Mark 16: 14-20 talks about the "great commission" and asks us to "Go into the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." (v15)
Now when I read that it makes my stomach hurt and get a little nervous. I don't want to be a overbearing weirdo and I get anxious in general about a lot of things even though I'm mostly pretty outgoing. The thing is, the Lord knows this. He knows every secret in my heart and he also meets me (and all of us) exactly where we are.
In general I think I'm not available for commissioned moments because I over-think and over-analyze every interaction I have with someone and I'm very concerned about making sure they are happy and feel comfortable. Sometimes sharing the word of God (in love of course) can cause conviction and make someone feel uncomfortable. That's the part that makes me anxious.
But again, the Lord knows all of this, he knows every detail of our being and every secret of our heart. He knows exactly how I feel about this. It was through our recent adoption journey that the Lord opened the doors and kindly pushed me through them to get better in this aspect of my life. When we decided to start the adoption process nothing about it made sense. Logistically - we're away from our family, living on law school loans, my husband is a full time student and my job was a nightmare of stress. And personally - it wasn't because we couldn't have biological kids. We started this process because we really truly felt the Lord called us to do it. One of the reasons we pretty much knew it was the Lord was because nothing else about it made sense and walking in blind faith is a scary, but amazing opportunity.
So, that being said, when people would ask about the adoption and why we decided to adopt (which is always everyone's first question) we really had absolutely no other answer than we felt called to do this by the Lord. Well, for many of our friends who had never heard us utter such words before I'm not sure what they thought. But I know that the Lord provided a huge number of moments through this story for us to share at work, at our new church, to our friends, family, etc. And when my stomach would hurt to say it because I didn't want an unbelieving co-worker or friend to feel uncomfortable the Lord gave me the strength to say it and then go on to explain it.
Now I'd be lying if I said it went perfectly all the time. So, for instance one time I believe I said "well, you know it's just like, you know, like, what we're supposed to do, ya know? YA FEEL ME?!" Ha! I didn't say it exactly like that but pretty darn close. And man what a terrible feeling in my stomach when I walked away thinking - man, I just had the opportunity to share my faith and also the truth (instead of my half-hearted lie) with someone and I didn't. And you know what? Instead of feeling anxious that I made someone uncomfortable I felt more anxious that I didn't give them the opportunity to hear and that was my selfish choice. So after that things started to turn around. But I'm still not perfect, and never will be.
It's amazing to talk about this experience with my friends who are believers, but when you attempt to explain why you are doing something seemingly irrational to a non-believer and they stare at you with a blank look and then physically look uncomfortable, that's hard friends.
Currently we're still being pushed in this direction as in the recent months we've felt that this is no longer the direction the Lord wants us to go right now. He has revealed some amazing wisdom to us and also opened doors for us to partner with organizations who help keep families together and reunite families in Ethiopia. Explaining now to our friends, some of whom never understood in the first place, that now we are placing this on hold is even more difficult! But at the same time it allows us to explain that we're becoming more familiar with the Lord's voice, that the Lord used this process so far to do amazing things and that now that we know what it feels like to hear him give direction in our lives we are waiting for what is next.
#shesharestruth
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