confessions (Part 2)

For the past month, I've felt like a hypocrite.

After God closed the door on Sweden, I was full of fear. As soon as my financial coach and I decided that I should pursue part-time staff here in the states, I was afraid that God would change His mind, and ask me to keep trying for Sweden.  It wasn't rational. I don't know why I believed that God would change His mind, after he had changed my heart and financial situation.  I know it was crazy, but those emotions were very real.  I was so afraid and confused, that I quit reading my Bible and quit praying.  Listening to a message at church about international missions made me sick. My heart was hardened and I wasn't going to try to fix it.

In the interest of honesty, I didn't have any intention of walking away from God.  I knew that God and I were going to work things out...eventually...but I wasn't in a huge rush to start that process.  I envisioned a scene that involved lots of crying, apologizing, and then He might (reluctantly) forgive me.

Here's what happened instead.

I meet with a couple of my new coworkers for breakfast one morning.  They tell me how there has been no female staff in this part of the Triad for the last couple years, and how the female students are in need of discipleship.  They tell me they've been praying for a girl who might want to work at Wake Forest to disciple the girls there.  As it turns out, I am that girl.  Who lives in the western part of the Triad.  Who wants to disciple girls. Huh.

So time goes by.  I'm still not having any sort of communication with God, except for an occasional prayer for a friend in need (in my twisted brain, it was okay to pray for others, but not for myself), but I start feeling fake.  I work for a Christian organization, so, of course, I'm at events like Bible studies and worship nights, and I'm telling people that I'm doing this so that college students will know what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, except that I have no relationship with Jesus. The most annoying part is that I don't even feel like He's angry with me, it just feels like  He's there, waiting for me to come back.

So today I went back.  It wasn't anything like the scene I imagined, crying, embarrassment, or anger.  I just sat down and read the book of Ruth, and it wasn't about righteous anger or punishments, it was about God's love and provision.  It was about how God brought life and happiness out of death and bitterness.The woman who says:

"Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara, she answered, for the Almighty has made me very bitter. I left full, but the Lord has brought me back empty." Ruth 1:20

ends the story with her brand new grandson on her lap. 

Do I think Naomi could have ever envisioned the happiness God would bring her in her old age? Nope.  This woman buried her husband and two sons, lived through a famine, and had to return to her home poor and widowed. I'm sure that's not how she imagined her life story to go.  But God redeemed the situation, and the little baby boy at the end would go on to be the grandfather of King David.

So I said all of that to say this: I didn't write this to whine or to brag about what I learned, or whatever. I wrote this because the Christian blogs that inspire me the most are the ones that are honest.  I like the ones that talk about issues that aren't PC or cross the line into waytoopersonal because those are the ones that I can relate to.  So this is my story. Sometimes I feel like my emotional baggage and general ridiculousness make me so unworthy to be in ministry.  Sometimes I think about how under-qualified I am to be discipling girls who are probably "better Christians" than me.  Luckily, I serve a God who uses the foolish things to shame the wise, and the weak to shame the strong.

Luckily, it isn't about me at all.

little j