How do I...
I have lived the past 330 days making a difference, changing lifes, and being someone who is needed and wanted by many. How do I in 22 days go back to a life that isn’t geared toward those things. If I go home and go back to the life I was living before I came to TLC I wont be making any difference in the world besides what people eat. I wont be changing lives, just change, coffee filters, and inventory. I wont be needed or wanted by people who without me would literally go hungry. I don’t like any of that. I WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I was made to change this world. I don’t know how I know it but its something inside me. I know I’m not a normal 26 year old American girl. I grew up in a small town but my hopes and dreams are so much bigger. I know that I can change the world. I don’t want to get stuck in some kitchen in a job that I have because its a job and a way to get money. I want to pour into others. I want to build up. I want to encourage. I want to influence. I want to speak truth. I want to break lies. I want to love.
Wow! Rebecca, you have been very needed there and have made a big difference in many lives, especially D. You will make a difference here too - You are an instrument of God. He will show you the job for you. You are a very smart and talented young lady! You will do amazing things, look what you have already done. Don't stress about the future, enjoy the people and days there that are left. We love you and have faith in you!
ReplyDeleteI am catching up on some of your blog posts, and came across this one today :) One thing the Lord really impressed upon my heart in Uganda is that no works or deeds are 'smaller' or 'bigger', 'greater' or 'lesser'. It's been a lesson I began to learn the moment I woke up that first morning in that Ugandan orphanage with the kids, and one I still learn now. I've found the people I admire most -the ones who are overflowing with the Spirit- are those who don't necessarily spend every single one of their days feeding the starving and applying medical to the dying (that's not to say the people I know who do these things aren't Spirit-led and Spirit-filled, because they most certainly are! I also believe we all are, in some way shape or form, responsible to feed and clothe and love our neighbors oceans away) but it's the patient mother, the kind cashier at the check-out, the person who says they will be praying for you and then follow through with those prayers who I so evidently see Christ in. It's so easy, to get caught up in wanting to do the 'big stuff' (especially when your heart's desire is to be in Africa, being the hands and feet of Christ. how deeply I know this desire) and in the process of that wanting, to miss the extraordinary, profoundly important 'little moments'.. like not growing impatient with slow drivers, holding your tongue when you're frustrated, sacrificing your time to be there for someone. But I believe those are the moments that make a life stand out against the others, a life that brings pleasure unto the Lord.
ReplyDeleteMy church's VBS was last week and I spent half of the week grumpy and frustrated- here I was telling kids about Uganda, when that's where I wanted to be. And what purpose could the Lord really have for keeping me here? Like, come on. I cried on Thursday night over all the missed opportunities I had that week- to love children here and help children here. While it wasn't where my heart deeply desired to be, it was where God was calling me to be faithful. And I missed out on blessings I will never get back because of that decision to think a small church's VBS wasn't 'that important' in the eyes of the Lord. Who am I to judge that?
I've typed you a book.. although mostly, I think, I've typed me a book :-) This was a reminder I needed this week to be faithful here, where I'm called right now. Praying for you as well, that you can continue to be faithful to your kids in South Africa without the looming departure date distracting you. And that, once you are here, you can be faithful to Him here as well. I know He will guide you here, to be in hands in a very different -yet still very effective- way.