Not really sure where to start.
I had one last girls night with Holly and Liza on Wednesday night and while we sat eating frozen yogurt Liza asked, "so how are you doing spiritually right now?"
Shoot. That question.
How am I doing spiritually?
"well," I started responding, "it feels like God is trying to poison me."
This whole time I've been in DC I have known that I have known this is a specific period of preparation. God has made it perfectly clear that these months are to be spent in preparation for Africa. And not preparing as in purchasing our consumables and buying bug repellant, though that has been part of it. But the preparation He had in store for me was emotionally and spiritually. Preparing myself in Him. That's what He's been trying to do in me these past five and a half months.
And looking back on my time here...all I can think of is, is that I have failed. I have massively failed. In one area in particular....
Back in March I went to a women's conference and the guest speaker spoke with me privately and what she said came straight from the Lord's mouth. She said, "it is going to be up to you to set the emotional tone for your household. Your family, knowingly or not, is going to be looking to you for emotional stability. Like it or not, that burden rests with you."
It was like a punch to the gut. I wanted to shout at her, "No! Not that, anything but that!"
As soon as she said it I could feel the Holy Spirit convicting me. Driving that point home deep into my heart. Like salt on an open wound. Ouch. Crap. This? Come on! You know how bad I suck at this!
I don't want to have the responsibility of maintaining the emotional stability within our household...somedays I can barely hold myself together!
Being a mature grown up is rough. Dying to self is even harder. A lesson I don't feel I learned with grace these past few months. These past five months have been an absolute roller coaster of crazy. I'm talking'...everything that could go wrong, did. Everything unexpected that could happen, also did. Lots of opportunities for God to get in there and teach me and stretch me. And I just don't feel like I've made any progress.
Instead of handling the unexpected with grace and flexibility...I'd fall to pieces. More times than not I would let my circumstances get the best of me. I would respond MY way, instead of God's way. And each time I did that, God would show me how my reactions were/would affect the girls and Isaak. Every time I would start to unravel over something else that went wrong, He would show me how my behavior and attitude was affecting the family.
He'd whisper, "Melissa, I have equipped you to respond differently than this."
And a couple days ago as I was walking the girls to the nearby park by our hotel He brought a vision to my mind. I am an incredibly visual person, it's how God made me, and knowing this most times the Lord will speak, teach, drive home points, encourage, and convict me through something visual. I was walking through the grass and all of a sudden I was just assaulted with this vision of a person in a mental hospital being fed their pills. The patient was so agitated and fighting to not take her meds. She was clenching her mouth together to keep the doctor from putting the pills in. She was wiggling her head from side to side in her desperate attempt to not take them. Because she didn't want them, she didn't think she needed them. They were as good as poison to her. But there is the doctor not giving up. He has his hands on her cheeks squeezing her mouth together to try to open her lips to get the pills down and when he finally gets one in she just spits it back out.
I also thought of the scene from Steel Magnolias where Julia Roberts character was being force fed juice because her sugar was low as she was a diabetic. But even though she needed the juice, it was good for her, it was LIFE for her, she fought drinking it. She shook her head and kept her mouth shut tight and when Sally Field finally got a little bit in she would spit it back out.
"That is what you're doing to me," the Lord would whisper. "You are spitting back out at me the very life that you need."
"that's because it feels like poison".
Dying to self ain't easy. Choosing Jesus' life giving ways instead of living for myself is hard. I hear Christians prattle on about how good it feels when they finally give Jesus the reigns of their life and let go of control and all that super spiritual jazz. But really, sometimes, a lot of the times, it feels like poison. It feels like death. All the times that I've let Jesus in to clean out some junky areas of my heart, it doesn't feel good. It hurts. And it's painful. And messy. And I have to grit my teeth to tolerate the pain. Because, again, dying to self ain't easy. And yeah it feels good later on down the road, but in the moment, even though I admitted myself to the hospital and I asked for treatment, being giving God's life sustaining pills feels like poison. And I choke on them and try to spit them out because changing is hard.
But there He is, encouraging me and reminding me saying, "I have equipped you to respond differently. I have equipped you to live differently. Everything you need you already have....in Me."
So, here I am, five and a half months already come and gone, Africa is just a day away. I can either beat myself up for failing or I can take hold of His life and try again. And while I am not as far along in my walk with the Lord as I hoped to be right now...I'm still walking. By golly it may not be pretty or graceful at times, and each step might feel like torture, but by His grace (cause it certainly isn't by my own) I will never stop walking. I will never stop walking with my Lord.
2 comments:
What I love about this is you see it as a failure but you don't have any idea what God has in store and what HE did IN you during these five months. You can't begin to imagine what He prepared in you for Africa....
We are stubborn people. We learn in our weakness and failure. Because of the past five months the truth of what was spoken to you in March has settled INTO your very soul. Between the past five months and the vision (LOVE that, by the way), every time in Africa you'll be tempted to throw your hands up and give in you will be reminded of what it was like before. And like Jesus, who endured the cross because of the joy set before Him, you too, can endure the self-denial for the joy of knowing your family (and yourself!) are better off. Let His Spirit flow. It doesn't have to be you, just open your palm, breath, small prayers: 'help me, Father!', and then move.
In HIM you live, and move, and have your being.
Greater is He who is in YOU than he who is in the world.
We have a HIGH PRIEST who knows and has been tempted and we enter His throne room boldly!
He has never left you, and He will not forsake you, even in Africa!
Love mercy, walk justly, be humble.
You are the girl on fire and it is HIS fire that bones in your bones like it did for Jeremiah.
i love you.
there is no failure in Christ. The old is gone, the new is come. And coming. And inside you. Breath.
You bare HIS light inside you. He abides IN you as you abide in HIM.
He has given you this responsibility and He is faithful. He will not leave you alone, or abandon you. He will come to you. He will equip you.
He will. He already has.
i love you. He, in you, is stronger, Is capable.
love you, friend. love the expectancy I have in watching Him unveil Himself in you in this Africa season of yours.
well, my daughter who the Lord gave me to love and to raise and to cherish, the very things God is teaching you before you go to Africa are probably the very things He would have been teaching you if you weren't going to africa because they are lessons everyone needs to learn at some point in their lives and that point is right now for you. fortunately, you are part of a trinity and you do not have to do anything on your own, including setting the tone for your family. remember that Isaak is still the spiritual leader for your family no matter what country you live in and that he still has his responsibilities for his wife and children because those don't change with jobs, location, etc. and you have yours. women tend to paint themselves into a corner and put more pressure on themselves to be noble and perfect and this ideal of a woman that even God has not called them to be. so feel free to fail occasionally. God's there to support you no matter what. it's gonna be ok! and you;ll keep learning and getting stronger through it all. also, besides yourself, you have God and isaak to rely on - the rest of your trinity. so even though you may be the one who sets the emotional tone for your family, that's something you probably have already been doing anyway because that is something many or most women do in their homes. and you still don't have to do it alone because you have the Lord and your husband to support you. be sure to call on them both! and me! i am only a long distance phone call away.
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