Choosing Life

(written the night of October 2)

About this time one year ago today, I stepped onto South Asian soil ready to spend the next year and 10 months serving the Father here and loving the people He put in my path.  This past year has gone in a way I never could have imagined, filled with some really high highs and some really low lows.  I think one of the things the Father likes us to do is to remember how He has been faithful in the highs and the lows.  That is what this blog is about.  I’m sure it is going to be long, so I apologize.  Some of the things I share may be concerning to some, but I am mainly writing this for me.  So that I can remember what He has brought me through and how He has set my feet on His Solid ground and showed me His peace in a way I had never known previously.

The first few months were filled with many new, exciting things.  There were “built-in friends” to get to know, language to study, a city of several million to figure out, and the length of my time here was laid out with wonderful possibilities.  Yes, there were hard things during these months, but they were filled with hope and promise.  After I finished formal language study, what would the Father do?  What might I have the privilege of being involved in in His Work?  I couldn’t wait to being and see what amazing things would happen.

Then I moved to my current city, a city filled with a type of stifling, disparaging, oppressive spiritual darkness.  This “City of Joy” really is a misnomer.  Idols on every street corner, beggars with a hand always out, children and families living on the street, and millions of people living in the terrible conditions of slums left me feeling anything but joy. 

Along with what I was seeing and experiencing around me, slowly other things in my life began to fall apart.  During formal language study time, I was faithful to read the Word and pr@y daily.  The longer I spent in this city, the more I moved away from the Father.  My time in the Word and pr@yer time became less frequent and more an item to check off my list for the day than a sweet time spent with my Heavenly Father.  I felt useless and, amazingly enough, unneeded.  Everywhere I looked, people were living in great darkness, but I felt powerless to do anything to help them.  My lack of proficiency at language kept me from being able to share with those who might actually listen and my neighbors who spoke English seemed to care less about what I wanted to share.  My thoughts turned dark.  I began to think things that we not true, about myself and about other people.  I was so paranoid that I was always doing something wrong—that I was a problem.  Everything about the Work I was supposed to be doing wasn’t turning out right.  There were problems at every turn.  Previously always an optimist, I now wasn’t sure if things were ever going to get better.  I felt like there was a war going on inside of me.

My mom came in June and brought with her some blessed relief and happiness.  Always my confidant, it was a blessed relief to share some of the things in my heart.  However, then she left and there I was, feeling sadness and anger, with the prospect of over a year remaining before I could return home to the States.  To be quite honest, what I desperately wanted to do was just get on a plane and return back to Missouri, back to teaching, back to my old life.

I would say I hit the bottom mid-August.  A sweet friend of mine confronted me with my sin, my pride, my desire to people-please above Gsd please.  It was that night that I knew things had to change.

I reread my journal since moving to this city and realized that I had been spiraling down until I got to my current state.  I was putting pleasing people above pleasing the Father.  I had allowed my relationship with Him to grow distant and cold.  I had given permission to the Enemy to infiltrate my thoughts with things that were lies.

It had to stop.  I was done.  I couldn’t do it anymore.

He had to do it.

Oh, the Father’s love for us.  Vast beyond all measure!  Throughout all this, while I was being so unfaithful, He was being faithful.  When things started to get really bad, He provided conferences and dear people to speak Truth into my life.  Even though I felt alone, He never left my side, but planted people in my life so that He could whisper His sweet Truth into my heart though them. 

However, it really wasn’t until I surrendered it all to Him and gave up trying to do it on my own that He began to heal my battered heart.

Two Scriptures He reinforced on my heart were two I’ve always held dear.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the Gsd of peace will be with you.”  Philippians 4:8-9 (emphasis added).

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16 (emphasis added).

During this time I was also doing the James study by Beth Moore.  One day, not too many days after I had given it all over to Him, I read this in James.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask Gsd, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lsrd; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does…but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.  Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”  James 1:2-8, 14-15 (emphasis added).

Beth pointed out that we always have a choice.  We can choose faith that leads to perseverance and then to a complete and mature life in Him.  Or we can chose desire, which then leads to sin and ultimately death. She likened it to Deuteronomy 30:19, which says, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”

Every day, every moment of the day, I have a choice.  I can choose life or I can choose death.  I can choose to think on what is true and choose life, or I can think on things that worry or concern me and choose death.  I can choose to give it all to Him and let Him take care of everything and choose life, or I can choose to hold on to everything I think is going so terribly wrong and choose death.  It is my choice:  life or death.

That day I chose to choose life. 

It wasn’t instantaneous that I felt better, that I felt peace, that I felt like I wanted to be here, that I felt like I was making a difference.  But, it was what I needed to remember when I didn't feel all of those things.  Instead of dwelling on them and allowing my thoughts to run unchecked, I chose life and gave it to Him.

I was giving my testimony one day to a group of women we were teaching.  My testimony is based on how I had no peace before ÁC, but then ÁC gave me peace, and now I have peace.  During these months, I began to wonder if my testimony was a lie because I didn’t feel peace most of the time.  As I was giving my testimony this particular time, I said at the end, “Sometimes I may not feel like I have peace, but I know that I do have it because ÁC, who is Peace, gave It to me and is with me.”  Funny how sometimes the Father uses words that come out of my own mouth to speak into my own life.  It is true.  I have the Prince of Peace with me always, but I have to choose whether or not to let His peace reign in my life.

Slowly, as I chose life each time I was faced with a feeling of doubt, insecurity, sadness, or anger, my thoughts began to change and He began to heal my heart.  He gave people some wisdom in advising me to change some things in my life, including some medication I had been taking, and that helped me to see things more like He sees them.  But, it was more than that.  He has shown me how utterly desperate I am for Him.  There is no possible way for me to live here or anywhere, for that matter, without Him.  No way.  My time spent with Him is no longer just a thing that I feel obligated to do.  It is the fuel in the engine that keeps me going.  Without Him I am nothing, but with Him, He is able to do the good things He has planned in advance for me.

There are still times and days when it is hard here, incredibly hard.  Every time, I have to choose what my response will be:  life or death.

I don’t always make the right choice, sometimes I choose to sin and dwell on things.  However, He is there, constantly telling me to choose Life.

Looking back on it, I can see that He was using it all to teach me some great spiritual lessons about myself, lessons I may not have learned had I been tucked in the safety of my home in the States. “I need You, oh, I need You.  Every hour I need You.  My one request, My Righteousness, Oh Gsd, how I need You!”

So, today one year later, I think about how Good He is and how Good He has been this past year.  It is hard to believe I only have a little over 9 months left here.  He has brought me to the place where I can honestly say, that I am once again excited about living and serving here and that I am filled with Joy and Peace doing what He has called me to do.  Sure, I don’t always love South Asia, but I do love serving Him.  A funny thing is happening in my heart though, as I continue to choose life, I am beginning to love South Asia too…