During student teaching, I had taken a month or so off of support-raising due to how hectic my life was getting and because without doing so I was not able to honor God fully by preparing to teach with the excellence that my students deserved. As this time of student teaching was coming to a close, I decided that I was ready to jump back into the support-raising game. There were so many people that I had neglected to call/email/get back to and I knew that after taking time off I would have to work extra hard to keep up with my goal of being fully-funded by the time I leave in August. But then it happened. Call it discouragement, call it an unshakeable apathy, call it an unconquerable fear, call it hopelessness, but whatever you call it I could not bring myself to pick up the phone. There were a few nights that I would sit in my room ready to make calls and would sit there for 40 minutes to an hour without doing anything but stare at that phone. I would pray for God to give me courage, for God to help me, for God to lead me, but would feel nothing and still sat there paralyzed.
What's worse is I didn't tell anyone. I owed it to my supporters, to my friends, to everyone I told about my journey to be working hard to get to the Philippines and since this thing has become about a team so much bigger than me, I was no longer just wasting my time, I was sitting there wasting their time. Wasting their efforts if my inability to pick up that phone led to failure. Besides that nagging voice in my head kept telling me, "It's impossible. It'll never work anyway. Just save yourself the time and give up now." All of this drove me into a place of shame and hiding. What drove me even further into this was a verse that has nagged me since I heard someone speak on it. 1st Samuel 30:6 ends with "but David encouraged himself in the Lord." (KJV). David endured hard circumstances, the people earlier in the verse were talking about stoning him for Pete's sake! Yet David "encouraged himself". David can encourage himself, why can't you Kacie? Not spiritual enough? If so, who are you to be going to be a missionary? If David can do it, surely you can. But as hard as I tried to encourage myself, I was still completely psyched out. And I was completely ashamed not only of my failure, but my inability to pull up my bootstraps, pray a little harder, seek God a little harder and find enough encouragement in that to "make myself better again".
Finally I got enough courage to text a few of my prayer warriors at least. I wasn't doing well on my own, and I needed help. Or as a quote that a friend had reminded me of in a completely unrelated story the night before goes: Grace flows to the deepest part we expose. Sin beckons us to come and hide. Grace sets us free. Allowing others to pray for you in those dark moments that you wish no one knew of LEADS TO FREEDOM. The very thing the Devil makes you not want to do is the exact thing that will lead you out of his bondage.
It was days later that I met with my accountability partner over dinner. I had to confess where I had been and what was going on. What was hard for me to tell her was also hard for her to hear. Because she knew that as hard as she pushed, as tough as she was with me, it'd be almost impossible to move me when I was driven so far into a shell of fear and discouragement. At camp, we talked about the three zones that someone could be in at any point: the comfort zone, the groan/grown zone and the safety zone (where fear paralyzes someone so much they can't move). I was in the safety zone with support raising, so as much as she scolded me or told me I could do it, we both knew it wouldn't change a thing. We needed Someone bigger than us to intervene. It had to be a God thing.
Well during that dinner date, my accountability partner got a text from someone she had met a few months before under some strange circumstances. This person happened to be a youth pastor at a local church. After seeing this text, she said, "Oh, I know you need to meet Josh! I don't have the right words for you, but he'll know! And he'll have some new ideas of ways you can raise some funds too!" It was about 30 minutes later that we were sitting in a coffee shop with Josh. He rattled off idea after idea and how I could involve and rely on others to help me in these different approaches while continuing to ask others to join the team. He assured me that from my story it was so obvious that God had called me to the Philippines, that it would be ridiculous to think He wouldn't provide for it. He encouraged me to remember how God had provided in the past and the things He has done in my life. I walked away from that conversation with papers full of ideas and with a new life and energy in me. When I couldn't muster up my own strength, God Himself renewed me through this "chance" meeting. This brokenness in me was something God had planned to heal in such a way that no one could doubt it was only through Him and His goodness. When you are down, know that God is looking to be the encouragement and "strength of your heart" (Psalm 73:26). He wants you to learn to turn to no one but Him. As Hosea 2:14 states, God wants to lead us into the desert away from every other comfort that we go to so we learn to rely on Him and Him alone.
That was the first turning point in battling this discouragement monster that was haunting me. The second came days later. I was on a walk trying to go back to the source of why I was so discouraged. As I got down to it, I knew one of the underlying driving force was that voice that taunted: "What if you fail?" From listening to this sermon as I was falling asleep earlier that week, I knew that I had to face these fear head on. Originally my answer was if I don't get the funds to go to the Philippines after knowing so clearly God had called me to it, my faith could fail. Probably not all the way, but I would still be shaken up greatly as this was something God had rearranged my plans around so much for and gotten my heart so excited for and then to pull the rug up from under me? Well how could you trust someone like that? (Disclaimer: That is not the kind of God we worship. GOD IS FAITHFUL.1st Thessalonians 5:24.) But then I started to think of it the same way I think of a relationship when it ends. The way to judge if a relationship is a good choice even if it could end is: Does this make you a better person when all's said and done? Will it bring you closer to God? If the answers are "yes", then there's no loss from being a part of that relationship. So I began to analyze the process in which I've been working towards being a missionary in that way. During this process, God has shown Himself in crazy ways. We've shared intimate moments of weakness and vulnerability where I've needed to press so deeply into Him. He's teaching me what it means to need Him every hour. And He's been slowly but surely drawing out what small bravery that I have for Him so He can build it and grow it for the good works I'll need it for that He's prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10). God's been drawing me near and been preparing me for even greater works. I will be better and have experienced a greater closeness to God for the whole thing. Even if I fail and never make it to the Philippines, God is still good and I will still praise Him! Taking on this attitude, facing this fear directly on, has completely disarmed its ability to control me anymore. Because every time it says, "What if?", I can reply "Even if the worst happens, God is still God and I will still praise Him! Bring it! Now that I've made this resolve, you can't touch me anymore fear!!!"
I'm now back in the game and encouraged. For the last week or so, I've been working harder than ever to reach my goals. I've even been picking up that phone to do the scary thing and make calls. In the presence of God, in His timing and in His power, He has cast away the fear and discouragement that had been overshadowing my life. Praise the Lord! But also pray for me. Pray that God would keep encouraging my heart and that He'd keep providing everything I need: the time to serve, the courage to serve and the funds to serve. Pray that He would keep reminding me of the importance of my work. And pray that I would continue to find the strength to press into Him and keep learning what it means to need Him every hour.
Also if this had a dark undertone to anyone and made them doubt whether my ministry would be provided for, know the God that called me is "faithful and He will do it" (1st Thessalonians 5:24) and that "He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it" (modified Philippians 1:6). Also praises go out because over the last two weeks God has brought me from 30% funded to almost 45% funded! So God is working!
Also if this had a dark undertone to anyone and made them doubt whether my ministry would be provided for, know the God that called me is "faithful and He will do it" (1st Thessalonians 5:24) and that "He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it" (modified Philippians 1:6). Also praises go out because over the last two weeks God has brought me from 30% funded to almost 45% funded! So God is working!
