A kingdom journey has a three step process that you continuously walk through during your lifetime. It starts with abandonment, followed by brokenness, and then reliance on God. Brokenness is a time to grief what you abandoned and come to terms with what you just got yourself into. A perfect example of abandonment is in Luke 9:1-6 where Jesus instructs and sends off his disciples. “Take nothing for the journey.”
The two months we spent in Albania I walked through a season of grief and brokenness. At training camp they instructed us to write down everything we could possibly think of that we would be abandoning this year. I wrote down the basics: my job, my family, my boyfriend, my health, and control over my diet. I thought that I had mourned and accepted all that I was abandoning but I didn’t count just how big a sacrifice I would make, being unable to maintain my nutrition and options when it came to available gluten free food. I also did not consider a potential war breaking out which would threaten the safety of the man that I love.
Thus began the long journey of stepping into abandonment while also walking through a season of mourning my freedom when it came to eating gluten free. As I realized just how impossibly hard it is to live a gluten free lifestyle within the constraints and constant change of the race I began to mourn my current season and leaving my old life back in America. As I sat and had to eat a pack of salami; I saw my teammates and squadmates scarfing down 4 topping pizzas, seafood, and yummy pastries. My health plummeted from the lack of nutrients and I went to bed many nights unsatisfied and still hungry. Seeing my squadmates living their best lives and eating tons of food while I myself had no options drove me to desperation and bitterness. Later, my team stepped into fasting in order to provide for some hungry families in Lushnje and I survived each day on a couple of rice cakes, a spoonful of peanut butter, and a salad made from lettuce and cucumbers.
Isaiah 58:6–9 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
On one hand providing for those families was a great thing and actually experiencing true hunger for the first time in my life gave me great compassion for those suffering from malnutrition. We were literally living out the biblical instructions on fasting and providing for the widows and the hungry but I couldn’t see past my own “poverty” ie my own desperation and situation. I was mad that I was even suffering in the first place and that God put me in this situation without healing me.
Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
The next step in a kingdom journey, is stepping into dependence on God. Realizing that we desperately need God in our abandonment and in our current situation. I was finally able to move past my own brokenness and step into dependence during team BANJO’s debrief 3 days ago in Kosovo. While answering a prompt question, I admitted I was tired of stressing, worrying, sadness, and bitterness. These next several months will be probably the hardest months physically, spiritually, and emotionally. More information to come on that later. I will not be able to stay or even survive on the race unless God moves in my situation and provides. I want to thrive not just survive like I did for the past several months. I’m fed up with feeling like a burden for my team. Of worrying where and when I will be able to eat again! I’m even fed up with my dietary restriction! I need God to move, to heal me, to provide energy, health, a way out and or sustenance. Otherwise I would have to go home.
There’s grace for you in whatever season you are in when it comes to your kingdom journey. Abandonment and grieving what you left behind isn’t glamorous. It’s an ugly process and I am so thankful to team BANJO for patiently walking with me through that process. Stepping into dependence on God is such a beautiful season that can be downright terrifying. But that’s where FAITH COMES IN!!!!!
I ask you guys to pray for me as I step into reliance on God. Pray for healing, sustenance, and for my health despite a lack of nutrition and sustenance. I also ask for prayers for wisdom and discernment. These next several months include ATL in Kosovo with a completely new team, then we are hoping to head to Georgia and Armenia. My new team is an all-girls team and our new name is MAZERUNNERS!!! Please also be praying for unity and fellowship among our new team. We are already off to a great start after playing a fun game of charades to announce our new teams name, and going on an impromptu hiking trip where we collectively worked together to rescue a trapped bird, slipped down a couple of slippery slopes, brainstormed some fun nicknames, and took a quick dip in an icy cold refreshing river. #polarplungekosovo
With All My Love,
Jo
