Costa Rica...and Some Other Word Vomit.

Disclaimer:
No, I am not creative enough to have made up 'word vomit'. It is from the movie Mean Girls. When I was thinking about this blog and how it was going to all tie together, I remembered the essence of word vomit. The act of letting your true feelings and thoughts come out however they register, whether it's what people want to hear or not. I thought that would be a nice way to blog, considering I haven't written in quite awhile. I've probably grossed you out enough with the title and bored you to death for the past paragraph, so I am going to actually get on with the real piece. Here we go...

I've been reflecting a lot lately on this past year, and it has been really weird. In so many ways, God has provided and been beside me, but my relationship with him was challenged more than it ever had been before. I experienced a lot of struggles in my heart, and for awhile I started to seek temporary comfort over Him. I would sleep something off when I knew I should pray...or even when I did pray, He felt nowhere near my side. My heart became harder and more cold...it was a weird experience, because for so long I've been so broken over things that break God. I guess through experiences and disappointments in my life this past year, my heart was almost forced to become numb to certain things, or else I'd just be all over the place. Gradually over time...even when I knew I was making more commitments and putting more effort into my relationship with God, He continued to become more abstract...something I couldn't see or hear or feel at times.

I thought all of this time that I didn't have any expectations for Costa Rica, but this apathy in my heart...became an expectation over time. I was subconsciously expecting God to use the mission trip to heal my heart and give me some kind of emotional assurance that He was there. I guess it's something a lot of us expect. "Lord, even if I feel crappy now...just wait until that next retreat...then I'll be alright with you." I know that thought had crossed my mind before, and up until Costa Rica it never failed. I always left every trip with that spiritual high...and I always had gotten some kind of "Wow God" moment. Costa Rica was a slap in the face, because my "nonexistent" expectation was not fulfilled and for awhile I was in shambles over it.

Throughout the trip, I was so confused as to why I wasn't "feeling God". I felt bad after serving every day because I wasn't getting that "Wow God" moment or that emotional rush - not even a single tear! Around the third day or so...Wednesday, I spent a lot of time thinking about it and realized what was wrong. I was going into this trip with the wrong mindset. "God, I should feel great because I'm serving you." Those were my thoughts...but they were so screwed up...my thoughts should have been along these lines:

"Lord, I am here to serve you, and if I feel great, that's fine, but if I don't, it doesn't matter, because you are a God worth serving no matter what."

God is so much bigger than our struggles, our pain and ourselves as a whole...we should serve Him and consider it a blessing when we feel good about it. Because it's not about how we feel...it's about the truth of the cross. It doesn't matter how I feel about the cross, it's truth stands firm and it holds the same significance whether I feel great about it or angry towards it. So why do we put our relationships with God on a foundation as flimsy as our fallible human hearts? Why not put our relationship with Him on His truth and His word - a foundation that can never be shaken?

I think along with learning that lesson, In Costa Rica, God also gave me understanding of where I am with Him and where He wants me to be. I'm kind of in this weird place with God. The best way to explain it is through something that Jonathan said to me. We had left the beach on Friday in Costa, and we were driving home. Jonathan and I were having a good conversation, and his thoughts on God and the ocean came up. It went something like this:

"When we first go into the ocean, we are overwhelmed by the powerful, crashing waves near the shore. We get this sort of rush, always being filled with excitement at the pulsing motion around us. However, as we go deeper, the huge, exciting waves come less often. The water is still overwhelming and mighty, but in a subtler way. But the mass and sheer amount of water is so much more...so much deeper...than the waves behind us."

I'm in between those two walks...I have passed the breaking point. I see those larger, broader waves and the deep waters and watch. I am collecting myself before I take the plunge - the first step towards a new kind of walk with God. I'm leaving the silly...emotion filled relationship and committing to something more. I am like a bride, about to marry her groom - about to be forever bound to her precious loved one, through better and worse, through sickness and in health.

Except death cannot part us.