No Mind Has Imagined

Do you see that? 

That is stick figure version of me falling of the face of the earth.

Not good.  

Needless to say, the year has started with off with a bang... sometimes it has been the bang of glorious fireworks of awesome teams and ministry and sometimes just the steady bang of me beating my head against the desk. God's trying to teach me something... I'm pretty convinced of it. I think it has something to do with the epic battle between my control issues and my faith. 

It would seem that my control issues have been winning out the last couple of weeks. I don't know what it is, but I've suddenly taken on these huge amounts of anxiety. Like everything that does not go as planned is somehow my fault and I've convinced myself that I'm falling apart and no one likes me and on and on and on... 

However, the cool part of the story (as usual) is the God part. 

I'm going to admit now that I haven't actually set aside time for God basically since this new year began. I get impatient waiting for him to show up and say something to me. But I was driving the group to back from dinner the other night and I had this God moment. 

Maybe it sounds goofy, but there were two things that popped into my head that I can't attribute to anything other than the Holy Spirit. The first was God simply telling me, "You were MADE for THIS". Like him telling me, "Why are you running around and trying to prove yourself and convince yourself that you can do this? I CREATED you to be HERE. I planned and shaped you for such a time and a place as THIS. 

And this next part will definitely sound goofy but bear with me: at the same time he reminded me (I can't describe it any other way because I hadn't thought about this in years) that when I was younger (middle school years) I was actually quite disturbed by the fact that I couldn't imagine my life beyond the (very specific) age of 25. Part of it was just not being able to wrap my mind about what the idea of being a "grown up" would be like, but I remember actually thinking long and hard about what I thought would make me happy in life, where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. There was a giant BLANK. I honestly thought for awhile, in my insane middle school mind, that maybe that meant that God only had plans for me for that 25 years on this earth and then I'd be done. But there I was, driving a truck full of people down the road and God (as if he were sitting in the front seat with me and we talk back and forth like this on a regular basis) was like, "You couldn't imagine your life beyond 25 because your old life is gone and I've started something new in you. I called you here to recreate you and to give you a new name." Of course then it hit me that I had left the states and moved to San Juan at age 25. Silly, but pretty cool. He also told me this verse...

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)  WOW.

...And then we pulled into the guesthouse and piled out of the truck and I went to squish some avocados into guacamole and life continued as normal. 

But I guess I wanted to type this up because I know I going to continue to doubt and to wrestle with anxiety and control issues and to feel like I'm not adequate and to bang my head against the desk because I've forgotten who I am and I've taken my eyes off Jesus... but yesterday he spoke to me, so I'm writing a blog building an altar to remind myself. 

Remind myself that I'm not worthy, but I'm called. That I'm nothing, but he LOVES me. That I'm a heap of gloriously and seriously BEAUTIFUL ASHES and yo quiero ser portador de su gloria-  I want to be a bearer of his glory.