Weary

I’m physically and emotionally tired and weary.  I see the calendar and I know I’m two months away from finishing my time here in Peru.  I’m sure there were some of you who didn’t think I would make it.  You sent me off in May of 2010 thinking I’d be running back, right?  Well, there’s a part of me that has wanted to run home everyday of the past two years.  And yes, it has been two years.  I left Colorado on May 17th, 2010 for orientation in Florida.  And on Thursday this week, we celebrate two years of being in Peru as our team touched down in Peru on May 24th, 2010.  So, two years, that’s a long time!  If it were just two years, I’d be done now, this week, but it’s not, it’s two years and two months.  And let me just say, right now, these two months look like the longest months in history to me.

Lately everything is getting to me here.  I’m easily frustrated when contacts aren’t home, I get angry at the pot holes in the road and the way the combi drivers race over them, the constant music, dogs, roosters, cars and drunks making noise is annoying me daily.  Things that I could tolerate before are now driving me insane.  I feel like I’m at the end of my rope, humanly, I’m done, I can’t handle any more.  But at the same time, God has put a desire in my heart for these people to know His Holy Name, to have a relationship with Him.  So, there’s a conflict going on inside me daily.  I desire to make the best of these last two months, preaching and healing as Jesus commanded (Luke 9:2), but also, I want this time to go by in a flash.

So right now, I’m weary and weak.  I don’t like this feeling.  But I know, this is right where God wants me to be.  I’m pushed to the limit, I feel like I can’t handle anymore.  So I know, that these next two months are all God.  When I first felt called to Peru, I had been reading 1 Corinthians and verses 26-31 of chapter 1 stuck out to me because Paul talks about how God chooses the weak, the foolish, the lowly and the despised.  I am amazed even more today than I was two years ago that God chose me.  But I look at my weaknesses, my faults and my gaps and I realize that He chose me because of all those things.  He chose me because it is so obvious that I am here because of His grace and power.  He has pushed me through to this point and I know He’s not going to stop working in me and through me, He’s not going to stop providing the grace and power I need to continue on, but He will continue to get me through this not so that I can say I did it, not so that I can boast, but so that He is glorified, so that everyone knows His power and grace because He used me, the lowly and weak, the messed up and foolish, and it turned out awesome, because of Him. 

So here are some verses I’m meditating on as He gets me through the next two months….

I am weak, but He is strong - 2 Corinthians 12:9 - But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

I am tired but will not lose heart - 2 Corinthians 4:1- Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.

I am blessed to have seen hearts and lives changed – Luke 10:23-24 - Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.  For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”