"God, I want to be challenged, but I know where you have called me. I know that I am to be a behind the scenes prayer warrior. You have not called me to speak to the church,"
Merely hours after praying this, after working with the kids to escape being in the service and facing the chance of speaking, I found myself standing in front of a church in Romania speaking about the definition of family.
"Southeast Asia, but not Thailand. . . I don't know where the trips will be headed, but I know you want me to go to that general area, just not Thailand,"
See anything familiar here?
Because I do.
Today, I had my interview to be officially approved or rejected from the Real Life trip with Adventures In Missions that I applied for.
I was approved. Guess where I'm spending two months this summer?
Thailand.
Yes, Thailand. God has a funny way of directing me towards the things I am most scared of or feel least equipped for. But through this, He is made even more glorious. Though I feel incredibly inadequate, I know I am not headed into this on my own; He will be with me the whole way, and He will equip me with all that I need to minister to the women of Thailand. See, I'm not the first one who saw how Christ's glory is made apparent through my weakness. This guy you might have heard of, named Paul, realized this long before me.
"So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' "
- 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.
You see, I don't have to feel adequate, because I'll never be adequate. I'm human, and just like all other humans, I'm incapable of accomplishing anything on my own or ever being perfect, because I'm human and we kind of suck (Actually, more than kind of. We're basically the worst). We are sinners, we are imperfect, and we will never be able to do anything without Christ. He works through our inadequacies and leads us to things we could never do on our own, but with Him, we conquer. With Him, we cannot be defeated. With Him, we are unstoppable. With Him, we are MORE than adequate. And because we only succeed with Him there to back us up, His glory is made apparent through our failures and He is given the praise and acknowledgment He deserves.
So through Him, I have the strength and grace to face my fears and go to Thailand. We'll be spending two months working with past and present victims of sex trafficking, showing them that they are more than a body and a pretty face. They are God's beloved, His precious daughters and they are His beautiful masterpiece. We'll be restoring hope to the hopeless and showing a kind of love many have never seen before. Lives will be changed, and it won't just be the ones of the girls we'll be working with. Yes, even though I'm really excited, I'm scared. Am I adequate? No, but I have Christ on my side, and He will speak through me and allow me to be His light in this dark place, and He'll shine through my inadequacies and make Himself known as glorious, deserving, and Holy, Holy, Holy!
And if that's what it means to have a thorn in your flesh, throw me into a whole patch of thistles, because I'm ready to be punctured by that kind of thorn.
"Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong,"
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
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