As I sit at a strangers dining room table in a town I’ve never been to before, I’m reflecting on the past year. A year of adventure, uncertainty, excitement…and sometimes stress. This year has definitely been a learning curve for all three of us. But as I think about the road (haha) that this past year has brought us down, I can think of four key lessons that have improved and strengthened me on this journey.
Lesson 1: Organization is key to sanity.
Organization does not come naturally to me. Unlike my little sister-in-law, who could write a book on structure, this is something that I struggle with. My mother always told me when I was growing up that I was the master at hiding things. She would tell me to clean my room and at the end of the day it would look clean…until she found the plastic bags of stuff hidden in my closet. However, this year has FORCED me to make some organizational changes. Being responsible for packing and moving basically everything that my family needs to live every week has really changed the way I look at managing stuff. We’ve developed a system of packing that works pretty well for us and now I can have all of us packed to go pretty much anywhere for any length of time in about 2 hours.
Lesson 2: Learn to have flexibility.
I feel like I am an oxymoron of sorts. I said that I have NO organizational skills but I am a planner. I am a question asker who needs to know everything. Because of this, our lifestyle over the last year has taught me a few things about being flexible. Last minute changes, surprise speaking opportunities, and the general unknown have all been things that have strengthened my ability to LET GO over the last year. I have always had kind of an all or nothing mentality when it comes to planning. In the past, I felt that if I couldn’t control every minute detail of the situation then I wasn’t going to plan anything at all. I have realized that when I try to take control of situations and stick strictly to the plan, I end up being way more stressed and it doesn’t change anything. Slowly, I’ve been intentional about handing the reigns back over to God and reminding myself that the unknown factor is not always negative.
Lesson 3: This is an extrovert’s life.
But I’m not an extrovert. I’m pretty sure that I’m actually the EXACT opposite. In high school, I did whatever I could to get out of speaking in front of class, even raising my hand was nerve wracking. Strange social situations, making new friends, and speaking to a crowd are all things that intimidate me more than anything else. So, it’s easy to say that this year has not been the most comfortable for me but I’ve been learning. God has shaken up my idea of security and thrown me into a life that only an extrovert can lead. I feel like I truly realized this a few Sundays ago when we were asked to teach high school Sunday School on the spot. I few years ago, panic and queasiness would have immediately set in and I would have been wishing I had some sort of anti-anxiety medicine. I would have been looking for any excuse to escape, but none of this happened. We jumped in and had a great time. Nervousness didn’t even cross my mind. I’m still not an extrovert and may never be, but God has given me a passion for people and a confidence that I could have never mustered on my own.
Lesson 4: Trust is the only thing that really matters.
Deputation is what you make it. One of our missionary friends told us this in the beginning. You can make it through deputation and arrive on your field without ever learning any of the first three lessons. It may be a chaotic, anxiety-filled mess of a ride but its doable. But, I’ve learned in the last year that you won’t succeed without trust. Unless you trust that God is doing something in the midst of confusion and the unknown, it’s likely that you won’t be buying that one-way plane ticket. Regardless of what happens on this long, sometimes harsh journey of deputation, the lesson that must be FOREFRONT in our minds is that God orchestrated all of this. He’s putting all the pieces together. In return, He expects us to trust Him with the plan and just do the work (the hard work) that He asks us to do.
It occurred to me the other day that God could put us in Belgium tomorrow. The funds could come together and the tickets could be bought. I’ve heard of things like this happening and I know that it’s possible. But if I wake up tomorrow in southeastern Oklahoma, I know that God has a plan for me to still be on deputation. It’s not by accident that we’re raising funds this way. God has taught me so much in the last year on deputation and I know he’s using this time in my life to mold me into the person He needs me to be.
