How long has it been? 7-8 months? How does it still feel so unreal that I am here? Maybe it’s because I’m almost over. It makes looking back seem so unreal. How have I survived this whole thing? I remember when I was in Georgia and couldn’t even imagine surviving my family fast. Then I remember crying in the JFK airport unsure how on earth I was supposed to survive after everything that happened in Romania. I remember the safety and security I felt in the Dominican Republic. How at peace I was. I remember how in each and every country God continuously showed me how fully he has me here.
The question was never “If I should Go?” or ” How am I going to stay?” But rather “Am I good enough” and “Am I strong enough?”.
The truth of the matter is I’ve been trying to do this whole thing with my own strength. I would pray and ask God for strength, but only when I had hit rock bottom when I felt there was absolutely no way I could continue. In every country, I hit that point. At one time or another, I wasn’t sure how I could continue.
In Romania when I was questioning my faith or if I even had a faith. When I felt so alone that I wasn’t sure God even saw me. I felt so weak that I just knew the only way to continue wasn’t by my strength, but by God’s. So I prayed for strength and God gave me a scripture and from then on I was almost consistently in my bible. God gave me his strength and showed me what it looked like to be with him in the word every day.
In the Dominican Republic, something changed again. I was again relying on my own strength. A few weeks in we had two of our squadmates leave and go home. Then about a month later five other squadmates left. Two of which were on team Tabby with me. Both are close friends of mine which resulted in me being angry, defeated, and lost. It didn’t matter if I 100% knew I was supposed to be there, I questioned how I was to move on. I closed off my heart, I let my feelings control me, and I checked out. I began thinking about my faith again, and my image. And I continued to pray, but only at the lowest parts of my day. Reading became an unhealthy coping mechanism. Reading four books a week, I knew something had to change.
Lent was starting so I took up the opportunity to fast read anything that wasn’t the Bible. And boy did that work. I was spending every spare moment I had in the bible. Mornings, during lunch break, and evenings I was reading. I was able to find my strength. Finding other ways to cope that weren’t running or reading. I found solace in journaling and spending time in the word. However, like everything else, this too was fleeting. Yes, I was doing well, but I credited it to myself and my ability to cope in the right ways. I was still using my strength, not God’s.
Another curveball hit, just before we left for Nicaragua another two of my teammates left. Effectively ending Tabby. With my team gone and a thousand questions rolling around in my head I was simply just done. I entered Nicaragua with an empty heart and a drained spirit. It had felt like everything I had held close and dear to me was stripped away. My heart ached for the loss I just had. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, yet I did. I wasn’t supposed to have a team change, but I did. I still was angry and relied on my own strength. It didn’t matter that this base is huge on forming spiritual disciplines, I didn’t want any of that. All I wanted was to be home.
I didn’t want to be forced to wake up at 5 am to pray, I didn’t want to be forced to pray for an hour in the prayer room. Sure enough, though, it turns out that even if I feel silly and don’t quite understand how to pray. Prayer was what was missing. The consistency of asking God to be my strength has allowed me to see how he and he alone can be my strength.
To realize that I can pray when I hit rock bottom and get short-term results, or I can pray every day and not hit rock bottom.
And yes, the pain is still there and yes sometimes I still feel weak and defeated, but that’s okay. God has me. I found his strength.
In Romania I was weak. In the Dominican Republic, I found my strength, but in Nicaragua, I found the Father’s strength. And now…now I stay knowing that days will suck and I will be drained, but I have God’s strength to rely on day in and day out. All I have to do is call upon his name.
Psalms 55: 16-18
” But I call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening morning and noon I cry out in distress and he hears my voice. He ransoms me unharmed from the battle that waged against me, even though many oppose against me”
