When you can’t sleep?

What do you do when you can’t sleep?  It drives me nuts when I can’t sleep.  This morning I got up at 4:30 am.  I normally just pretend like I’m sleeping, but this time I decided to write.  I love to write and I need to collect all of the stuff I’ve put together and I’m sure I’d have a few books.  They’d be pretty comical.

This morning I was in rare form.  Raw.

The first book I need to come out with probably needs to be about weight.  It’ll be for women and men and whoever has struggled with being a fattie.

The next book will be about singleism.  Being single.  Not a how-to just a book about it.

After that, I’ll put out a book about dating and how you should learn about yourself while you’re laughing at yourself.

Do you ever wonder if the painful moments are meant to produce something in you?  I think it all of the time.  When I’m in pain or unable to sleep, I think that it’s a portal to create.  I need to take advantage of it more, but I’m still so immature that I can’t get with that system.  I want to feeeel like writing and reading and creating.  Hah!

No, really sometimes I feel like it, but 4:30 am isn’t typically that time.

So in the meantime I count sheep, when I can’t sleep.  I pray and read the bible sometimes.  I try not to get frustrated, but most of the time I just want to sleep.

Soon, I’ll grow up and learn to turn my frown upside down.

Vision

Last week I ventured off to my mother’s time share.  It’s about 45 minutes away, but we all know that 45 minutes can feel like you’re on another planet and for a little bit this did. Not because it looked so different, but because I turned off the phone and settled into the Fox River Resort.  By the looks of it, it’s an older resort and I wouldn’t necessarily give it 4 stars…not even two, but it served it’s purpose as a mini-respite for me for a day and half so that I could get my act together.

I snuck away because I needed to rethink my vision for Ukraine and I needed to pull together a regimented schedule of sorts and I needed to lay out my itinerary for the next 8 weeks.

Two weeks ago, I was in Orlando and I had the privilege of meeting several pastors, pastors’ wives,  ministers and missionaries and there are a few meetings that I had in particular that were pivotal and catalyzing.  The first meeting touched on vision, my vision for Ukraine.  Before the meeting my vision was to go to Ukraine, disciple some up and coming leaders, encourage them to connect to and minister within their communities through Christ about obviously debilitating societal ideology that continues to hinder their spiritual mobility as a nation, for example the over dependence upon state-run orphanages, drug-abuse, corruption, etc.   By the time I got up from the table, that statement didn’t quite have the ring to it, that it had had prior to this meeting.  I was challenged very deeply  to reassess and delve a little deeper into what this decision to go to Ukraine means to me and essentially to the world.  

What’s the national impact, the regional impact, the global impact?  What do you see in 5 years?  10 years?  20 years?  What do you see?  What’s the concrete evidence?  Who will be affected?

In another meeting later on that afternoon, I was challenged even more to share vision, my vision. I haven’t been sharing vision.  I’ve been sharing the need and tiny details that paint a picture, be it grim or hopeful, but I haven’t been sharing vision.   I realize why it’s important and why visionaries are so intriguing.  It’s because vision is full-blown faith.  It’s got swag with it.  It’s birthed in the confidence that we should have in the King.  Now, I have confidence in the King, but I also have a lot invested in my own interests and this is where a decision needs to be made.  (I’ll address this a paragraph or two down.)

I think that I’ve always been a visionary , but in my own mind. One of my strengths is ideation.  I can rattle off ideas in my sleep about anything and everything, but that’s for my own entertainment and not the for the entertainment of others.  For me casting vision is difficult, because it requires me to be sure and honestly, I’m not sure about anything.  It’s some sort of game I play to get out of the responsibility of life.  I don’t like the box that being sure requires me to live in, but the next question is, “is being sure living in the box or outside of it?”  (This is another issue to be dealt with another day.)

Anyway, I say all that to say, I was challenged to sharpen that vision and to hone in on the big picture and honestly it’s been a struggle.

The struggle is more so in that I have had to stretch my faith in order to conceive the vision.  Vision goes beyond stats and demographics and the obvious, but it requires one to use their sanctified imagination coupled with possibility and the extraordinary hand of God wrapped around it to see what’s possible for the future and in this case the future of the gospel.

My approach so far has been that of lowly missionary, as I at times struggle to make sense of my journey. I want to dream big and imagine the possibilities, but that requires me to abandon everything I know and believe about how my life should be.  To live is Christ and to die is gain.  Really this life in Christ is about death isn’t it?  It’s about the cross and the sacrifice and I think of Romans 12:1 where it says, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God to present yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  Living sacrificially is a life that requires us to die by faith…again and again.

So as my vision expands, I die more.  As I research the need for the gospel in Eastern Europe and I envision God’s hand using and impacting young adults in Christ, I swell with tears for so many reasons…a few listed:   1.  I’ve been chosen to witness God’s merciful hand slathered with lovingkindness.  2.  There’s been an open invitation for me to go and impact the world with the gospel.  3.  I’m afraid of the unknown.  4.  I’m joyful because of the cross and the King.

It’s all a bit overwhelming, but it’s possible.  It’s possible to connect yourself to the vision of the King.  You know, that vision about the gospel being preached to every nation and every tribe and every tongue.  It’s a huge vision and we wee beings mesh ourselves with it and the tiny details.

Before those conversations, I never fully allowed myself to imagine the possibilities nor the impact that missions for me in Ukraine might have globally, after all I’m just a lowly missionary chick from the rural burbs, but I now realize that there’s strength in vision because it helps people unite around a cause.  I need more than my faith to get this thing rolling.  It’s a collective effort that requires faith and action on behalf of many.

I’m encouraged by this challenge.  I’m scared, but I’m encouraged.

What’s your vision?  What are you afraid to envision?

The Wall

So it’s September folks and I can’t believe it.  This summer has been full of adventure, as I crossed the nation back and forth in my 1989 Honda Civic Station Wagon.  Pictures forthcoming.  I found my feet in Alaska, Seattle, Denver, Maryland, Washington D.C., Orlando, Illinois and the states that I drove through in between, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio….and by the way, I did not drive to Alaska in case you’re wondering.

It’s been a great!  I’ve met lots of new people and made connections with new church partners.  The gauntlet has been thrown down a few times, as I’ve been challenged to “step my game up”  and get it together.  I’m trying.  I really am trying.

Well, I got back from Orlando August 25th and the day before I left I got sick, and it scared me because it was not just a regular sniffle.  My voice was gravelly and my throat was in pain.  I thought to myself uh-oh here we go.  This is real.  I took some over-the counter medicine, but that was a joke in the face of this rascal, so I went to the minute clinic at CVS and got some antibiotics and eye drops so that this unknown intruder would be annihilated.

Well little did I know that it would make me drowsy and tired.  I think that my immune system was weakened by all of the traveling, the hit or miss sleep and all of that good stuff.

I just really hit a wall.  

While I was in Florida. I met with a young pastor to share about the ministry and he asked me some of challenging questions.  Those questions have had me thinking since then about my vision for Ukraine, my vision period.  My mind has been stirring since then about my approach to fundraising and the way that my meddle is being tested…and make no mistake it is being tested.

This is a very difficult task that I’ve undertaken.  Partnership building is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart.  You have to be creative as you call on the Creator of the universe.  You have to keep your perspective as you approach churches and they turn you away.  You have to understand when people simply don’t understand their part in advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Some are sent and some send.  You have to be driven and you have to drive.  It’s tough.

So I have to get over this wall that I’ve hit.  It’s a wall of discouragement and fear and insecurity and it demands my full attention.  It’s horrible and it’s making me feel insignificant and powerless and defeated.  It makes me want to give up, but I’m not.

I’m going to God.

I’m going to pray and seek His face.

I’m going to linger in His presence until I come up refreshed, refocused and refined.

and when I get back…

I’m back at this thing I’m doing that some shake their heads at and others nod their heads at and I move ahead with Godspeed, because I can’t let the wall stop me.  It hasn’t before, so it can’t now either.

Pray for me.