freedom – Lessons in Veritas

“The God of Miracles”: Reflections on My Time in Costa Rica

This May, I was able to spend 10 days in Costa Rica with a nursing student team from my college to partner with CFCI and run health clinics around the communities of San Jose. Check out my reflections below:

Our God is the God of life-renewing miracles. Recently, I have struggled with this idea, and over the past few months I have stood in the face of some of the toughest questions about my faith. In Costa Rica, these doubts were shattered as I was reminded of the power of our ever faithful God.

I saw Him in our answered prayers. During our orientation night, one of the CFCI leaders (Christ for the City International, the ministry we partnered with) told

us about the miracles of God he had witnessed, and asked us to pray for them as a team. “How interesting,” I thought. “To speak the first night about miracles – something is different about this place.”

And so, I prayed. And the next day I talked to a man who was helping at our first clinic. He told me about his testimony – that his family had fallen apart because of his past decisions. He lived as a criminal, addicted to drugs, and had almost died on more than one occasion. He always knew about God. But when he decided to enter into the presence of Jesus, his life was completely changed. I prayed for him, and he prayed for me, and he humbly declared that it was purely God’s “milagros” that have saved him. He translated this phrase for me on my phone.

God’s miracle — a changed life.

I saw God in the hearts of the people that we served. Some live in inexplicable circumstances. Yet, they had hope. Some cried as we offered them the simple care of a listening ear and prayer, and many left our clinics with radiating joy.

God is moving in the communities we visited.

I saw God in my own team members, leaders, and host family. Each day, we worked together, and we served together cohesively. I saw the joy in their hearts. I saw their passion for each person they intentionally took the time to love on. And I was ignited by their burning hearts for Christ.

Perhaps most profoundly, I saw God in His restoration and peace. I witnessed how He is completely restoring lives and communities in Costa Rica. But I also witnessed His restoration in me. While filled with many incredible experiences, my previous trip out of the country was wrought with internal disaster. For the past year, I have struggled to reconcile what happened on that trip. I’ve had to learn how to accept the fact that God loves me, and I’ve had to learn how to love myself.

On this trip, every single day was filled with supernatural peace. I felt God life this burden of shame off me. He renews. He restores. He is always faithful. We won’t experience His glory fully until this broken world is made new. But for now, I rest in His life-changing power.

And so, here I am. There is a lot I don’t know about what my future holds. But one thing I am sure of is that it is hard being content living in one place while my heart lives in the lives of people and countries far beyond my own’s border. What can I say except that I feel unbelievably grateful?

I am grateful to have gotten the opportunity to know the hearts of so many different people from all over the world. I love them. And I know I will return to them some day. For this, I cannot wait. But there are so many I love in the home in which I grew up. There are many to love here whom I have yet to meet. God is moving here. And we need Him.

God, let us love well, wherever we are at.

“Yo soy la luz del mundo. El que me sigue no andará en tinieblas, sino que tendrá la luz de la vida.” – Juan 8:12

A Summer of Healing: My Ongoing Lesson on Contentment

What does it mean to be content? Surely I could list the dictionary definition or even the Biblical definition of the concept. However, I don’t believe that contentment is a state that can be defined without truly experiencing it.

As I have been learning recently, it’s hard for me to be content. You see, this Summer is a particularly interesting one for me. This Summer is a bit of a recovery for me — recovery from the grips of anxiety that I spent too long ignoring and the ensuing depression that is wholly confusing.

I have also been discovering that my mind is a weaver, endlessly weaving correlations and observations together on the time clock of what I believe to be the span of a purposeful life.

I am used to going, and pushing. I push myself in academics, and the way I try to treat other people, and the way I desire to serve God. I have grown accustomed to the pushing, and the weaving of my mind is a constant reminder that my brain will not be easily content to stop.

This Summer, I am learning that, although the loom inside my head is a gift, I have to learn when to stop. And to be content with not doing –not pushing.

You see, I have been asking myself questions. So many questions.

How am I supposed to be by myself thinking if I am stuck? I often feel trapped within my mind, and I become angry at myself for the weaving that I can’t seem to explain to others.

How am I supposed to truly follow God?

How am I supposed to truly show love to others?

How am I supposed to show love to myself?

How do I forgive myself for the times I haven’t been patient enough with myself to listen to others’ advice?

It’s hard for me to stop and take time. God knows I can reflect. But it’s the time spent by myself thinking that seems to have the power of quickly turning from an inspiration to a thunderstorm. However, I am also slowly learning that contentment is realizing that God truly understands. He is patient when I am not patient. He loves when I feel I cannot. He is in control when I cannot be.

And thank God for, well, God. Because He knows I couldn’t live without Him. Sometimes the lessons we have to learn are painful.

But it’s ok. It’s going to be ok. So, for anyone else going through a Summer of healing, this one’s for you. It’s a process.

Perhaps I have realized that we cannot overcome future challenges if we are not patient enough to overcome this one.

Let’s be Real — The Deception of Distraction

One thing that I’ve realized about myself lately, and especially over the course of the past year, is that I can be quite an introspective person. I spend a lot of time thinking. I think about myself, and other people, and I think about the world around me. I often think, not just about one of the aforementioned topics individually, but about how the many components of the dynamics around me intertwine to become the world that we live in.

Recently, I’ve had a little extra time to do such thinking. And in this time, I have been reminded of something desperately disheartening. It is something that we, in America, should be rightfully afraid and aware of.

That is, the deception of distraction.

Artfully deceiving, our Enemy, the devil, works in many ways. In some countries, there is terrorism. In some, there is widespread poverty. In others, there are ravaging natural disasters, and epidemiological diseases, and complete, disgusting social injustice. Perhaps America is lucky to have escaped the brunt of such tragedies. We certainly are fortunate to live in the Land of the Free, a country that many people have died to try to and to live in.

And yet, we have on hand our own catastrophe. It is, perhaps, the catastrophe of a false reality. So, let’s think about a few things that have been on my mind, in an attempt to demonstrate my point.

How much time do we spend concerned about how many followers we have?

How much of our life is spent trying to please other people and make ourselves appear perfect?

How much of our life is spent trying to climb an illusory power ladder so that we can feel significant?

How much time do we spend focused on promising-yet-unproductive diets, and strict exercise regimens, and make-up brands to make ourselves look like so many people that claim to inspire us to become “better” versions of ourselves?

The list can go on. And I am not saying that some of these things, in moderation, are wholly bad or evil. But I am saying that, in the midst of all of this, the Enemy has distracted us from the reality of what is actually going on around us. I know, because I see it all around me, and I see it in myself.

The reality is, outside of our made-up worlds inside our phones and screen and celebrities, there are people around us hurting. Each person struggles in different ways that some of us could never imagine. The reality is, in the midst of our lives, there are approximately 123 suicides per day[1]. The reality is, nothing will change unless we decide to change first. The reality is, there is a Hope that we can cling to, whose name is Jesus, and is willing to carry our burdens. And the reality is, although our world can be disgusting, it can also be unimaginably beautiful.

We just can’t let ourselves be deceived anymore. We have to live our lives for what and for Who is actually real. Our family. Our friends. Our Savior. And we can bring hope to those who are hurting. Instead of becoming obsessed with our followers, we can fall in love with the service of others and the beautiful relationship we can have with our Creator.

To wrap up, I will paraphrase a song lyric by Ryan O’Neal: The universe will expand with our heartbeats, exhales, and the hope of open hands.

So let’s live. Let’s share love with the hope of our open hands. And, most importantly, let us not be deceived.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” -John 10:10

[1] https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/