I suppose part of me – a rather large part – assumed that I would come back to the states and get over it. “It” being that something tangible and intangible….I assumed that I would at some point grow away from my experience rather than continue to grow toward it.
I knew, of course, that I’d had an impactful experience (the impact being on me) in Thailand but part of me truly believed that the intensity of the experience would just diminish and I would go back to my life.
I guess when God messes us up…..He doesn’t let us get clean again so easily.
It has now been over a month since I got back from Thailand and the return to my everyday life has not yet happened. I feel more free-fallen and at odds with everything comfortable than I ever have in my life. I look in the mirror and the woman staring back at me is not the same woman who took off for Bangkok on February 9, 2012.
God has been teaching me a lot. Ok, that is a massive understatement. Over the past four weeks I have gone through the emotional and spiritual ringer. In a good way. I had thought that I was devoted to God before, and that I was in a pretty good place. He has humbled me in a thousand ways: showing me that there is always another, bigger, different side to Him. There will always be another part of my life to lay down to Him. There will always be new ways to depend on Him. Always and forever, until the day that I die.
I think that the point of short-term missions is to produce long-term results, and that looks different for every person. For me, I will never stop loving the people of Thailand with a fierceness that kind of scares me. I will continue to give parts of myself to God that I don’t want to give – that I don’t even want Him to see – that I don’t even want to admit that I have.
Today I am asking myself: What is this God-Breathed, God Activated Adventure on which I have gotten myself?
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