A Difficult Time.

There I was ten months ago thinking I understood the meaning of a difficult time. Complaining about the gas prices and having to work on Friday nights. There I was unaware of what the future held before me. “Hola como estas?” which is, “hello how are you?” in Spanish. How was I? How about what was I doing? In September of 2011 I said goodbye to my family and boarded the plane; I was headed to Costa Rica for nine months. “This is going to be so much fun and I am going to change so many lives!” was my thought process on the plane ride down. After arriving to this new and unfamiliar country, surrounded by thirty other American students who were strangers at the time, it hit me, this would be my home for the next nine months.

Two years prior was when I heard about this GAP program and decided to take a year off of school to go study the Bible and Spanish, all while making an impact on the lives of the Costa Ricans. Little did I know that my world was on the verge of being rocked. I know what you’re thinking; I went away on a nine months mission trip. In fact, that’s exactly what I thought too, until something began to change inside of me. After hours of Bible class, small group once a week, one-on-one mentorship, and sharing a room with three other girls, I slowly started to realize I wasn’t as good as I made myself out to be. There I was, putting MY life on hold, setting MY dreams aside, and for what? I faced the truth that on my own I could never be good, in fact, I had an evil heart that searched to please the world and nothing I did would ever satisfy me. At eighteen years old, having grown up in the church, and claiming to have been a Christian, I was struck with the reality that all of those years had been lived for me.

Within the first few months of being in Costa Rica my heart began to beat for different things. Suddenly I had a longing to know more about this God I had ignored for so many years and once He got a hold of my heart everything changed. The way I viewed the world, friendships, my family, relationships, and Christianity, all took a 180 turn. I now had to figure out what I was doing with my life. For eighteen years I had been fed the lie that I am to go to the best college, only to have the best job that pays the best; the lie that I have to be “somebody” and change the world as I climb the ladder of success. I was told to be independent and to not let anyone stand in my way. Well what if, standing in front of me, was the God of the world, the Creator of the universe? Suddenly I felt small. The Savior of my soul was asking me to give up the reigns and trust that He had better plans for me than I had for myself.

Not only was He asking me to turn in my future dreams, in exchange for something I couldn’t even see yet, but He was asking me to do it with a joyful heart. This trip was about ME making a difference in other’s lives, why was I starting to see that the reason I was in Costa Rica was so MY life could be changed; that I was the one who needed help? I was put through trials and temptations that, on my own, I would have given in to. Because I decided to lay down the ability to control my life, I was able to turn from these earthly desires and look to the One who has the power to save me from destroying myself.

From September 2011 to May 2012 I learned that my purpose on earth has nothing to do with me. The reason for my being is merely to glorify God and love others. I had to swallow my pride and throw away my self-righteousness and let God change me from the inside out. Realizing that God’s will for my life might not look the same way I had it pictured was hard to grasp. What I do know now, after developing a relationship with Jesus Christ, is that I wouldn’t want anything other than His will for my life. In the past nine months He has shown me the meaning of love and has taught me how to love people, with the right heart. He has shown me that giving up my life was the best exchange I could have made because with it came freedom. My chains are tied to Him forever and nothing can take that away. Those nine months were the hardest months of my life, but through it all I learned how to fall in love with Jesus.

So yes, paying for gas and working on Friday nights may be inconveniences at times, but I will do them with a joyful heart and never again will I let those inconveniences keep me from doing God’s will. My passion is to bring Him fame and no longer will I settle for what the world has to offer me.