My senior year of college was one of the worst years in my life. I didn't really see it coming; i thought my life was looking pretty hopeful. Everything was so perfect and then i blinked. My life began unraveling... like a snag in my skin caught the edge of disaster and left me; skin, bones, and all in a pile on the ground... waiting.
i lost myself that year. i fell into a deep depression, i wallowed in my pain and despair. i was blinded and jaded by the circumstances i found myself in. i walked around in a haze and it's difficult now to remember any days that year when the sun actually shone... cloudy, rainy, gloomy days are all i can recall. I cried all the time, i would go for months without having a full night sleep... my grades dropped, my class attendance dropped, and the amount of time i spent lying in bed in the dark increased. I lost weight, i was in a constant state of tired...nothing motivated me, nothing made me happy. i became a ghost of a person, i hated what i became. And my disappointment in myself only increased my depression.
I could feel myself slipping further and futher away from reality. i was living an internal life, eating myself from the inside out by the lies i fed myself. Sometimes your worst enemy can be yourself... i had become my worst enemy.
one morning, i was sitting in chapel alone, inwardly scorning my fellow students yet desperately hoping that one of them would notice my despair and help me up. in my depression, i had grown cynical about the church and God. i didn't see the point in worshiping a God who allowed my pain to grow so deep... i didn't blame God for what was happening to me, but i did question his Authority and Power. and the idea that maybe God didn't hold the power and authority that i grew up believing He did was more shattering to me than the thought that he was punishing me somehow. The chapel service was coming to a close and i had not heard one single word that had been said but, as the announcements were read something caught my attention. A trip to Bulgaria to work with severely handicapped children in an orphanage was scheduled for that summer.
for years my dream had been to open an orphanage of my own. my plan at the beginning of my college career was to become a nurse so that i could be a missionary in an orphanage.. when i realized that chemistry and microbiology were not my strengths, i changed my degree to Human Services thinking that one day i'd become a missionary and work with handicapped children overseas. So, when i heard about this trip i knew that i had to go. i went to an introduction meeting and i was sold! i called my dad and told him that i really wanted to do this, but i needed money... and for the first time that i can remember, he was thrilled to pay for me to serve.
I knew my life was anything but spiritual... my prayer life consisted of threats made to God and my devotional life was practically non-existent... but i glossed my cynicism and doubts over with all the right words and spiritual lingo. i grew up in the church and certainly knew how to speak "church"... but it was my heart i was worried about. i remember nights before my trip when i would cry out to God, pleading for a soft heart, a willingness to be broken. i didn't want to fail, i didn't want my selfishness to get in the way of what God might do, and how God might work.
Fast forward. Yesterday, memories of Bulgaria flooded back to me. i dug around my closet and drug out pictures and pictures of faces.. Experiences.. miracles. i felt my heart breaking all over again as i remembered the voices and laughter and smells of the orphanage. the deep despair which was as heavy as lead in every room we entered... but was soon replaced with laughter and joy as we exited two weeks later.
It's ironic to me that the hardest year of my life could be followed by the hardest lesson of my life, but i guess it shouldn't be ironic. My trip to Bulgaria did not heal the brokenness and despair in my heart, it did not make my life any less confusing, it did not change my circumstances. It did, however take me to a place far outside of myself... it broke me even more, so much so, that for once God could seep into my heart a little. i struggled, i wept, i ached but this time i wasn't doing this for myself... i was seeing that my world is so much bigger than me. I stood face to face with the ugliest of conditions of life and i sat down in the urine. I held a man my own age in my arms... because he was no bigger than my 10 year old brother. i saw suffering and i saw joy amist the suffering. And i saw myself selfish and prideful being used despite my selfishness and pride.
The point of taking a missions trip is to give something away.. to give your time and money and expertise in order to help a group of people... to allow God to work through you and hopefully he will graciously allow the efforts of the team to have some kind of impact. But, it is an incredibly humbling experience walking away from the trip feeling as though you have received more than you gave... feeling like the lessons you learned, the people you came in contact with, the gentle words that were spoken to you had deeper meaning and changed your heart more than you could ever have imagined.
Bulgaria taught me to open my eyes. When i came home my situation in life was the same as when i'd left, but my outlook was enormously altered. i could see, i could feel, i could move around outside of who i was. I wish i could say that my selfishness ceased, but that would be a lie. Months later i morphed back into the old me. I grabbed hold of my cynicism again and sank back into the same old sins and selfishness. But, there are amazing moments in my life when i drift back to the orphanage and i remember the children and the lessons they taught me and the hugs they gave me and the tears we cried together and i breathe and thank God that i can open my eyes.
