Snow Globes

You know, I am a missions freak. Ever since I was thirteen and felt God call me to the mission field, I have felt a pull toward missions that I can't fight. I live from trip to trip; I (try!) to live my daily life on mission. I love traveling, adventures, and the idea of getting away from the growing materialism and sin in America to live in a simpler place. I can’t see any other way God will combine all the desires He had given me into a life, and, in all my humanness, am utterly certain of how God is going to use this calling in my life: I'll go to medical school, do overseas missions, work with Mercy Ships or in some third world country, and somewhere in there get married to another missionary and have missional babies. Right? RIGHT?!

No. Nope. Not at all. God, I am constantly reminded, does not like His instruments to write their own music.

I am so blessed to spend my summer serving as a GoNow missionary in sunny, lovely Kissimmee, Florida. I know, suffering for Jesus right? As a traveler who is ‘sure of’ God’s intent to send me overseas in the future, I had all plans of going overseas this summer, chilling in a hut somewhere and playing with orphans. Or something super Christian like that. That was my heart; I did not want to stay around the land I know. I wanted to go to the nations, literally! And then… I couldn’t find my passport. I couldn’t even APPLY to go overseas. I was really upset by this and even considered not applying to go on any mission trips this summer. I wanted adventure, not the United States. I wanted unfamiliarity and culture shock, not Wifi and WalMart. Apparently, the Creator of the universe had other plans.

I ended up in Florida, serving sick children and their families at Give Kids the World Resort. I ended up in Florida, practicing puppet shows for eight hours a day for a week straight so my team can perform at popular venues all over Orlando. I am in Orlando, learning skits and worship songs to present to various Orlando and Kissimmee churches. I am in Florida, the number one tourist destination in the world. I am not where one goes to the nations, but to where the nations come. I am in Florida, being taught all about God’s sovereignty. The Lord has taken my life, my heart, and my mindset and shaken me around like a snow globe. I only know which way is up, and that is where God’s eyes greet me with love and compassion. Up is when I am lying on the floor, as low as I can be, begging God to give me grace and wisdom for that day, asking that He would test me and find me faithful. Up is when I realize I have no clue at all the details of what God has for me to do years from now. I know I am in His will where I am- in America (whoda thunk it?), planning to go biology/premed in the fall, learning that the more I learn the less I know (about God, life, the world, just everything).


So anyway, I’m in sunny, beautiful, Florida, letting the snow globe that is my life settle, and reading through Ezekiel as I go. The first couple of chapters of Ezekiel are some of my favorite in the Bible. God shows Himself to Ezekiel before commissioning Ezekiel. That’s right- Ezekiel is commissioned by God Himself! In chapter two, God tells Ezekiel that he will not prophesy to peoples of other nations:

For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language,

but to the house of Israel- not to many peoples of foreign speech

and a hard language whose words you cannot understand.

Surely if I sent you to such, they would listen to you.” Ezekiel 3:5-6

I like to picture myself like Ezekiel… sent to my own people, because who knows the needs and sin of a group of people but those in that group? Who can better minister to them? As God specially sent Ezekiel to his own people, God has chosen that my summer (and maybe life) will be spent ministering to the people that I know best, who I see as some of the farthest from God. Did Jesus Himself not come to seek and save the lost? And all the lost need to be found no matter where they live. So here, in my own backyard, God is showing me the sick and broken. God is showing me His plan and love for all people. God is shaking me up like a snow globe, and I can’t wait to see the view when it all settles.