redeemed: the thoughts of a missionary.

I guess that I was warned.

I guess that He told me, that He told me that it wouldn’t be easy.

As I sit here and begin to think on the what if’s. If I’m being completely honest within myself, I am struggling. If I’m going to be honest with you, my life would have been “good” if I stayed in college, it would have been fun, it would have been exciting, and I would have been surrounded by people who I could live life with continually for 4 years, who would love me and challenge me and above all, love Jesus with me.

It wouldn’t though, have been full, it wouldn’t have been to the fullness of what God has for me, or for the people that He is sending me to. It would have been “good” but not full. Not His highest and best.

But that doesn’t mean that it still isn’t hard at times, that it still isn’t hard…

Selfishly I want to be with my friends, selfishly I want to be here in Texas with my family. And the longer that I go for, the longer amounts of time that I leave, it just gets harder. Tonight as I began to accept more and more of what Jesus has for me, the more I wept asking Him to take it away. Because it’s hard. Because I want to be surrounded in community, because we were created to be in communion with one another, and in all these transition periods, I have never felt more alone. A thing that may not be spoken about from missionaries very often (because we want to give this idea that it’s all good and that we are so Holy that we can endure anything… hahaha we’re funny) is that we get lonely. That we need support and calls of encouragement to keep on doing what Jesus has called us to do, because we get tired. We get worn out. It’s not easy to always be the pursuer and wait on others to build you up in the body of Christ, because honestly, that area lacks in our life. We can’t always just dig deep into a place knowing we are soon to be uprooted yet again. So those encouragements become so beautiful and refreshing when they happen. I mean as people we can be pretty consumed in our own lives, I know that I can be guilty of that. But what I think and have seen so much in what I do, and others as well. We all are guilty of follow through. That it’s easy to forget about people when they aren’t in front of you. Just as I am sent out, it’s still hard to accept that I may not always get to be surrounded by people at my side.

That’s a hard reality.

A reality that I am struggling with on this journey of life with Jesus. He has to become my home, otherwise I will never be satisfied. As exciting and crazy as this may be, its still hard. That is the only word that I can come to terms with. Difficult.

Luke 9:23, “And He was saying to them ALL, if anyone wished to come after Me, he ust deny himself, and take up his cross DAILY and follow Me.

Wait what?!

Yeah, He is Lord. And if we want Him, that means we take all our comforts, all of what we think that we deserve, that are our rights and people, ALL of us…pick it up, lay it at His feet and say that, “Abba, your ways are HIGHER than mine!”

Now, that’s a fun one to read when I want to quit, when I think I have rights to these things all the time.

and these things, remind my why i really love what i am called to do. Jesus is worth it and so are His people!