I've realized one journey has ended this past May as I graduated college, and life has never felt more crazy. For a while I got home and just laid around my house thinking, now what? At times I felt like that person in the footprints poem. Like I was walking all alone, when God told me that He would always be by my side.
A month and half ago I remember sitting with someone and talking about my journey to Tanzania. Crying and doubting and thinking that it wasn't what I was suppose to. I didn't feel God near me, I couldn't hear Him. I was so frustrated, why at this critical point would He decide to be silent. It wasn't until someone said "Don't do it. Don't go. It doesn't seem right anyway." That I realized I had been drowning God's voice out with everyone else opinions, with everyone else's thoughts.
So I left that conversation, with no funds raised and with no idea what to do and I sat down in my room at home and just talked. "Okay God if this is what you want, let's do it. No doubting. No fear. I will wholeheartedly, without holding anything back enter into this journey, if it is what You want for my life. If this is my calling, then You'll provide, You'll guide, and I'll get to where you want me, despite what others may believe, doubt, or think." And that was that. And here I sit, with almost all my funds raised, a support and prayer team like no other, and 12 days until I board a plane to this new journey of my life.
It's unbelievable, and surreal to think that i have less than two weeks until I leave home, and yet in my heart I know that I am not meant to do anything else. That this is what He has called me to do. Even through the thoughts and doubt the enemy put into my head, God came through, like He always does, He came though carrying me.
Through it, He closed many doors, with a relationship that I really wanted to happen, and with friends I thought were a big part of my life, and jobs that wanted to keep me here at home. But He opened doors with an amazing ministry partner that I will get to spend the next 9 months with, showed me that a relationship is not in this journey, showed me my real friends who are willing to call, to write, to text, to drive as much as possible to see me. and most of all He showed me that He is faithful.
I think that is what scares us to go. Because really the doors that have to close in order for us to move on to where God wants us are typically things that we desperately cling and chase after. Yet they are not what God wants for us, so instead of pushing us closer to Him, they pull us further away. We think that the moment those doors close we will never recieve the desires of our heart. We'll never get that dream job, that certain group of friends, or the significant other. But the truth is, having those doors closed is the most rewarding and perfect thing that could ever happen to us.
When we allow God to carry us, when we allow those doors to close, we allow God to move in our hearts. and that is how heroes are made. They are made because they are moved, not in their heads but in their hearts. They are moved to action, to faith, and to love and service. When those doors close, better ones open, even if it doesn't seem like it. When we allow ourselves to walk through those open doors, our desires and our goal become more like Christ, and our lives improve beyond measure. Allowing our lives to reflect Christ is not a loss, but a gain.
It's scary, but God knows the desires of our heart, and when we trust in Him, when we lean on Him, when we let Him carry us, His desires and our desires will become one. Psalm 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart." Allow those doors to close, because if it's not helping you grow closer to God, then it needs to go. He is calling you to a new life, a better life, a life with Him. Don't let that go for something that is a fleeting moment. Because people and things come and go, but Jesus comes and stays, for all eternity.
Step out. Feel lead to do ministry. Go. feel called to go overseas. Go. feel lead to change your major. Go. feel called to move, anywhere, anyplace. Go. He's calling us, seek Him, Find Him and Go.
Right now those doors in my life have shut and for a long time I have stood and stared at this open door, scared out of my mind. But I've taken a good look at myself in the mirror because I know the moment that I get on that place, the moment that I walk through that door, I will never be the same.
And that is something I can live with. Because He has called me, and He has been faithful, and He'll provide for this journey and the many more to come.
Walking through that open door,
HIS and yours,
Cami
"the One who calls you is faithful and He will do it." -1 Thessalonians 5:24
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