Let's Get Away From This Place

I’m not really good at goodbyes. 

I don’t think I know anyone who actually is. 

They are often awkward, and there are usually some sort of tears. 

We say goodbye to people so often here. 

There are so many people who come in and out of here so quickly. You experience Jesus with them, sometimes it’s for the first time that the familiar light of Christ is reflecting in their eyes. It’s a beautiful, heart breaking week. 

Then there are people who you’ve known for years that God calls away. You deny their next move as the lingering days seem shorter. Before you know it your bags are packed, they are shouting your name for a final boarding call as your best friend stands there in a puddle of tears.  You release the death grip you have on each other and don’t look back. 

NEVER LOOK BACK. 

That only causes more tears. It’s like putting a fresh bandaid on to a wound that’s still gushing blood. You’re just going to have to rip it off again. 

As I get the news that a very dear priest friend is leaving my home parish I found myself in a puddle of tears. I’m simply trying to compose and email to thank him for the man of God he’s been in my life for the past ten years. Know that God is guiding is every move brings peace to my heart. 

He would constantly joke with me that I was going to enter religious life. In a recent conversation with my Mom he told her “No matter where I am I will come to the profession of her final vows. Or if she gets married I will be there. Whatever will make her and Jesus happy, I will support”. 

Gosh, I am so blessed. 

This goodbye seems harder than most because I literally don’t know when I will see him again. He’s moving a few hundred miles away from my home town which adds thousands of miles between us. I pray one day that I can go serve in his home country of Nigera. 

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” Mathew 28:19

If I Were Brave.....

Asia (my best friend, just so we are all up to speed) often has these crazy ideas. Ideas that terrify me, but they bring her so much joy. She has this beautifully radical way of thinking about life. Her basic philosophy is “If you aren’t fully alive, are you really living?”. Now that seems like a wonderful way to live, and a theory that I could really jump on board with. But the questions she asks, and the ideas that she has absolutely make me shake in my flip flops. Hence forth I present you my thoughts on the  the “If I Were Brave” Challenge. 

I have always consider myself to be a pretty brave person. I was 15 the first time I traveled out of the country. I went to Italy, oh and I was alone. I went to Israel the following year with a group of juniors in High School, and college was 1200 miles away from the place I’d called home for 18 years. The distance between myself and “home” continued to grow, and I felt brave. I felt like I could conquer the world, and given a problem I could figure out some sort of solution. Even though sometimes I'd have to call my Dad, or use Google to learn how to change a tire. I did it. With little to no fear. 

When I became a missionary I realized how fearful I was. I could climb to the top of the ladder, or act like a monkey in a tree. I wasn’t terrified to take the garbage out at night, or even inspect the “creepy” buildings around camp (and trust me, there were plenty). I didn’t even mind going into the midget closet, or getting something from our car after the sun went down. But if Jesus wanted to enter a deep, dark, spider web filled spot on my heart I’d flee in fear. I didn’t think he needed to go there. I’d kindly uninvite him, closed my journal, and would just sit. But Asia’s desire to help me seek true healing, has sparked this radical thought to BE BRAVE. How simple, yet it gets my heart racing every single day. 

This morning I was reflecting on the previous days reading. 1 John 4:17 “Perfect love casts out fear”. With this scripture on the front of my heart I start the “If I Were Brave” challenge. The basic concept is that I text Asia in the morning the thing I'm going to do even though I'm scared. Then she tells me hers, and then throughout the day we do whatever we were previously afraid of. Everyday instead of sitting in fear, I will choose to stop hiding behind “if” and instead run into the fear. So I encourage you to follow this journey. Make your own challenges, and find a buddy to hold you accountable.