Reflection

If I had to describe the year in two words they would be “painful” and “good”. 

There were so many moments of deep pain. Loss of friendships. Untruths spoken about us. Misunderstandings. People actively trying to keep us from Mali. Feelings of being betrayed, abandoned, cast aside. Being rejected again and again. Loss of trust. Loss of our home, our work, our town, our known life. Loss of more and more friendships. There were days we felt so beat down I didn’t know if we would and could go forward. Living in the unknown, honestly having no idea what we were going to do. The year was painful. I would venture to say one of the most, if not the most painful year of our lives.

But it was oh so good. I can’t look back on the year without being tremendously grateful. The Lord met us in our brokenness. The Lord is in fact close to the brokenhearted. He proved Himself once again to be our safe and ONLY haven. When man fails you, you see the faithfulness of God oh so much more. His grace is abounding. I am thankful for the pruning of this year, for the lessons learned and for a heart that is permanently changed.

Grace was a beautiful theme for me. I saw it in a whole new light. I’ve always known that we could do nothing for our salvation, that He loved us in our sinfulness, and that He came to heal the sick, not the healthy, but I often found myself trying to prove my worth. Cleaning myself up to present myself worthy of His grace. But that’s not it at all. His grace is free. His grace is for the sinner. His grace is for those who mess up, who are rejected, and who are unworthy. His grace is for me. No one can take that from me. I should not take it from others. We should extend grace to others with the same extravagance with which our Savior gives it to us. If we think, even subconsciously, that we had some part in our being accepted, then we are much more likely to judge the behaviors of others (at least I know this to be true in my own life). We feel like we can be critical of what one says or does and that we have some role to play in determining whether another’s actions are good or not. But we have no such position. Ours is only to accept the free gift He gives and to share it with others. We must also share it with ourselves each and every moment, remembering that we no longer stand condemned but free through the blood of Jesus. A friend of mine shared the book, “The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness” by Tim Keller with me and I love it. I am still trying to apply the truths of it to my heart. It is based on 1 Corinthians 4 "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself." (vs 3) This is a profound statement. One I have never even come close to living out, especially the part of judging myself. As Keller explains, we take ourselves to the courtroom each and every day trying to prove our worth and righteousness, weighing our value and acceptance on how we are perceived by others or what we think of ourselves. But through the blood of Jesus we have no need to stand in the courtroom. The verdict is in. We are holy, worthy and justified by the blood of Jesus. This knowledge should spur us toward love and good deeds rather than doing good words in order to be accepted. Before this year whenever I heard the phrase that the Father says to Jesus, "Well done, my good and faithful servant," I always longed to live faithfully enough so I could hear those same words. It sounds holy enough. I wanted to be faithful so that the Lord would be pleased by me. I wanted to do what I needed to earn the right to hear, "Well done." I now realize that I had that all wrong. I already stand in this position. Because Jesus died for me and gave me His righteousness, the Father looks at me and says to me NOW, "Well done." There are no actions, good or bad, that can change this standing that I already possess in Jesus. I stand before the Lord clean and fully accepted. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, He sees me and says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." Something I always thought I needed to earn is already laid in front of me by Jesus. Amazing. His grace is good. His grace is free. His grace leads me to action.

I planted flowers this spring as a memorial to remind me of what the Lord had done and to say goodbye to the past. After I dug up the soil I threw torn pieces of paper into it.

On the paper were hurts that I had forgiven and various people and things that I had to leave from my time in Koutiala.

That time of my life, the joys, pains and the blessings, was a season that was over. The Lord was calling us to new things and I needed to move forward.

I wanted the flowers to be a living testament to two things. One, that though the past was in fact the past, there were new things, new beauty to come. And two, that all the hurts we had experienced were laid at the cross and forgiven. They needed to stay there. I could not dig them back up again.

I truly am thankful for the past year. As hard as it was, it was also very sweet. It is a time that I Will look back upon as a defining time in my life, where the presence of the Lord was so very clear and near to me. It is a line in the sand kind of year; many changes occurred and things will never be the same. I am one of those things. I am forever changed with lessons and moments cemented into my soul. I am so very thankful.