When Life Feels Like Heart Surgery

Allow me to share a piece of truth with you: missionaries are FAR from perfect. 

These past two months in Portland have felt like one long continual process of open heart surgery. Without anesthesia. Through this journey, the Lord has revealed so many things about my heart and given me constant ways I need to change in order to be able to reveal Christ in me in this place. I would like to share seven with you. 

#1: Complaining, even disguised as conversation about culture shock, brings resentment. There is a reason Philippians 2:14-16 enourages us to "do all things without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life." I have struggled through culture shock in this place, but instead of taking those cares and casting them upon the Lord and bringing an offering of thanksgiving for this place, I have often been caught comparing life here to life in GA. While GA is a pretty cool place, I have had to come to grips with the fact that Oregon is just as cool of a place and THIS is where God has me in this season. I am called to be all in HERE. He is working in and through me HERE. Just because Oregonians don't do life the same doesn't mean that their culture doesn't give me something to praise God for HERE. When people see me constantly comparing OR to GA but then they hear me say that I believe God called me here, they hear me say that I am not content with God's choices, that I don't trust Him to choose what is best, that I am challenging their upbringing here as not as good as mine. Though this has not been my intention, I have had to learn these things the hard way. 

#2: Listening to others' advice and Biblical wisdom is key to success. Early on in my time here, Joshua told me I needed to stop comparing OR to GA. Had I humbled myself and quit being stubborn long enough to listen, I could have avoided a lot of the things I am having to go back and fix now. Very reflective of Proverbs 11:2: "With pride comes shame, but with the humble is wisdom."

#3: Students are people and friends--NEVER ministry projects. One thing is super clear in all of our records of Jesus' life. Everyone He met was a person made in the image of God, and He treated them as such. Never were people projects to fix or challenges to conquer. I am not the focus of ministry.  My success is not the point of ministry. "So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase."  (I Cor 3:7)

#4: The heart is deceptive, and if I don't watch my motives, I will get off track. We don't really always know what our hearts are saying. "The heart is decietful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart; I test the mind..." I have been learning throughout my time here that building friendships with people has to be a heart-searching process. It can't be about self, manipulation, control, or fulfillment of desire. It has to be about Jesus, about selfless, honest, and purity-focused love, and about vulnerable, grace-and-truth-filled compassion. 

#5: Fighting for people's trust means I have to be trustworthy. Trustworthy equals vulnerability, patience, and pure motives. Trust is not just allowing others to see my heart; it is just as much allowing them to show me theirs in their time. I can't force someone to give me the puzzle pieces of their life. Trust isn't something I earn for doing all the right things; it's not a math problem. Trust is a gift. 

#6: "You have to make worldly friends in order to see them become godly friends." Faith, my spiritual mama here in Portland, shared these words with me yesterday and they hit home with me. It's easy to want to walk away from uncomfortable conversations here because living in a culture with values so different from what I am used to, those conversations abound. But I am learning to instead love, pray, and listen through them. If I want people to share their real lives with me, I must be willing to listen to their real lives and share from my real life--struggles and all. 

#7: I can't ride on what I've believed since childhood; I have to know the reason AND be able to explain it. Colossians 4:5-6 tells us to "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one." So often I have floated on the "always with grace" part of that verse; in a Southern context, where more people are familiar with the Bible as a result of geographical "Bible-belt" culture, sometimes that is enough. But here it is most definitely not. I have been challenged both by students and by Joshua as he encourages me through and walks alongside me in situations and conversations with students to know the reasons. This is a slow growth process that has been put on steriods in my life recently because the culture requires that I know and that I can explain. 

Even though these past two months have been the most overwhelming and adjustment-filled of my life, I am grateful that He continues to work in me. Through it all, He is proving Himself Faithful in this place. An update of that nature still to come!