Haiti: Journal Entry #16

I've been sick for a week. I started getting really frustrated this past weekend because I haven't been able to "do" as much as I'd like to be doing here. In fact, this whole trip has been quite the reverse from what most of us expected. Just how much rest He has given us and how tired we all are became very apparent when the four teams converged and shared what they've been "doing". Most teams are building, doing VBS', etc. Most teams are in bed by 8pm and up at 5am. We in Uncaged, on the other hand, are up late into the night and don't have to be at breakfast until 8am.

I started feeling really useless in that comparison. And now with my voice gone because I'm sick, I haven't even been able to translate/talk for the team - the one real skill I've felt able to bring to the table here. I physically cannot speak. I've felt God saying to be still for some time but today I'm forced to be still because of being sick and loosing my voice - I'm actually separated from everyone, in a back room by myself while they are out working on the wall.

And then today, with the sicknesss and no voice and forced rest/alone time, it all starts coming together. I feel somewhere in the past few months that "doing" has become more important to me than "being".

That serving has become my identity.

Like God will love me less if I'm not out there serving, or I have to make up for past mistakes and wanderings away from Him by doing more now.

Wow.

It hits me like a load of bricks, realizing these things I've been walking in without realizing it.

And I knew before the trip that I needed to rest. But i kept on taking on more so how ironic to bring me here and get me sick to really force me to sit down and be with Him in order to get it through my thick skull that all this time, I still haven't fully grasped the gospel of G-R-A-C-E!!

It seems like God is trying to impress the message on me that He wants to carry me into a new season - one of relationship and becoming who I am in Christ, not in my serving, not in my external relationships and obligations... and a season to learn how He, God, the maker of heaven and earth, feels about me (ME?!?!) outside of my serving Him, regardless of anything I do for Him. What the heck was I thinking....without knowing I was thinking it... God doesn't need me... He wants me... and sometimes it is more glorifying to stop and be with him than to be doing things for Him.

I can barely wrap my mind around this right now. The weight of grace is on me. How did I miss this for so long...