Verity

The reality that our trip to Aruba is in six days got me thinking. Though It won’t be happening this time, I wonder what it would be like to get on a plane alone. It’s scary to travel by yourself when you never have before, but I know eventually I will. It’s amazing how at one point in your life you can hate something- absolutely loathe it, and then fear that God will make you do it. It’s like the whole ‘God’s going to send me to Africa to be a missionary, because there’s obviously a shortage of willing participants’ mentality. I use to fear that everything I feared was something God wanted me to do.

 Scared to death to travel? Check. Here’s your ticket. Have a nice time navigating dangerous countries with street signs in foreign languages- BY YOURSELF. Don’t worry, you may hate it now, but somewhere between getting on the wrong plane to the wrong continent to being kidnapped and held for ransom, you’re going to learn to love it!

But it DOESN’T. END. THERE! Kids drive you nuts these days? Well, you’ll be teaching Sunday School! Yay! Hate the idea of being in ministry? Oh, you say you really don’t know if down the road the want to be married? Fantastic. You can be a pastor…’s wife. You’re gonna love it. And hate it. But mostly you’re gonna love it.

Fantastic. Just fantastic.

The reality is that none of these things are actually anything bad (besides the whole kidnapping scenario). A few years ago however, I was seriously considering joining a convent to avoid the imaginary call of God to Ninevah. I knew enough to know that on this side of the cross, God doesn’t force you to do anything, but I didn’t want to disappoint Him. I thought that perhaps I would make Him sad if I didn’t do all of these things that I seemingly despised with my life. So I resigned myself to the fact that He knew better than me, and that even though I was scared to death at the thought of any of it, I’d eventually die or get over it.

I’m so glad I had no friends at the time to share this epiphany with.

The funny thing ended up being, however, that while I was pretty darn sure of all things I absolutely did not ever want to do ever, the column of things I actually did want was surprisingly bare. Nothing. Not a thing. I could barely think of anything I wanted as a Christmas present, no more what I wanted to do with my life. I seemingly did not leave any room for desire in my life at all, besides what I wanted to eat. That was actually pretty clear (not that my mom could ever tell by the silence I would always offer when she would ask what she should make for dinner).

Then eventually, things started getting a little easier to stomach. A little. I started doing some things I wasn’t sure I wanted to do, some things I knew I absolutely didn’t, and with mixed results it began to dawn on me: I wasn’t some sort of zombie devoid of emotions and desires with exception to my ravenous appetite- I wasn’t letting myself see what I really wanted. I was protecting myself from my desires. It wasn’t until very recently that I understood why.

The girls at youth group recently heard me share my testimony about ripping down my image of perfection. I constantly throughout my life had sacrificed my desires to an image. I constantly forwent what I wanted in order to wait for ‘the right thing’ because that’s what the perfect Christian girl does. Unfortunately, the truth that God has the most amazing things in store for us became a nightmare as I used it to fence myself in, safe and sound from real decisions, and from real life. From saying no, and from saying yes. From ever getting in a mess that I would regret. Because regret meant pain, and pain meant I would break. Trying to then factor God’s infinite passion for my life and love for me didn’t ever really end up working well with that. I didn’t avoid pain anyway, I just created a scenario with a different kind of it.

Throughout my life God has been so faithful to my know-it-all-except-not-really little self. This image of Him and myself that was in stark contrast to His loving kindness. It also shoved Him with a blame He had nothing at all to do deserve. I was finally able to rip down that wall, that image, that idol- and all the worry, hatred, shame and confusion that kept it in place.

In the course of conversation a few months ago, I realized that what I wanted to do with my life was, actually, youth ministry. It turns out that I didn’t hate it, after all. Which was convenient, because that’s exactly what the past two years of my life have evolved into. I actually loved it when I realized that what I didn’t like was the way we used to do it. And we weren’t doing it that way anymore. I couldn’t see that before through all my fear and self-righteousness.

I woke up a few mornings ago and realized that I wanted to travel. I wanted to drink in the salty air of someplace warm. I realized that falling in love didn’t have to be the drama or the difficulty I pinned it as. I realized I might not hate to have a wedding someday (as long as I get to have my Oreo cake- see it here because it is awesome: http://camillestyles.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/oreo-cookie-wedding-cake-camille-styles-events1.jpg?w=600&h=724).

I realized that I want to be in ministry for the rest of my life. And I realized that there is still infinitely farther to go when it comes to knowing the Love that is inside me, in the form of the Living God… Infinitely farther to know Him…

These may feel like small things, but they are the colors that are now beginning to show through my black-and-white life. God didn’t make me love what He called me to. God didn’t ‘change my desires’ to fit what He had in mind. He’s not an ego-maniac like that. I was. I thought, ‘Well God, I guess you can change MY desires. I lay them down… Even though I probably hate all of the things you picked… Go ahead, you have MY permission… Send me to Africa… MAKE ME love it…”

What ACTUALLY happened was that I had long ago judged the desires in my heart as dangerous. I adopted that idol to protect me and that image to give me an identity according to it. And if exacted a price. My hatred for my desires and my fear was my sacrifice. But my loving God stood by me, and though it would take a very long time because I was so blind in that place, He loved me. Everyday. So that one day, I would wake up and see that my desire for my ‘Africa’ was in my heart all along, because I was safe enough in His infinite arms to see it. I WANTED it. I want everything He died to give me. I want it all. No more idol. Magnificent God. Hello ‘Africa’. (Or in this case, Aruba. Six days! YES! :D )