Just to forewarn you this is one of the realist blogs I have written. Real experiences and real thoughts. Please don’t read it unless you read the whole thing!
2015 has been an extremely tough year. There has been countless times where I would go home, sit in bed and just want to give up on everything. The pressure being so heavy, expectations high, and the feeling of doing this all alone in a foreign land. Many times all I could do is just cry out to God with all this hurt and pain of the desires of my heart and wonder why? Why do I have to go through with this, when half the time people just take me for granite and don’t even care. Why did you take me from my friends and family across the world and put me in a place where I would encounter many hopeless situations? Situations where I really would have to question my very existence and purpose in life. By all means, this journey has been a full surrender to my every desire and a challenge to my faith.
Although a challenge, through my experiences I have learned that life is extremely messy! And the more you do the harder it gets. It would be easy for me to give up and go do the things that I wanted to do. But that isn’t the way of God. He calls us to persevere through the hard times, work through things, and never give up. People’s salvation is resting upon our decision to lay down our life, and make an uncomfortable sacrifice for others. That means putting aside our agenda and doing what is best for other people while sharing and living out the gospel. The only thing that keeps me going and pushing through all these hardships is the fact that Jesus showed me how to do it, and then said to follow Him. Even if that means being single for the rest of my life, not doing the things I want to do, and fully surrendering my will, then so be it! I know it won’t be easy, but as Christians we are called to do hard things.
It is easy to fall into this mentality of only doing the easy things in life. But if we do that, we miss out on all the blessings that God has for us. Coming to New Zealand hasn’t been what I expected and to be honest it has been more of a challenge than anything. I could have given up and left a month into it and gone to where I wanted to go, but I would have missed out on seeing many peoples lives changed. This perseverance has shown me that my struggles are meaningless compared to what has been built for eternity. I have been able to lead people to the feet of Christ and that would have never been if I gave up and left to do what I wanted to do.
I am only human, I bleed red just like you, make mistakes everyday and need peoples forgiveness all the time. But the fact is, it is all because of God that I can do anything. This journey has been lonely in a physical sense of not having somebody by my side to battle through this life with, BUT my spirit has never been alone. God is always there and I believe sometimes it takes us stepping outside our comfort zones to see it. So no matter how tough we think this life is, Trust God, and know that He is at work through it all.
