I’ve been struggling. God’s been stretching me on the World Race, and the last couple of months have been really tough. Here’s a breakdown:
Dominican Republic started off with 12-hour days for the first couple of weeks; we did a tremendous amount of construction ministry (e.g. manual labor); and we were stationed in the mountains outside of Santiago, so going into the city was impossible without a ride (and it was a very long ride indeed — about half-an-hour just get off the mountain). We didn’t have much access to internet, I was really behind on my blog, and I was still going through the ABANDONMENT stage of Kingdom Journeys.
Bolivia was tough for a number of reasons: We were plagued by illness, and the location (in a desert) made for extreme conditions — the air is very cold there (because of the altitude), but the sun is also very strong (also because of the altitude); there was also very little shade, and the worst sunburn of my life happened our first few days there and then lasted for about two weeks after. My lips blistered all over, my face (or half of it — the bottom-half below my sunglasses) looked like a bright red beet, and it HURT. Man, did it hurt.
Some other interesting (e.g. crazy) things happened in Bolivia too. One of those things: God revealed to me who I’m going to marry. Or, I thought He revealed that. I’m still praying about it (I’ve had some doubts about what He meant in the revelation), but without going into all the details, let me just say that trying to discern if something this huge is from the Lord has been really, really difficult. My heart has been breaking and re-breaking, absolutely convinced that this can’t be true, that this situation could never work, that this man could never love me. I guess that’s because I love him. I do, and it sucks because I’ve been in love with him from the first time he spoke to me, and as much as I’ve tried to forget him — and believe me, I’ve tried — I haven’t been able to.
To add heaviness to heartache, I’ve been remembering a lot of things from past relationships — memories I’d buried and would have, in all honestly, liked to have forgotten. But God isn’t letting me forget them. He’s making me deal with them. That hasn’t been fun, either.
Our month in Peru has been wonderful but also full of growth in areas that I was not prepared for. I’ve had to surrender a lot of stuff to God, and at one point I felt pretty defeated, like my heart had been dragged through the mud. I was getting homesick, and I felt forgotten by a lot of my friends and family. This whole thing — this mission called the World Race — has been harder than I ever expected. It’s not easy for me to admit that — to admit any of this — but I have to, so there you go.
There’s a band called Tenth Avenue North, and my favorite song by them is “The Struggle.” In the song, the singer says: “We are free to struggle. We’re not struggling to be free.” The more I think about the lyrics, the more I realize how true they are. We’re free in Jesus. If we believe in Him and confess it with our mouths, our hearts are no longer slaves to sin, to the world, and to the ruler of this world. No, we’re free. But God still allows us to struggle.
Allows. That’s a funny word, considering I never want the struggle while I’m actually going through it. But when I come out on the other side, I always look back across the chasm and can fully see why God needed me to cross it. And deep down I really want that struggle. I need it, for whatever reason, and I trust Him completely to take me through it (even though that “trust” part is really hard for me sometimes — as it’s been the last couple of months).
In honor of what the Lord has been teaching me and all the chasms He’s been having me cross lately, here’s Tenth Avenue North’s “The Struggle.” Enjoy, and remember: Potatoes are Peruvian. 🙂
THE STRUGGLE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSH3Q6O_7w8&feature=kp
