I’m not sure if I need to go all the way to Africa to be wrecked by God.
I mean, I’d love to. Sign me up, okay?
But all my near future plans have my feet planted firmly in the USA. Where we are dependent on ourselves, where we suffer the poverty of Too-Much, where I live. There is this selfish part of me, I’m going to be seriously honest here, that wants to see real poverty, wants to fly away to Uganda or Kenya so I can walk the slums and weep.
How selfish is that? I want to see and experience so that I can be changed.
How voyeuristic, how full of self-interest, how sad…
And what kind of small God do I believe in? A God that must land someone from America directly in the way of suffering so that her heart may be changed.
I don’t trust Him that He could accomplish that here, now and with the resources at my fingertips. Depending upon some idea of an experience that may or may not ever happen means I’m not depending on Him.
Maybe my future will include something like that. And maybe it won’t.
But I do know this: I don’t want my life to be easy. I don’t want to drift toward comfort and build up my money and life so that someday I can retire and have a boat.
And not only that, Sarah Markley, {because now I’m talking to myself} if you want to see hurting and poverty, drive 4 miles down the street to THAT neighborhood. You know the one. And then, Sarah, drive 90 minutes south on Interstate 5 to Mexico. Yes, that’s right, you live in the backyard of some of the worst poverty in North America.
Sigh.
I want to be wrecked by God and I want Him do it in any way and in any PLACE He sees fit.
He can meet me in my bathroom, my living room, my church sanctuary in Orange County, or on my front porch.
I don’t need a plane ticket to see the poverty of my own heart.
Lord, take my heart, my desires and my plans for the future. Make me into who You want me to be and shape me. Wreck me if you have to. Do it here or somewhere else, but let the end result be that I am more like You.
Beautifully written. Only your heart knows and can share understanding, wisdom for you and instruction of going to the Lord in prayer for His divine strength and help to cope with the different situations. Faith will conquer fear and despair. What you wrote grips my heart. No matter how far we travel, there is NOTHING like a home port, a place to return where we know love is waiting to greet us. You are so incredible and I thank you.
Sarah, do you really know what you are asking…?
No. But do we have any other choice as believers? It’s a question we MUST ask.
The question never scared me.
But the answer, to this day, makes me tremble.
With fear.
And He still is answering that question.
In ways I could never have imagined.
Honestly, I sometimes think that if people knew the answer, they would never have asked the question…
i’m sure of that. but i don’t see another option.
my solace: He is the God who both breaks and heals.
A timely reminder.
I just wish He’d kind of speed up the healing a little bit.
And that I knew the words He has written for this chapter of my life.
It would be nice to see the sun rise again, if only to know this storm was over…
theNorEaster. . .((sorry for some reason it wouldn’t let me reply directly to your last comment))
i have to second that comment. there is nothing more that i could wish for than to know what the exact words and details the Lord is penning in the next chapter of my story ((even the next sentence. . .)).
on the speeding up of the healing. . .sometimes i think the Lord allows pain to linger as a flashlight to reveal areas where we need to grow in our trust and reliance on Him. areas where we have unknowingly been deceived by our culture, our perceptions, even ((gasp)) Christian culture. areas where He wants to wreck us and then remake us with a God-given perspective.
let me be the first to second the desire for the storm to be over. . .cause girlfriend, it ain’t fun. . .unfortunately those sunday school felt boards didn’t warn us about how hard ((but worth it)) walking with Jesus is. . .
LS: I laughed really hard when you wrote, “’cause, girlfriend…” I’m a man! Sorry. Just think that’s so dang funny!!!
Thank you for your words of encouragement — both of you.
The truth is…I am afraid. After the first Storm Stories series was published, I was attacked. And those you who know me ought to know that I don’t say that lightly or casually. Now, I am trying to do another one — for Thrive — and I am…concerned. I know I just need faith — and that I have — but I don’t know where the journey will take me.
And so much has already happened this year that…if I were to tell my story, well, who knows?
On the lighter side, maybe I do need a photo for my avatar. So people don’t et confused…
noreaster. . .i just laughed REALLY hard. sorry about that
i haven’t read your storm series yet, but i am going to try to read it over the next few days.
i understand the feeling of being under attack. recently when i have been under attack, it has helped me to just call the Lord’s name, get in His presence, get in His word and just be there.
looking forward to reading about the storms!
(Think I got this in the right place…)
LS: I certainly hope you’ll share one of your own for the series.
noreaster. . .i would love to, please let me know how. . .
LS
LS has already signed up, but if there any of you wondering how to do that, just stop by my blog to learn more about the series and what we hope to do: thenoreaster.wordpress.com
someone told me once that I can be a missionary or be the hands and feet of Jesus wherever I am and to whomever I’m with.
and I agree.
I hear what you’re saying for sure.
My feet were planted in the poor villages in Guatemala. My husband and I went on our first and not our last mission trip last month. And it has rocked our world!! But I am struggling with it only being one week full of photos and memories. I want to live my everyday life like I am on a mission. On a mission to serve God. I don’t want to stay comfortable. I want to sacrifice. I want to serve outside the comfort of my church walls. Because if it’s easy to serve then I feel like I am not giving my all to God. But I can’t seem to take the next step. I am stuck in the American dream and I want out!! It must be fear?
If you are interested anyone can read all about our trip on my blog. I wrote about each day of our trip the week we arrived back home. It’s under June and July 2010.
oh isn’t it amazing how our pride can want to glamorize even our trials! i read this and was going right along thinking, yes, me too, and…? And then I face it–I have ALWAYS wanted the big experience, really the after-experience, the what-I’m-like because-I-went-part. But rather than do that right here, beginning in my back yard (literally), I would rather do the trip and have the T shirt. UGH. Even in my desire to be used and sanctified my pride edges it’s way into the picture…
I, too, wanted (and still really do want) to go on a mission trip. Yes, I want the experience to have an impact on me; sometimes things just don’t really sink in until we’ve witnessed it with our own eyes. But I also wanted to go so that I could share with others, like the Compassion and World Vision bloggers do; I wanted to make a difference. Then, through some searching on World Vision’s site, I discovered that I could become a Child Ambassador and promote child sponsorships every day if I wish; and I can use my blog to share this passion, just like the big-name bloggers do. So I had to ask myself, do I want the trip and the fame, or do I really want to make a difference in the lives of the children?
I decided that I really want to make a difference. So I have volunteered to be a Child Ambassador for World Vision and will begin sharing about it on my blog in the week ahead. It’s a new journey for me and I am really excited. Perhaps some day I will be able to go, but I don’t HAVE to go to be wrecked by God. He is wrecking me right here and I’m willing to be wrecked some more.
i think this is my favorite thing that you have written!!!
Excellent. I could not have expressed it better. I never thought of how “selfish” and self-interested it is to have that if-I-could-just-go-there mentality. I have certainly been “wrecked” here (spiritually) on a few occasions, but I have definitely entertained the “what if we (my family) could travel to a third-world country,” idea. Surely, THEN, my children would begin to appreciate things like food, clothing, shelter and education. What about GOD??? What about being drawn closer to HIM?? Why do we think that “they” have so much more to be “delivered” from than we do? It’s like you expressed, our poverty is of our own hearts. We are drowning in versions of watered-down “Christianity” and we are full of ourselves (surely I’m not speaking about the majority- maybe it’s just me?). Does seeing and weeping for the poor change the heart of a person? Or does it simply influence some of one’s habits (temporarily)? No sarcasm here. I have never been on a mission, so I am not in any position to judge any one else’s “change.”
Sarah, I get what you’re saying..and I find myself in a similar place. I recently read the daily “My Utmost for His Highest” by Chambers (July 21st, I think) … anyway, its about being “Poor in spirit”. Its about realizing how absolutely futile we are. Which is a challenge in our society where no faith is required for daily survival. So i get what you’re saying…I long to understand what it means to be Poor in spirit and my limited mind thinks it has to be found in true poverty….material poverty that is. I think what I’m learning in very HARD ways is that, while materially blessed, I am a mere pauper spiritually. A beggar. So poor, so wretched with nothing to offer. And why does it take drastic and dramatic events to wake me up to that fact? Yet I am thankful, because (to quote Chambers), “The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work.” My prayer is that we would all, by His wonderful Mercy, understand our own poverty.
i LOVE LOVE LOVE that you wrote about this… I love it because I know that God has called me to do short term missions, BUT when I come home and do our church evaluation and answer the question “What did God show you new about Himself on this trip” – I answer consistently “Hopefully it does not take a mission trip to see new things about God. Hopefully my daily walk with God is such that I am wrecked DAILY and LOCALLY by him rather than having to go around the world to have this happen. If this is not happening to me DAILY – then I am in trouble at the heart of my Christian experience.”
So, even though I know God has called me to “go” – it is not so that I can get a greater touch or inspiration or revelation of Him – it is because I am being wrecked HERE daily that my feet desire to go.
I love that you pursue daily-heart-wrecking with God. Absolutely love it – and you are right – you don’t need to go to Africa to get wrecked
It’s true Sarah. I live in Africa, but the same poverty exists here as it does in America- it just might look differently.
You are right these are questions we MUST ask ourselves, and then we must be willing to step out and be the people God has called us to be.
I have been asking the same questions over at my blog too… and my husband and I were just discussing what it means for us to live generously – to have a heart that longs to give..finances, times, clothes, food, love, etc…
Thanks for sharing your heart Sarah
Good thoughts, Sarah. I don’t think it takes Africa to be wrecked by God (and this is coming from someone who was). I think it happens on a missions trip often because we are removed from our culture and society. Many who went on the same kind of trips are changed, but not wrecked. Africa was redeeming for me, but I think it had more to do with the collision of God’s timing, my heart condition and his purpose.
I think we all do/will have that one redeeming moment when those things collide. Sometimes it happens in Africa, sometimes beside a hospital bed….
I also read this with the question…”are you aware of what you are asking?” …
That is a powerful statement to say outloud…”Lord wreck me”…for your purpose… for your power to be revealed… for your ways to be shown to me and to others.
As someone who cares for you even though we have never met, I pray with caution.
Lord hear her prayer but also protect her.
The question from her heart is powerful and revealing. Lord listen to my ‘sister’ and keep her safe.
Sometimes the ones in the most dire need are the ones who do not think they are in dire need (like us in “middle income America.”) Why doesn’t our heart break for all the depravity going on in our own neighborhoods, in our families, in our own homes?
We live in a predominantly white, well-to-do suburb in northwest Wichita, Kansas. “The Heartland.” And I tell my husband, “Rich people need Jesus too.” Sometimes I think more. When you are rich you have power and you get what you want. You don’t need to God. You are a god. People in the slums of Kenya (or insert anywhere else) know they are nothing and they need everything! We have so deceived ourselves! And by the way, I used to live in central Africa and the one thing I remember is although desperately in need of physical things…they had amazing smiles and joy in their eyes. Could it be that having all the stuff we have robs us of the basic joy of living? If so, we are the most down-trodden, poorest people of all. And maybe, just maybe they are richer than we are…
Amen sister!
Ever heard Ray Comfort, the evangelist, speak? One of the things he tells people is to ask God NOT to test them, not to ‘wreck’ them, because he had asked God to purify him and and the ‘fire’ he went through almost devastated him. Just be careful what you wish for! But truly, I am so proud of you for WANTING to be wrecked and changed. I want to love more. More deeply, more unselfishly. But I am too fearful of what the rebuilding process might entail to ever ask to be tested, wrecked, purified…..I just pray that God loves me and understands that I am weak, but in my weakness, I lean on Him and He is strong.
Sarah~
I love your blog…especially after a post like this!
This was like reading my own heart! I was just telling my husband the other day that I want our life to be a struggle, so that once we get to the top, we will truly appreciate all that we have because we knew what it took to get there!
We have only been married 5 years, but have had some financial struggles in those 5 years. But, through it all, we are continuing to trust in God and believing that HE has miraculous, wonderful, things, in store for us! Even through this season of our life!
I am thankful for this struggle! I wouldn’t want my life to be easier…and I am being completely honest! I know my heavenly Father will continue to take care of us and meet our every need! And through all of it, I will fall deeper and deeper in love with HIM and learn to trust HIM even more!
Beautiful post, as always!
God Bless!
Wonderful post, Sarah. This is something I’ve struggled with since I’ve become a Christian…so many groups and churches are focused on “out there” but not “around here.” Mission trips to Africa, Russia, Germany, Slovakia…never a trip to south central Los Angeles or the mountains of West Virginia. As if somehow just because it’s the USA we don’t have anyone around us who’s hungry.
I’ve run into this when trying to find human trafficking organizations to work with fighting the problem in the USA. Either the group is focused on international relief or it’s only focused on local impact. No one’s working nation-wide. It’s like we have no problem going to Samaria and the ends of the earth but not Jerusalem and Judea.
Sorry to rant.
You hit a nerve with me!
jason – it’s okay to rant. =)
i’m not sure where you are, but i live outside of LA. and there are good things happening in the city, there are people serving and ministering.
God has not forgotten our city. i agree though – it’s much more “cool” to go somewhere else than right around the corner.
I’m sorry if I left the impression I thought God had forgotten your city, Sarah. About a decade ago I was involved with a ministry that wanted to “sponsor a mission trip.” During a brainstorming session, all kinds of foreign lands went up on the whiteboard…and I suggested a soup kitchen I’d heard of in south central. I added two other domestic missions that needed volunteers. Those were the first three of the board when people “voted” for the ones to remove. So south central’s a go-to when people ask me about places Christians in the USA likely wouldn’t take a missions group.
no, i totally understood what you were saying.
i agree with you though, the most obvious places are often forgotten. what’s awesome, though, is that God is still there, in the places that we say “I’ll never go there”.
thank you SO much for your input this morning on this post. i really really appreciate it.
(when i was at biola university, they often sent missions trips to places IN country like Appalachia and to the cities. some people are doing it right, i think)
I have to wonder if the reason that local missions get crossed off the list is because often here in the land of material abundance we find a people who are starving, but they are not hungry. Lives that are empty and desperately need the Word of God, yet they often have no desire to be filled. Not that we should stop trying to feed them… but… just a thought.
Your prayer reminds me of Habakkuk…he didn’t pray to be wrecked…actually he feared it to no end…but just before God revealed what would go down, He says (something like), “I am going to do something that you won’t believe, even if I told you!”…As Habakkuk learns of the the horrific storm to come he ultimately learns one thing…surrender.
When I first studied this…I knew some of what was coming for my own family..it pales in comparison to what others are going through, but it is a trial nonetheless… We have $14 to our name for the rest of the month, no credit and no gas! So I’ll be sticking around to see how God will provide and (surfin’ the internet funded by my little sister!) God is so good, even when we have very little, He provides!!!!
And as God wrecks us, makes us uncomfortable and brings us to utter dependence on Him, may we be like Habbakuk, who exulted His God in the face of his nation being demolished by Him. “I will rejoice in the Lord…He IS my strength…He enables me to go to new heights.”
i love habbakuk. you’ve inspired me to tackle that one again after i finish james. thanks.
Oh my Sarah… this is an awesome post.
I’ve always felt the missional work needs to be done everywhere, even in our own homes. I know that traveling to the other side of the world would help me see poverty in a different light. But to be broken and wrecked by the hands of God will happen His way in His time… it often is in my bathroom, while soaking!
This really is beautifully written and challenging. LOVE IT!
Love this. There have been many times when I was younger that people tried to make me feel “less than” because I did not go on every mission trip, outreach to Africa trip, etc. In my heart, I have always had this strong feeling that there is so much to do here–in our own “house”. God calls each of His children to serve differently. The key is stepping out and actually doing it–whether you are getting on a plane to Africa or stepping outside your front door into your own neighborhood.
I once prayed a very honest prayer: Lord, humble me. He did. He wrecked me me me me me, prideful me.
Two years of counseling later, me still poked her ugly head now and then, more now than then. Yet I met the man I needed. You know him. Begins with a J. Five letters.
Painful and back-flip-off-the-high-dive exhilarating.
When you pray to wrecked to see your poverty, God will do it. When you are ready. He knows. Blessings, sister.
Amen!
sarah,
it’s clear to me that you are earnestly praying this prayer that, yes, you do know what you are asking. more importantly, god knows what you are asking. and even more importantly, god knows what he is doing.
i get the concern. and i will also pray for your protection.
and i will also pray and rejoice and cry with you as you share your journey with us, because surely you will have tales to tell that will be used to bless & encourage others because, in the end, that’s what god does when we pray to be wrecked. (he does, in fact, wreck us.)
and he uses ALL things for our good and his glory. always.
xo
p.s. i was just considering your story…and then considering my story…after quickly scrolling through and seeing, ‘i don’t want my life to be easy’. and i am wondering if you would say, til now, your life really *has* been easy…? i get it, you mean the cushy & comfortable parts that we take for granted. but…could it be that god already *did* wreck you through the devastation your marriage faced? do you know what i mean? like…crazy, broken marriage…healed & restored…now you can go help other marriages? i don’t know. just a thought.
i may be way off-base and, obviously, is this is the thing that’s on your heart to pray then it’s probably all together different than what i’m suggesting. so maybe that was meant for me and not you.
mk
I enjoy your blog but find it painful to read today as we are packing, in the process of being evicted from our home of 4 years here in Phoenix,AZ. USA. We feel fortunate to be able to rent a room from our neighbor.
My husband and I are both college educated. He is 55 yrs old and the only provider for our family as i have not been able to work outside our home due to my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis of 19 years. We have lost everything financially within the last 3(yes – 3YEARS)due to the collapse of the housing market and the construction industry.
We visit food shelves to take from instead of giving to as we once did,have no savings and at times only a two figure checking account(75 dollars) and for the first time in all of my life, I am faced with loosing my health care which very well could be the end of me(as one of my weekly medications cost $1600 a month)
I am not eligible for medicare without sustaining a financial penalty because we have paid out of pocket for health insurance premiums for the 19 years. at the time I was diagnosed the government did not finance the medication I required that prevented me from going blind. our premiums are now a 4 figure amount(let’s see how long can we keep my neighbor’s roof over our head (yes,I know Jesus died without owning a house), a food shelf is a blessing(I have wondered what mana tasted like).
I do not want to loose my ability to see or walk. sometimes pain is just pain it doesn’t provide you with a special insight, it doesn’t make you feel more worthy or closer to god my god loves me and cries with me in our pain. no I won’t feel that i need to ask for brokenness for my family to truly be a desciple of God’s, being broken hurts.
I see too many neighbors right outside my door full of loss and confused by where their hard work and honesty has brought them. Yes, these things(extreme loss, poverty, and pain are here(not only 120 miles to the boarder from our home) or thousands of miles (my niece volunteered in Tanzania,(Africa)last summer)
Oh, just do not forget how close how many in our country are hurting and an American t-shirt isn’t attractive either, I pray too for my father to give me the strength to be what he wants me to be but traveling in a dark mile doesn’t always bring you wisdom, godliness,or a good mark in God’s eyes.
It truly sucks at times. and it isn’t surprising when it is across the streets,anymore. TS
I can relate, in some ways at least, to what you are saying, Tammy. I was one of the first casualties of the economic collapse in late 2008. My income got cut 63% percent — I had to give up my apartment, yard I had cared for, the roses I had planted, and even my dogs. This was on top of enduring three suicides in three, all of whom I loved very much. I also lost many family members during this time as well. I have spent the past 20 months travelling — running away from the pain and the grief, actually — and trying to find some way sustainable way to survive. I spent the past winter sleeping in my car — and it gets C O L D in The Northeast of America. I have had a handful of people help me, thankfully, but many seemed content to look the other way, acting like I didn’t exist. That hurt more than the cold and the hunger. When I finally did get a place to live, I got robbed. They just kicked the door down. Thankfully, I wasn’t there, but it felt like I was getting kicked again just when I thought I had a chance to finally get up. I never asked God to wreck me; I only asked for wisdom so that I could serve Him. The price, it’s true, has been far above rubies. And I have told Him — in a maddening rage of grief — how mad I was that she killed herself. And while there is so much more that I could say about the past 20 years, I just want to know…
…You are not alone.
And you are so very loved in this storm of yours…
…Especially when it just plain flat-out totally sucks.
God bless you — and SOON, I hope!!!
“I just want YOU** to know…you are not alone.”
(That’s the kind of thing that happens when I type with my thumbs. “My badness.”)
i love short-term missions. i’ve seen how God can use those experiences to truly transform a life—and i speak from personal experience there. but to think that God can only work His perspective-changing transformative power in the context of a mission trip is laughable at best. God is far bigger than that. His arm is not too short to reach into the busyness of our american lives and wreck our hearts for Him and His people.
the place of brokenness that many find on mission trips is really a matter of the heart. a surrender. a reckless faith. and we can all come to that place on any continent, in any city, on any bathroom floor, in any corner of starbucks. it doesn’t take a long flight to get there. only a contrite, obedient heart willing to pray dangerous prayers. prayers like those you are praying.
i hope you can come with me someday to my africa. but not because i think your life and your faith will be incomplete without it. i want you to experience her simply because she is beautiful and so worth knowing intimately.
but whether or not that ever happens, i don’t doubt for a second that God is speaking loudly to you (and through you). He is shaping and molding your heart daily to be more like His.
keep praying those dangerous prayers, friend. He’s meeting you right where you are.
Well said. I prayed something quote similair 8 years ago and He is till at it…
That was supposed to be a response to Mandy. Must be getting tired here…
Careful what you ask for, friend… These are the types of prayers God LOVES to answer. I’m sure, sometime in the next year, we’ll be reading how He’s doing the very things you’re asking of Him…
My oldest son Bryan just came from his second mission trip to Kenya, Africa, this past May. He arrived to the same conclusion as you!
Humility and Obedience. Serving Him anywhere is what He is requiring… And we say: Yes, Lord! Where He leads, we will follow 
God showed up in his heart in an very unexpected way! “Come back home,no time to lose” He is a football player at Baylor, his mission field…
Don’t get me wrong, I met the Lord in a missionary camp in Argentina at the age of nine, Twelve years later, I married an Mk (missionary kid) from Texas
Thanks Sarah, for taking time to share your heart and giving me the opportunity to pause and do the same. Rox
Love you and love this. Funny that we were on the same page today on the phone!
Love you sis!
i am living in wrecked. abiding in wrecked. on some ‘good’ days, i am resting in wrecked. and i am sitting in my parent’s living room in my hometown being wrecked. i think sometimes the most effective and long-lasting wrecking occurs in the comfort of our daily lives.
pray the scary prayers and get ready for them to be answered. as i am in the midst of my very own personal wrecking, i have prayed some scary prayers. prayers that at the time i didn’t even know were scary. prayers for revelation. prayers for the Lord to move. prayers for patience. prayers for greater intimacy with Christ. prayers for my ex-fiance.
i am watching the Lord answer those scary prayers and sometimes those answers hurt. prayers for patience have revealed an answer from the Lord to continue to wait on my ex-fiance. prayers for greater intimacy continue to show areas where i need to allow the Lord to take over control.
((by the way, i hate how i pray these prayers and then act shocked when the Lord answers just as He said He would. . .))
sarah, keep praying those scary prayers. . .there is no telling what the Lord is going to do with you in the future. look at what He has already done through your story and continues to do through your writing. i cannot wait to see what He is penning in the next chapter of your life. . .
LOVE this~ once again you are speaking my heart.
And God wrecked this upper middle class suburban momma in my living room
Working on outreach to local children in abuse shelters. CAN”T WAIT to see how God moves!
Oh man, stabbed right in the heart. That’s not a bad thing. But it’s the truth of living in the excessive comfort of the U.S. God’s sure big enough to do whatever, wherever, however He wants. May we ever be willing to surrender.
Sarah, I love your honesty and your desire to be wrecked. I’m asking myself if I can afford to not ask that same thing of Him. My life is rather wrecked already. It has been and one thing I know from it, is that it’s extremely humbling and forces me into His arms. I can make it no other way. God bless you as you as Him to wreck you, and love on you all the while.
TS . . .my heart was broken as I read your comment. No one knows what each one’s wrecked will be. Thank you for sharing yours with us. Praying with you to be what He wants you to be. . .and somehow sure that you already are.
love, deb
“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the FELLOWSHIP of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…” To long to be wrecked is to long to have fellowship with our Lord and to become more like Him. It’s a good thing to long for!! and I’m pretty sure you know what you are asking. Bless you Sarah.
It seems in our human nature to want the dramatic. Somehow ministry or experiences with drama and extremes fuel some inner part of us that wants something big to taste, to feel. I am finding that oftentimes my desire for the dramatic is my motivator for ministry, instead of simply wanting to
love like Jesus.
Because I can love like Jesus, anywhere, with a heart that is all, and only, His.
Thanks for the reminder.
It is so true. We don’t need to look any further than ourselves to see poverty of faith and love. Such a great reminder. And truly asking HIM to open your heart and eyes and give the LOVE to follow HIS words is exactly what we are supposed to do.
Thanks for this post!
Beautiful. And I say that because I feel your heart….and mine.
I went to Kenya, Africa almost ten years. It changed the course of my life. I became a photographer out of that trip. Being able to show a picture of a little boy that was living on the street spoke louder than any words I could say. Now saying all this, I find that they helped me more than I helped the kids in Kenya. It seemed strange and I suffered from guilt from gaining more from the trip rather than giving to the people.
A few years later Pastor Justus who runs the church, school, and orphanage came to speak at our church. He told everyone that he saw the same poverty in Mexico that he sees in his own country.
But what I saw in Kenya was a wealth that we don’t have in America. Time to build relationships, everyone stops to talk to each other, there is wonderful sense of community. Happy children-when I came home, I made my kids give away half of the toys that they had. Families that don’t have much in material ways but deep love and commitment to each other.
For me, the short mission trip changed my life. I can only hope that I can help others the way the Kenyans helped me.
Hey Sarah, this is so incredible to read! Thank you for sharing your heart! We are reading Radical by David Platt. I think you wold enjoy this book! This book touches on how “we” live for the “american Dream”, life in other countries and what we in the US take for granted and how we all must be Radical for God. It was written by a pastor in Birmingham, Al. Get it! It is good!
Guilt and condemnation do not come from God. No matter what it’s about or how unfair life seems sometimes. Conviction to do something differently is prompting and needs to be heeded.
Thank you for your beautiful post. I completely agree that God can use any circumstance, any location to work out His desires in our hearts. However, there is something about leaving your country that does a remarkable thing. Maybe because there’s obedience involved…an obedience that stands up to the fear of the unknown, and I think God blesses that.
My husband, 3 kiddos and I moved to Guatemala 2 years ago. We’re not anything special, had never done full-time ministry before. Like Laurie posted earlier, I’m reading “Radical” by David Platt, and it is a good reminder that Jesus didn’t intend missions to be something for a few “called” people. He actually commanded all of us to do it.
YES, it can be and should be down the street, at the homeless shelter, in the neighborhood, but, as Platt says in his book, God’s heart is for the whole world, and when I was living my comfy suburban life, I often forgot that. Shame on me. I think the difference of living in another country is that I don’t have to drive anywhere to see poverty. It is literally right outside my front door, so I can’t ever turn a blind eye to it or forget it….sometimes I honestly wish I could, but in reality, I know that my family & I will never be the same because of that. We’re here to help others, but God has wrecked us in the process.
[...] ways) as the moving. Each of our stories is uniquely good and beautiful. Check out this Sarah Markley post about God working, right at home. [...]
Thank you so much for writing this. Seriously. I have very strong feelings about this. I haven’t been brave enough to write about them yet – but this may have been the nudge I needed.
Amen! It is great when Africa wrecks people and builds from the wreckage a desire to change their lives and serve others…but if the money for the plane ticket could be spent serving others, that’s even better! There certainly is poverty and suffering right here. I especially think of this when I read about people wanting to adopt children from other countries–of course it is always honorable to take on the raising of a child, but why uproot them across the world when there are so many children here waiting for families to love them? (I know in some states it is more difficult to adopt domestically, particularly if the child is a different race than you are, than internationally, but that’s ridiculous and needs to change!)
Thanks for this eloquent essay. May God use you for something amazing!