Transformation through Reliance

There is a piece of paper in my car that reads:

missionary= person of weakness relying fully on God's power and grace

It is something I wrote while listening to a devotional this past summer. I kept thinking about the glorification of missionaries and the reality of a missionary life. The truth is that a missionary doesn't have it any more together than the average Christian. Sure, we chose to live our faith out differently but it doesn't make us the perfect Christian. . . heck, the only perfect Christian was Jesus!

The truth is that the "missionary" life on the reservation is hard, not in ways that are seen but in the manner of who it makes you to be. I've lamented over this recently as I look at the person I was when I came to the rez and the person I am now.

I came to the rez full of positivity, consistency in attitude and emotion, excited and ready to see what God had in store. Then as the years passed by I saw so many of the terrible things that I had been shielded from for most of my life. The amount of pain and suffering in these young lives began to crack the positivity and consistency I had arrived with until I didn't recognize the person I had become.

I arrived at the end of two years with an attitude of cynicism and negativity. My emotions had become anything but consistent. As I began to join my life with another I realized the deep impact that the trauma of the rez had had on me. With the slightest criticism, the slightest inkling that something was going to go wrong I would lose it. I had become so frightened of the bad that I lived in a constant state of anxiety.  I had very little control over my words, my tears, my attitude. My emotions had been torn to pieces by all I had witnessed and there was nothing left. Even to love was a risk.

With marriage in my near future the truth became clear, that transformation was necessary. I began to push and push to be different. At the end of each day I would be devastated that I had "messed up" again or fallen back into the patterns of my attitude that were less than favorable. I felt I was climbing a mountain but my feet were stuck in the mud. It was a fruitless endeavor, an exhausting movement without results.

It was when I was sitting with my mom in a coveted time together the other weekend that she mentioned something so simple that I was amazed I hadn't thought of it myself. She told me that I couldn't make the transformation myself. To get back to my best self I had to ask God to help. Only the Holy Spirit could transform my insides, heal my broken heart, and put all my pieces back together. I could continue to struggle or I could let go. . . I could let myself fall into the arms of my Savior and let His healing wash over me. It was a choice I had to make. Wallow in my negativity or allow Christ to do His work.

A person of weakness relying fully on God's power and grace. 

The power to heal my broken heart. The grace to forgive my mistakes. 

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