I Choose to See

I landed in Chicago late Thursday night. My day had been filled with hard goodbyes, hours on a plane, and so many prayers that I would NOT get sick while traveling. The Lord’s hand was so clearly over that entire day as I traveled from South America back to the US all by myself. That’s the great thing about our heavenly Father. He chooses us and takes care of us even when we’re angry and upset and not running to Him for strength. 

Gracias, Dios. 

Seeing my family again was really sweet. Hugging your parents just hits different when you’ve been in the hospital four times while they’ve been 2,000 miles away on another continent. After being sick for so long, I felt a sense of relief falling asleep in my own bed knowing that if I did need to go to the emergency room, my parents were right upstairs. 

However, the past few days of being home have come with many emotions and many, many different tests. I hadn’t even been home for twenty four hours and I was already getting blood work done and on the phone preparing for my procedures next week. On top of all that, I missed my team dearly and had been struggling with the fact that the Lord had allowed me to get sick to begin with. 

Let’s not pretend we don’t all deal with this to some degree from time to time. 

Because of this, I was not really choosing in to my time with the Lord, and I hadn’t been since the decision was made to pull me off the field. Today, though, I finally set my anger and frustration aside and pulled out my bible. While I was in Ecuador, I had one of my sweet friends write on the side of my bible something that I knew I would need to be reminded of. I didn’t know it then, but I would need that reminder a month later when I found myself at home really sick while my second family was still out on the field. Thank God that He knows things we don’t. 

There, on the side of my bible, in my friend’s beautiful cursive handwriting, it reads…

Today, I choose to see. 

It came from one of my favorite bible verses, Psalm 27:13, which says, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” 

I first read this bible verse back in November while I was serving in Foley, Alabama doing hurricane relief with Samaritan’s Purse. I was one of the people who, while serving, chose to work inside the houses that needed mud-outs. I did it because I loved it, and I thought it was fun. But as much as it could be fun, it could also be heartbreaking. Seeing so much heartbreak and devastation really got to me, and thankfully I found this verse right when I needed it. 

But here’s something that I learned about seeing…

Often times, you have to choose it. 

The Lord’s goodness is everywhere. Literally everywhere. But if we are constantly consumed by our own thoughts and our own emotions then we are going to miss it. If we are constantly fighting for our will to be done and not His, we are choosing to declare that their is only emptiness in a place that holds abundant beauty. Sometimes, when things are really hard or don’t go the way that we wanted them to, we don’t want to find the good, we don’t believe there is good, or we simply don’t want to put in the effort to look for it. 

But you have to CHOOSE it. 

I am home from the field right now. It is only month seven. I should be way up in the mountains of Quito, Ecuador with my best friends in the world. We should be getting ready for a fun week of debrief together. We should be laughing and living in sweet community together. Instead though, they are doing these things without me while I struggle to get out of bed. At this point I don’t know if I will get to return to the field. 

Choosing is hard. But it is worth it. And even though my expectations for this trip got ripped out of my hands and crushed into a million pieces, I’m not going to let my worldly plans distract me from finding the goodness that is here. 

Today, I’m choosing to see it.