Disclaimer: this post and whatever may follow it is a conglomeration of thoughts built up over the last few months and probably longer. These are things I've fasted about, prayed about, meditated on, cried over, discussed with some and hidden from others. It will be fairly transparent and you can judge me if you want to. But rather than judge, I pray that you would use it to examine your own life and look at the things God might want to be teaching you at the moment. There, disclaimer done.
Before leaving Ukraine, I was advised by my mentor and her mentors to return to the States and take about 6 months off before making any serious decisions about my future and where I might end up. I couldn't fathom six months and why I might need that time, but now I see the wisdom in it. Upon returning to the States, I kind of went into a freefall of emotions: sorrow over leaving Ukraine and the people there; joy at being home; confusion about pleasing people vs. pleasing God and what that might mean in regard to my decision making; hurt from losing supporters; painful relationships in which I wanted reconciliation; feeling that no one here understood me and people there judged my leaving; guilt over making decisions that were right for me and my needs at the moment; and the list goes on. Simply put, I felt quite overwhelmed by the pressure to make the "right" decision, knowing that it wouldn't be right in someone's eyes. Ultimately I made a decision in favor of my own emotional and spiritual needs, even though that decision went against what almost everyone in my mission's world was telling me. And that decision sent me into another spiral of emotions: letting people down; disappointing them; thwarting their plans for growth; not filling a need; not going where they thought I might be most useful, etc., etc.
And so the dry spell began. Guilt weighed me down and the schedule I had built for myself weighed me down and the pressure to prove myself weighed me down and the dryness descended. How do you carve out extended time with God when traveling non-stop? Since I returned in December, I've been gone 10 weeks. Some of it has been good time with God, but most of it hasn't. Most has been my plodding along and surviving simply because He's good and faithful. You see, I'm not strong. Sometimes I'm stronger than other times, but not strong in the way I used to think I was. Really, I'm quite weak, and out of that weakness He has chosen to use me. I praise God that He's shown me my weakness and that He accepts me inspite of it. He's shown me that I don't have to appear strong to others, because His opinion is the only one that matters. And even when I'm truly, truly weak- like I have been recently- that He uses it as a beautiful time of refinement. He's testing me, trying me, molding me, making me. He's shaping and changing my heart and my mind into what He wants it to be- purging me of the filth within. So much of the world's idea of strength(and the Christian church is included in that)is so false. He's showing me bit by bit, as he strips layer after layer, that strength comes through humility, through transparency, through honesty, through giving up "rights"- and it's only found in Him.
"YOU are my strength when I am weak, YOU are the treasure that I seek, YOU are my all in all."
