. He already knew. But just like you call out to a little child who thinks they’ve fooled you in a game of hide and seek, God calls to Adam and lets HIM respond.

 

He seeks for us.

 

Then, He waits patiently, never forcing or making, simply wanting.

 

Possibly the most beautiful recent display of seeking came in the form of an email nearly a decade late.

 

If you know my story, you know that I’ve written a few letters to myself and stuck them in wine bottles and sent them out to sea off the coast of Maine, where I’ve summered with my family since I was little.

 

In my last month on the field, I got a response from the man who found my bottle back in 2012. Text me and I’ll send the email because it’s really a lovely response all around, careful and written with an air of nostalgia that feels book worthy. He’s a writer too! He found it in 2012 and hung on to it. Recently in reflection he decided to respond.

 

That decision for Him to respond feels weighty to me now. Why would I be hearing from Him 10 years later? Truthfully, I think it has a lot to do with God wanting to seek me in a season of struggle. That note was written by a non believing hurting young girl straight out of college with direction towards nothing other than a successful career. I had begun asking that question “Is this really what being an adult is all about? Is this it? This is what I’ve worked my whole school life for?” I was lonely, wanting more out of life, wanting to contribute more to the world around me and wanting to feel connected to someone, something anything. You can hear the desperation in my short note directed to my future self with a line like: “I hope I am doing something wonderful in the world and I hope I find a life that I am proud to live.”

 

Siting in a taxi in Jordan I was sprung back to reality realizing God had delivered on so much of those desperate pleas since then. Ten years later and I’m living in his light and goodness and salvation pursuing my dreams of exploration and giving back to humanity. Wow.

 

 

---

 

 

Now, here I am reporting live from my bed at my parents house awaiting test results from a peculiar line that showed up on my stomach and resting after an annoyingly aggressive onset of COVID. I’m questioning a lot these days. I want to be on the field SO BADLY. I want to hug every new squad member and get to know their hearts. I want to roam the streets of Romania (get it? 😉 ) and scream out who Jesus is. I want to lead from a humble heart that loves showing people who God made them to be.

 

I’m ready. I want to GO.

 

But here I am, watching as God patiently allows little opportunities for me to grow in patience and humility and to understand that His love for me has little to do with doing and more to do with being.

 

A quick insert from my devotional I love reads:

 

“The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him. The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him. We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battlings. Are we being more devoted to service than to Jesus Christ?”

 

I hope that the next time I am writing to you, it is from Romania. Please join me in prayer that all test results come back swiftly and without warning so that I can join my squad on the mission field where my heart has already been for a week. Also pray that God’s will would be done in my waiting.

 

He is good. That we know for sure.