I came back home last Saturday night from watching Sight & Sound: Esther with my missions team not sure what life looks like after you spend two weeks of waking up at 5 AM and sleeping between 12AM-2AM with a jam packed day of teaching English class, having devos, sharing life stories, doing worship, enjoying campfires, and playing games in our free time instead of napping. I’m only 5 days out now (6 days by the time you read this tomorrow), and it’s honestly been, well...I’ll just explain:
[DAY 1] SUNDAY - FRIENDSHIP
I’ll be honest, I overslept for online Sunday service and had to rewatch the stream later in the day. I woke up around noon to find that my voice was hoarse from overuse the past two weeks, and it felt good honestly to be sleeping back in my own bed again. Upon waking up, I missed my team and waking up to the hustle and bustle of sharing the space with people, but I finally had the chance to talk with one of my best friends and process with her some of the things God had shown me and our team.
Not only did I get to share with her, but she also shared with me the way God had been working in her own heart and life while I was away. I was amazed by how God was so present in her life like He always had been, and even when we weren’t even talking because we were both busy, God was working on our friendship and bringing us even closer. That’s one of the most amazing things about God: when you are pursuing Him, He will change each person in a friendship or relationship and that will change how they are as a unit.
We got to experience a deeper level of vulnerability and intimacy in our four years as friends not because of anything we did. We honestly didn’t intentionally work on our friendship, but we were both inviting God into our lives and God worked to bring us closer to Him and consequently closer to each other. She shared about how she would pray for me during missions, about how the trip was going, the students my team and I would meet, and even prayed over my future husband. I told her how I would bring her up in conversations because of how present I saw God in her life and in her family. I would use her as an exemplar for others when I talked to them about what it means to be transformed by God and to be used by God as a light to our non-believing friends and family.
It is amazing not only to have a friend like her, but it is even more meaningful to me that it’s a friendship founded in the goodness of God’s love and the constant pursuit of more of Him.
Friendships are a fickle thing. They change with time, circumstances, seasons, locations, feelings, relationship status, and it’s hard to build a meaningful and lasting one even given the right conditions. I am so grateful for the people in my life, and the fact that I can share with most of them the only thing that will never change: our relationship with God in Jesus.
As a question for you to reflect on: Do you have someone like that in your life?
Pray for one if not. Pray to continue to grow them if so.
Then, seek out community: at school, at church, even online, and be active in finding these people to walk through life with because it is so worthwhile.
[DAY 2, 3, & 4] MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY - REFLECTION & ROUTINE
Rest.
Sorry! It wasn’t anything super exciting, but my body just needed to rest.
I spent time by myself recuperating much of my social energy, and I worked on my bracelet ministry for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Making bracelets had been something I naturally loved to do because it was a way for me to express my creativity, create, and then see that all come to life. It made me so happy to see other people wear the bracelet because part of me (my time, my energy, my thoughts) had been put into each bead and knot.
If you were curious, I honestly thought about selling the bracelets as a way to make some money on the side this summer. However, I was in the midst of watching “Paper Chasers” , a sermon series by Transformation Church, and I forgot if it was Part 2 or Part 3, but suddenly I felt moved to do more than just make a few dollars for myself.
The thing about you is that when you are willing, God is ready to move you. God will not force you to move where you are not willing to go, but if you are looking for God’s Will then God will be happy to plant ideas in your mind and give you places to start. It started in January, after Higher Calling/SOON Movement’s annual conference, had ended. I had loved it so much, and in my head I had been longing to build community and growth in our relationship with God.
So, I originally planned to start a devotional time and space for my campus, but after much prayer I realized that this dream could go beyond campuses and go even across the country to where I had new friends from the West Coast (shoutout to Paul & Sam if you guys ever read this) and even other East Coast states like Georgia, Boston, and New Jersey. So, after discussing it with my staff, I decided to gather willing and faithful student leaders who would open up in prayer, start with questions, and guide the discussion along. This was all during our winter break and not out of any due obligations, and somehow we had a month-long devotional time for an hour every single day up until a week before school started.
It was amazing to see that simple dream turn into reality turn into real, fruitful fellowship.
So, when this dream to do a bracelet ministry out of what had been a silly hobby came to mind, I spent some time in prayer, discussed it with some friends, and before I knew it my friends were incredibly supportive and interested in joining me to support the cause. It is such an amazing thing to not only do kingdom-building work, but when your friends are part of that work, you feel the joy of sharing the blessings and rewards together.
Even if people just got a bracelet because it was cute, that was fine with me. Even unintentionally then, this ministry was bringing in the goodness of God to light as our Ultimate Provider and Jesus as our Prince of Peace in a tangible way. I also got to use the ministry as a chance to not only share about God but to share the gospel and the full healing and restoration of each person, each relationship, and the whole whole through Jesus.
A couple seed beads, some elastic string, and one willing person: that’s the humble offering I gave over to God and now I live in the blessing of that with all my friends and family who have joined me!
II.
I also spent some time intentionally creating a schedule for myself.
In the summer, it is so easy to waste your days lounging around with AC on full blast while binge watching whatever show is on Netflix. I didn’t feel like this summer should be spent with all the days like that, and it didn’t make me happy either. I loved having schedules throughout my time at mission, having allotted time for important events and moments to take place. Even “Free Time” was scheduled, and it made that free time important and valuable.
I decided to spend some time figuring out a schedule for myself.
What mattered to me? What did I want to accomplish daily?
What appointments did I need to fit in? What was better for me to follow?
For example:
What matters to me? What did I want to schedule in time for intentionally?
Reading the Bible & Praying/Spending Time with God
Spending time with my family
Working on my bracelet ministry
Walking my dog
Working out
Writing this blog
Doing my skincare
What did I want to prioritize/what factors play into it?
Time with God: I wanted to start my day off with that if possible for 30 mins
Walking my dog: I would be more willing to walk my dog if I was already dressed to go out so before I would go somewhere or after coming home from something was a good time to walk her
Writing this blog: later in the day gave me more time to process what happened
Working out: it had to be before a meal otherwise I would feel too full/bloated
This is a rough draft of the schedule I made:
Look at that! I ended up accomplishing everything I set out to do today (so far)!
Also, more than that: invite someone into this journey with you. Not everyone will be interested in scheduling their life, but I fortunately found a friend who wanted to add more of a routine and schedule to her life too and it was fun to see her joy in finding a rhythm and routine to her day too!
Everything's better with your friend and more achievable too!
I think this is also great practice for grad school and my future life which will probably be riddled with events, appointments, and other things that I’ll really need to intentionally keep track of. Life shouldn’t just happen to you, and it’s actually more freedom when you have a schedule because everything important gets done and the free time you do have is not bogged down by stress or anxiety.
[DAY 5] THURSDAY - COURAGE TO BE
Today I had my first driving lesson, and it was definitely not what I expected it to be. Driving is something I have avoided because of fear in all honesty, and in my previous blog post I talked about it when it comes to my summer plans.
I think fear has ruled a lot of my life, and the only way I can workout through it is if I have love. In the Bible it says, perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18) in the context of God’s love overcoming the fear of eternal punishment that no longer applies due to that love. As I was doing my bible study and prayer time (as scheduled), I spent some time in meditation. Prayer is when we seek after God, and meditation and silence is when we allow God to speak back to us.
In my prayer, God comforted me and my fears of being a bad driver. Not only did he give me the grace I needed to not burden myself with my perfectionist tendencies, but He also gave me (or so I think at least) instructions to pray before, during, and after driving. I think God told me that because the constant awareness of love - of God - will hopefully soothe my fears and anxiety. I don’t want to be prideful in my ability. I also don’t want to be self-deprecating and timid. I want to be fully confident in GOD who LOVES me and is for me.
CLOSING
I still have a lot more to process, but I just felt really moved to talk about life post-missions and handling that transition. I think everyone’s life and story post-mission can look so different, but I hope that we would all know that God loves each and everyone of us and will continue to push us and strengthen us for the good works He has in store for those who love Him.
(That’s us.)
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