Photo by Lauren Seitz
Continued from previous post…
I was talking with a friend the other day and expressed to her how tough the past two months had been. Especially the last month when I’ve felt like a vagabond, couch-surfer; wondering the whole time if God had forgotten about me. It wasn’t my proudest month. While I completely trusted the Lord and knew that He hadn’t forgotten and that He did indeed have a plan, my spirit was heavy and many times I struggled to find sure footing in my faith.
But the Lord kept me and comforted me. He gave me small moments of clarity that sustained my spirit. His words spoke truth, and challenged me to believe harder and cling stronger to everything I knew about Him. Let me explain it through an illustration.
Imagine your life is a painting, you split it up into many pieces and then toss them all into the air. If you don’t catch them all they will come tumbling down around you and shatter.
Now, translate that into real life. In late Feb I split my life up into many pieces. In March I tossed them into the air. Come April I was scrambling to catch them all. But (back to illustration) as the pieces are starting to fall back to earth I notice a person standing across from me. All the pieces are between us, falling in slow motion. I try to keep eye contact with the man across from me but in my panic I keep looking up at the pieces of my life. If I want to fix it and save the pieces I have to move now! But I keep hearing His voice calling me to look back at Him. Cut to my head whipping back and forth between the pieces and His face as the panic rises.
Why isn’t He helping me? Why won’t he move to grab the pieces before they shatter? And I know I’ve got to decide. I’ve got to make the choice between running for the pieces of my life and keeping my eyes trained on Him. It’s hard to trust that the pieces will all come together if I’m not organizing them myself. And then I realize that even if I ran and jumped and grabbed as fast as I possibly could, I wouldn’t be able to reach all the pieces on time. Even worse, I might mess up the end result because no matter how hard I look at all the pieces, I can’t see how they fit together.
So with the panic rising rapidly I tear my eyes from the pieces that seem so close to hitting the ground and train my wild eyes on His. I force myself to notice every detail of His beautiful face and commit it to memory. Something inside me tells me that He is worth having my life broken for and as I begin to recognize who He is, the pieces start to fade away. My vision narrows and the panic of the moment dissipates.
Then I look around and notice a beautiful painting hanging on the wall. I walk up to it and study the details; the moments where the artist decided to go left instead of right, the color choices, the way the pieces are cut out. And I suddenly realize that these are the pieces of my life. They are put together and they paint a picture that I didn’t even know was possible. I look back at the eyes of Him and stare in wonderment. And He smiles a crooked smile and says, “See! Didn’t I tell you I could make it beautiful?”
Now translate to real life…
All the details and plans of my life were up in the air. I didn’t know where I would be living next month, and everything I was looking for didn’t work out. I mean the sky was the limit on red-tape and bad timing. And none of it made sense. The harder I tried to find an answer, the more complicated it became. So I gave up and told everyone that I had absolutely no idea what my plans were and I was simply staying at Betties. Then Thursday after work my boss sat me down and offered me an opportunity.
“Jennie, how do you feel about going to Haiti for two months?”
Cue vision of the painting. The pieces are all falling together and I realized He had been right and that what had looked like abandonment was actually provision. For the past two months I had questioned God about why He wasn’t providing. When in reality He was setting me up perfectly to be able to go. And I was so blind to it because I wanted the pieces to fit together as I expected them to. I had a plan and attempted to force it. He was simply kind enough to not give me what I wanted.
So I am going to Haiti. Three years after leaving for Kenya I am once again heading into the field.
My new role will be as a Global Water Crisis (GWC) Advocate and I will be capturing the GWC through photography and writing. My one way ticket has me leaving May 17th with the intention of returning sometime middle to late July. Right now Water Missions is in the process of responding to the earthquake in Nepal so my work life is crazy, and I only have a few days in Charleston to pack up my stuff, figure out my new role, purchase the materials necessary and say goodbye to friends. It’s been hectic and it’s going to stay that way until the cabin door closes and the pilot says, “prepare for takeoff”. Only then will I be able to take a deep breath and rest. Until then it’s all hands on deck as I attempt to keep this ship afloat.
As I head into this new and very intimidating role I ask that you pray with me. I feel under qualified and nervous but I know this is where Jesus is calling me to go. So I ask that you would intercede on my behalf so that God will lay out the ground before me and so that I’ll have the faith to step onto it. You can follow along on my Instagram to see photos from my trip. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going.
Until next time friends!
Footsteps of Tender Feet 