Somehow, I’m sitting at final debrief with less than four days on the field. So bittersweet, so many emotions, so many thoughts, so many prayers.
This is the ending to a season I fought hard for, a season I blindly stepped out in faith and relied on the Lord’s provision to even be possible, a season that required me to fully surrender, tough faith, sacrifice, availability and complete abandonment of everything that was familiar to me, a season that led me out of the darkness and into the light.
This was a season of healing, restoration, discipline, obedience, grace, full surrender, uncomfortability, renewal, sacrifice and boldness.
There are so many emotions to the end, but the Lord keeps repeating, “This is only the beginning.” This is only the beginning of what the Lord is going to do in my life. It is only the beginning of where he is going to lead me.
Lots of lessons, some of them being extremely hard to process and to learn. Days of loneliness, sadness and heartache, days of pure joy and happiness, days of my heart being completely filled to the brim and seeming unable to take in anything else, days of long, hard, honest conversations.
What a journey with Jesus, his children, his world, serving him, loving him and seeking him.
A season that changed my life, my perspectives, my thoughts, my goals, my dreams, a season that undoubtedly confirmed what the Lord has called me to do for the rest of my life.
My eyes and my heart have seen a lot of things I wish could be unseen, but they’ve also seen and experienced things that I wish I could see a 100 times over.
Through all of the inconsistencies of this world, he is consistent.
A season I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to because it represents so much — my life, my mission, freedom, victory, hope.
My mind is completely boggled that this journey is over, and in two days, I’ll be back to my home. I’ve left my heart in six different countries. I’ve left pieces of me with hundreds of children and people. I’m coming back to my home, but I come back knowing that I have a home in six other countries and three continents, as well.
This journey and this mission have been more than I could have ever hoped for or imagined, and the Lord keeps saying, “This is only the beginning.”