Bye, Fear

After eight hours in the car, multiple Twila Paris CDs, a sweet tea stop, and only one slight directional fiasco where a map might have been thrown across the car, we happily arrived to our final destination. Road trip successful. Welcome to Louisville, Kentucky, for the long-awaited Global Missions Health Conference. 

I went into this conference asking the Lord to speak to my heart. Over the last few weeks, I had been fighting fears of inadequacy. After all, who am I - a new grad nurse who only has one year of experience - to go to Africa? I feared facing things that I would not know how to handle. Maybe I need more school, more training, or just more time before actually moving. In addition to that, I haven't been to seminary. Am I even able to communicate the gospel in another language in a culturally relevant way? 

Was I really doing the right thing in moving to Burkina? 

So I asked the Father to speak to my heart this weekend and remind me why I am going. He must have smiled at that. 

Surrounded by hundreds - actually a couple of thousand - other people who follow Jesus, love missions, and have a passion for the ministry of healing, I found myself saturated in an environment of encouragement and empowerment. 

I heard session after session about how medical missions is all about Christ, not us. I learned that God is not looking for professionals, just servants. I saw that an effective missionary is simply someone who has experienced Jesus and can't help but talk about it. I saw that God gives his people exactly what they need to do the things he has called them to do. 

In the middle of one of the plenary sessions, we sand a song that finally put all the pieces together for me. The song, "This I Believe", says

I believe in God our Father

I believe in Christ the Son

I believe in the Holy Spirit

Our God is three is one

I believe in the resurrection

I believe we will rise again

For I believe in the name of Jesus

What a simple song, I though at first. Nothing revolutionary about that. Nothing I haven't heard before. Of course I believe in God and Jesus. 

But I felt a stirring in my heart. Who am I really trying to believe in? 

In that moment, I realized that (in light of all my fears and anxieties), I had been trying convince myself to come up with reasons why I was a competent candidate for a life in Africa. I was trying to fight my inadequacies logically, not spiritually. I was trying to put confidence in my own education, my own nursing knowledge and skills and experiences, my own preparation. But there was no hope in that. I was trying to believe in myself. 

When the next chorus came, I felt tears welling up in my eyes, and they were coming from the overflow of my heart. I raised my hand as if to say, "Yes! I agree! Me, I believe!"

And then I felt the fears flee. Every single one. They couldn't stand it, and they left. They had no ground left to stand on because Christ was my cornerstone. I transferred my belief from myself onto the Lord Jesus, and I experienced a freedom that I cannot put into words. 

That night, I bought my plane ticket. One-way to Burkina Faso. For Jesus and because of Jesus. I may not be competent to do a single thing for a single person, and that is completely okay because HE is able to heal the sick, free the captives, and save the lost. My hope is in him alone. I believe in him, not myself.

Bye, fear. 

Since he has invited me to Burkina Faso at this time in my life, I am trusting him to equip me and to use me with what he has placed in my small hands. I am his slave, and I will go where he sends, trusting him to be the Healer and Savior.