MY CHAOS
My life is full of chaos. Some of the chaos I chose and some of the chaos is completely out of my control. Altogether though, this chaotic life is exciting, blessed, and full of learning and growing experiences. Naturally, I am a huge control freak, yet the life I live is one in which I am constantly being reminded that I am NOT the one in control. I can pinpoint all of the greatest things in my life to reluctant and often fearful beginnings. Beginnings in which I chose (or were forced) to give up the control and trust God. God's plans are so much better than the controlled, fearful future I have planned for myself.
I am a mom of three kids, all under the age of three. My husband and I recently made the decision to move our entire family to Bangkok, Thailand . Our third child (our first boy) was actually born here in Thailand. Naturally I would be the first to say NO WAY to the chaos of packing, fundraising, and traveling for months on end. I would say NO WAY to flying over 30 hours with 2 girls under 3 and being 6 months pregnant, to a country in which we don't speak the language, don't know the culture, and have no friends or family. The fact that I ended up saying yes and actually following through with of that crazy, is a testament in itself to God's control in my life .
People have often told me that I am so brave and fearless. I laugh to myself every time I hear this because in my head I am saying "If only you knew the real me. I grew up living in constant fear of everything! Bravery is not my natural character". What I failed to realize in those moments was actually that my true nature isn't the fear I've been living in all these years, but rather, the lie that I chose to believe.
After becoming a mom I knew I had to start dealing with my issue of fear because there were so many things I wanted to do in my life and I definitely didn’t want fear being passed on to my daughter. I have had so many prophetic words spoken over me, dreams and visions, and a mighty call of God on my life of me being fearless. I have heard from God and from others that I am fearless, that I am brave, that I am a fighter, that I will go to the places no one else wants to go. If this were true then why didn't I feel that way, why didn't I see that?
One day, I remember talking with my mom, trying to figure out why I had all these words from the Lord but I wasn’t actually that way in real life. My mom looked at me a little surprised and then said but you are so brave and so fearless. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from her, the woman that raised me and saw all of my fear, more than anyone else, over the years. She continued by saying, don’t you remember the school bus?
In kindergarten I had been on the bus to school and the substitute driver had taken what looked like a wrong turn to me. His deviation from the normal route freaked me out so bad. I was so scared that it would turn into one of those stories on the news where the bus driver stole a bus full of kids and ran off. I walked down the aisle to the driver’s seat and said “excuse me, do you know that the school is that way, you aren’t going in the right direction and missed the turn.” I’m sure the bus driver probably laughed to himself and said something about how he was still taking us to school to reassure me. All I remember was sitting back down and praying we would actually get to the school and that he wasn’t lying. We got to school no problem of course.
I told my mom “yes, I remember that story, I was afraid like crazy the entire time.” My mom simply said “yea but you, as a kindergartener, got up and bravely did something about the problem. You noticed something was off and you took charge and did what most kindergarteners wouldn’t dare to do. At that moment something clicked and I felt dumbfounded. She was right, I was brave in that moment and many other moments in my life. So many times when I reflected on life events I was focused on the feeling of fear but that fear was often not strong enough to keep me from doing what was right. All of my childhood memories started flashing before my eyes but instead of seeing them through the feeling of fear, I saw them the way that God saw them, the way God saw me, fearless. Suddenly, in that moment I realized that my perspective had been wrong and everyone else had been right all along. I was fearless, I was brave and that was the real me. The fear wasn’t who I was called to be or actually was but rather was an attack of the enemy that I had allowed to cloud my view of my life.
God made me from the start to be brave. I had just let life tell me the opposite. I believed the lies I was told and told myself. God's truth for me is that I am brave and courageous. Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the ability and choice to overcome that fear. I overcome my fears by saying yes to God every day. I am able to deal with and overcome my chaos because I am now believing the truth and walking more every day in who I was made to be.
So even though my life brings a lot of unknown, a lot of out of control moments, and a lot of chaos, I am able to find joy by remembering who God really created me to be. There are plenty of moments when the chaos overwhelms me but it helps knowing that the true me is strong and brave. I was created to be strong and brave and not just survive but thrive. I can overcome, regardless of whether the chaos stays or not.
