Taking Off The Rough Edges
It was exactly two weeks ago today that I left on a missions trip to Masaya, Nicaragua. It's been exactly one week since getting home from Masaya, Nicaragua & it's taken me this whole week to be able to start putting words to the experience!
It was about a year ago around this time that I told my husband that I thought I was ready for something different this summer and that our church was putting together a missions trip to Nicaragua. We had done the same thing every summer for the past 15 years and this mama needed a change. He told me he didn't feel like Nicaragua was calling him at the time and he thought maybe he would take our boys to see grandma and grandpa in California if I wanted to go to Nicaragua. Sounded good at the time! Fast forward a year and that's just what we did. A day and a half before I left for my trip I took my boys to the air port, dropped them off for a week of fun in the sun and Disney World, and I cried most of the way home. That's when the anxiety started...never saw it coming...I had been excited for this trip for a year and now I wasn't so sure!?!?!
We left on a Sunday morning. I can be truly honest now that it's past...I was physically nauseous. What had I been thinking? I'm a wife and a mom for crying out loud...I should be with my boys on family vacation--very likely one of the last ones since my son is headed into his Senior year of High School! Seriously, what was I thinking??? ......And those were the thoughts that carried me all the way to Masaya, through Sunday night, and into Monday morning where I wasn't sure I could hold back the panic attack. I wanted air conditioning. I wanted hot water. I wanted familiar food. I wanted my boys...in sunny California!!! I took multiple deep breaths and prayed this prayer--"Jesus, I don't know what I'm doing here, but you do and I'm asking that you soften my heart through what ever this week brings." And so it began....
Each of our group had been assigned to different sites where we would go for about 6 hours each day. I went to the Social Work site. It was there I met three amazing ladies that started helping this wife and mom from Minnesota see why Jesus had brought her there. Up until that moment my life had been 100% inward focused...my husband, my boys, my job, my home, my lists, my hurts, my need to have things in order in my regimented world and my not-so-soft heart. I was greeted at the door by these ladies who had never met me but hugged me like they'd known me my whole life. And it was genuine. We sat at the table that morning to go over the schedule for the week and that's when it really started....I was told tid-bits of stories of just some of the women and children that we would have contact with in the coming week.....abuses of ALL kinds and hurts that run deeper than humanly possible. Here's the ironic thing, I thought I was there to help these women and children in their hurt, but it turns out I was there to learn from them. I learned how to make it through some of the deepest pain this side of heaven and not have a stone cold heart in the process.
I wish I could write all the ways I learned this lesson, but I think I can narrow it down to the two most important ones. My relationship with Jesus, and out of that, my relationship with people. My relationship with Jesus has to be before my list of "my's". My relationships with people have to come before my to-do lists that I live by in my everyday life. There were multiple times during the week where it sure seemed like we should be doing something "productive", but we ended up sitting around and talking to each other...imagine that! building relationships around our common love for Jesus that will last for eternity! I hadn't thought of it that way before because I hadn't slowed down enough to think that way before. Taking the time to hear people's stories is a great way to kill any frustration or irritation you might have with a person. There are reasons we all are the way we are...we all have a story and most of the time, especially here in America, we don't have time to sit down and hear those reasons. When I did that I felt my heart getting just a little bit softer.
It also got softer while watching an 8 year old boy quote Joshua 1:9 "This is my command--be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." while living through circumstances that most adults couldn't stand up through. He is a hero of faith at 8 years old. If this little boy can know that his "God is big enough" for what he was walking through and not have a hard heart then so can I! Over and over again Jesus showed me through these people that when we read His Word and pray and listen and forgive...my heart doesn't stand a chance of growing cold!
If it isn't clear yet...Jesus answered my prayer and by the time that we had to say goodbye I wasn't ready to go home. I still missed my boys and air conditioning and normal food, but I wasn't done learning. In the process of softening my heart--I left a part of it in Masaya Nicaragua.
"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart." Ezekiel 36:26 Praise Jesus!!!!!
It was about a year ago around this time that I told my husband that I thought I was ready for something different this summer and that our church was putting together a missions trip to Nicaragua. We had done the same thing every summer for the past 15 years and this mama needed a change. He told me he didn't feel like Nicaragua was calling him at the time and he thought maybe he would take our boys to see grandma and grandpa in California if I wanted to go to Nicaragua. Sounded good at the time! Fast forward a year and that's just what we did. A day and a half before I left for my trip I took my boys to the air port, dropped them off for a week of fun in the sun and Disney World, and I cried most of the way home. That's when the anxiety started...never saw it coming...I had been excited for this trip for a year and now I wasn't so sure!?!?!
We left on a Sunday morning. I can be truly honest now that it's past...I was physically nauseous. What had I been thinking? I'm a wife and a mom for crying out loud...I should be with my boys on family vacation--very likely one of the last ones since my son is headed into his Senior year of High School! Seriously, what was I thinking??? ......And those were the thoughts that carried me all the way to Masaya, through Sunday night, and into Monday morning where I wasn't sure I could hold back the panic attack. I wanted air conditioning. I wanted hot water. I wanted familiar food. I wanted my boys...in sunny California!!! I took multiple deep breaths and prayed this prayer--"Jesus, I don't know what I'm doing here, but you do and I'm asking that you soften my heart through what ever this week brings." And so it began....
Each of our group had been assigned to different sites where we would go for about 6 hours each day. I went to the Social Work site. It was there I met three amazing ladies that started helping this wife and mom from Minnesota see why Jesus had brought her there. Up until that moment my life had been 100% inward focused...my husband, my boys, my job, my home, my lists, my hurts, my need to have things in order in my regimented world and my not-so-soft heart. I was greeted at the door by these ladies who had never met me but hugged me like they'd known me my whole life. And it was genuine. We sat at the table that morning to go over the schedule for the week and that's when it really started....I was told tid-bits of stories of just some of the women and children that we would have contact with in the coming week.....abuses of ALL kinds and hurts that run deeper than humanly possible. Here's the ironic thing, I thought I was there to help these women and children in their hurt, but it turns out I was there to learn from them. I learned how to make it through some of the deepest pain this side of heaven and not have a stone cold heart in the process.
I wish I could write all the ways I learned this lesson, but I think I can narrow it down to the two most important ones. My relationship with Jesus, and out of that, my relationship with people. My relationship with Jesus has to be before my list of "my's". My relationships with people have to come before my to-do lists that I live by in my everyday life. There were multiple times during the week where it sure seemed like we should be doing something "productive", but we ended up sitting around and talking to each other...imagine that! building relationships around our common love for Jesus that will last for eternity! I hadn't thought of it that way before because I hadn't slowed down enough to think that way before. Taking the time to hear people's stories is a great way to kill any frustration or irritation you might have with a person. There are reasons we all are the way we are...we all have a story and most of the time, especially here in America, we don't have time to sit down and hear those reasons. When I did that I felt my heart getting just a little bit softer.
It also got softer while watching an 8 year old boy quote Joshua 1:9 "This is my command--be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." while living through circumstances that most adults couldn't stand up through. He is a hero of faith at 8 years old. If this little boy can know that his "God is big enough" for what he was walking through and not have a hard heart then so can I! Over and over again Jesus showed me through these people that when we read His Word and pray and listen and forgive...my heart doesn't stand a chance of growing cold!
If it isn't clear yet...Jesus answered my prayer and by the time that we had to say goodbye I wasn't ready to go home. I still missed my boys and air conditioning and normal food, but I wasn't done learning. In the process of softening my heart--I left a part of it in Masaya Nicaragua.
"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart." Ezekiel 36:26 Praise Jesus!!!!!
Shelly, again your writing moves and ministers. Thanks for sharing.
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