It feels strange to be writing about Africa again. I’m sure that my obsession with my trip is not shared with most people who might stumble across this, but I need to talk about it again. For whatever reason, my heart keeps going back to Africa. For whatever reason, I’ve felt the need to look back at my journals a lot lately, sort of as to show myself, “Here’s where you were a year ago (really, just a year ago?!) and here’s where you are now.”
I feel so different from the girl who lived in Africa. I don’t feel like the girl who wore skirts daily and ate rice & beans by hand, I often feel like someone who has never understood what “need” truly means. I don’t feel like the girl whose soul longed to be in the presence of the Lord whenever possible, I feel busy, and rushed, and anything but still before the Lord. My skin isn’t quite as tan, my hair’s not quite as greasy, my clothes aren’t quite as dirty. Even though so many things in my life right now are so good, I just feel so different.
But God reminds me that His work in my life is a continuation of what He has done in me. Though lately this has come in the reminder of what my fears and struggles were a year ago, I am comforted to remember that He who began a good work in me will see it through.
So, here’s a snippet of a journal entry from roughly a year ago:
“I feel dry and like I’m in a desert season right now. It’s like everything I thought I knew, I’m now questioning. I thought I wanted to live in Africa, now I don’t know. I thought I’d do full-time missions, I’m not sure anymore. Religious Studies? Maybe. Live in the midwest? Meh, who knows! I feel no guidance, no direction, and no certain hope or dreams for the future. & yet I know I must follow God. I still don’t know how. I felt so called to be on this trip, I felt like I was following God, and now I question my being here. I’m digging in Scripture more now, I’m living in companionship with God, I’m praying throughout the day, and I’m relying on God in a completely new way… yet I feel like I can’t hear where He’s calling me or what to do. I feel lost.
& I feel like Jesus is just calling, “Follow Me.”
& I say, “But I don’t know the way.”
“Follow Me.”
“But I can’t see where I’m going. I don’t see the end.”
“FOLLOW ME.”
“God this is a desert, nothing can grow here!”
“FOLLOW ME.“
“But I’m not even following You, I’m following these stupid tracks.”
“FOLLOW ME, My child. I have paved the road that you might walk in it. Follow Me.”
& I feel that right now, that’s all I know. I don’t know how, I don’t know where, but I know I must follow the whisper of God’s calling.”
And now, as a college senior, I find myself asking God the same things, challenging Him with the same doubts. Though I find myself across the world from where I was a year ago (in more ways than one), I feel God urging me more, calling me still, “Follow Me.”
lovefromafrica 