Saturday, January 31, 2009

fear...

32 days

So this week seems like it's been an emotional one compared to the past few. The pressure to get everything done before I leave is building with every day. I've spent the day today shopping with my mom and yesterday with my good friend Tabby and the reality of what is going to happen in 32 days has all of a sudden become more real. I'm leaving everyone I love in a country that is all I've ever known to move to a country full of unknowns. For the first time since I made the decision to move to China I've felt fearful of the unknown. When people hear for the first time that my plans are to move to China, they always look confused and they almost always ask me the same question "are you not scared?" and my response has always been "no". But within the past 48 hours I've felt something that I've never felt.

I'm fearful of leaving home in Oklahoma and never finding a home anywhere else. Not just a physical structure but a place that feels like home.
I'm fearful of not being able to understand or pick up the language.
I'm fearful of my little "comfortable life" being turned upside down so drastically that I'm never the same ever again. 
I'm fearful of leaving my friends and my family. 
I'm fearful of missing out on my families lives. 
I'm fearful of missing births, weddings and even funerals. 
I'm fearful of running out of money or resources. 
I'm fearful that the children in Luoyang won't like me or that I won't be able to connect with them on a deeper level. 
I'm fearful that I won't be able to give the children the love that they need and deserve.
I'm fearful that I'm going to see and feel things that will challenge my faith like it has never been challenged.
I'm fearful that I won't be a good witness to the children or to the people in my daily life.

My stomach is in knots while I'm writing this post because I don't want to be this transparent with friends or strangers. It makes me uncomfortable to voice my fears because it makes it evident that I don't have everything together. But that's why I feel like I have to write this post. To show everyone that I don't have it all together. And I simply never will. 

Do you want to know the thing that I am most fearful of? 

Not following the call that God has given me to move to China and work with the children there.  To miss out on the very thing that I feel like God has created me for. 

The beautiful thing about human fear......... is that I don't have to fear anything anymore. My humanity wants to live in a state of fear because I simply don't know what the next year of my life will look like. But my faith is constantly reminding me and showing me that all I have to do is be still. And find refuge in God. If I'm in His will for my life, I have nothing to fear. I can find a peace and a joy in the "unknown" because it's not an unknown at all. Before the world was a giant ball of water and earth, God knew that I would be sitting in this very spot writing this very post. Nothing is unknown to Him. And I can find rest in that. 

Please continue to pray for the CHF staff and the children.

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