When I was getting ready to launch into the journey of support
raising in January, I had several people tell me that it would reveal my heart in ways I
never imagined. I smiled and nodded, but I don’t know if I really thought about
it much because there was too much to do. While I did not expect raising
support to be easy by any means, I also did not except that I would have any
trouble trusting the Lord in the process. As far as I could tell, spiritually I
was in a good place. I mean, I was going to be a missionary for crying out
loud. I was spending time in the Word, I had read books on support raising, and
I had gone through training. I was confident, well-spoken, and prepared. I
attacked support raising with determination, and enthusiasm.
Everything started well. I created a website, I sent emails,
and I began to meet with people. But nearly immediately, I found myself completely
overwhelmed by gripping, vise-like anxiety and fear. I knew that I was supposed
to trust God with my financial future but when the rubber hit the road I found
myself utterly unable to do so. I prayed the same prayers over and over and
over again: “Lord I trust you, Lord I surrender, Lord I know you can get me to
Spain.” But those prayers flew backwards and smacked me in the face nearly as
soon as they left my lips. I read more books. I spent more time in the Word. I
continued to support raise. I said all the right things, and postured
appropriately, dumping pounds of fertilizer on the soil of my heart, desperately
hoping that peace and faith would grow. But little changed. I was a disaster.
In the beginning of March, I was part of a conversation with
some of my best friends. Open and honest, they were sharing some of the
difficult things that God had taken them through in their past. Struggles with
family, crisis of faith, and ways that the Lord had shown Himself faithful.
Instead of responding with empathy, and compassion, as I like to think I would
normally have done, I was shocked to find bitterness and anger oozing out my
soul like pus. “They don’t know anything about suffering,” I thought to myself,
“They have no idea what they are talking about. That’s nothing compared to things
that I have been through.” I kept my jaw clenched shut for the entire
conversation, afraid that if I opened my mouth, the angry words echoing around
inside of me might slip out. But for the next hour or so lists went running rampant
through my head. All of the wrongs that had been done to me and to my family.
All the hurt and the pain and the injustice that from my perspective had never
been explained or put right. Amazed at my vehement, self-righteous, response, I tried to figure out later who exactly I was so mad at. I was not angry with my friends, nor with myself...instead it slowly dawned on me that I was unspeakably angry with God.
It turns out that it is
impossible to trust someone that you hold responsible for your pain.
You can obey them, you can spend time with them, but intrinsically you will not
trust them. Of
course I was struggling to believe that God would provide for me. I held a grudge against Him for the suffering I had walked through, and it was throwing everything into doubt and confusion, including my ability to trust that the Lord loved me and had good things for me.
Somewhere along the way, without me even realizing it, a root
of bitterness had taken hold, choking out the life of my faith. It likely would
have remained undetected for much longer, had I not been forced to so radically
trust the Lord with my future and my finances in the process of support raising.
That step had pricked hidden wounds that I had walled off, hurts that I had
never let the Lord near….because I held Him responsible for allowing them. I
had to make a choice. Either I could continue to shield my broken places from
Him and try to muscle through on my own while bleeding internally, or I could
let Him in to do the heavy lifting and the healing that I clearly could not do
myself. It was not easy or fun. There were tears, grief, and a lot of
incoherent prayers. I had to work through my anger and my resentment, and
in the end, totally exhausted, ask the God of the Universe to pick up what I
could not carry.
The craziest thing happened though. He did. Actually, for
real, no joke, the weight lifted off of me and onto the One who bears our
burdens and carries our sorrows. As I allowed my Savior to love me in my most
unlovable places, it changed everything. It changed ME. He could have left me in my anger and my
bitterness. But He loves me too much for that. I thought I could hold Him at arm’s
length and go through all the outward motions of obedience, but He is not a God who desires lip service
or a good conduct report. He is and always has been, after my heart. He longs
for me to know the joy of His presence, and the tender care of His love. And
after letting Him have all of me, the rest I have found in Him is exquisite.
Things are still hard and overwhelming sometimes. As of right now I don’t have my visa yet, I have no idea where I’m
living once I get to Spain, and when I think about how exactly I’m going to
handle teaching four different classes every day once I get to Spain, I start to
break out in a rash. And yet, the Lord has shown Himself to be beautifully faithful. Over the past few months He has called so many people to care for me, pray for me, support me and encourage me. Support raising went from a source of anxiety to a source of encouragement and joy. I have been so honored and so humbled by your generous hearts, and it has been incredible to see so many of you catch the vision for all that the Lord is doing in Spain. Friends, I am becoming more and more convinced that there is nothing that He cannot accomplish in you and I if we will give Him room to work. He is on a mission to continuously mold and shape us to be more like His Son, and while it is not comfortable by any means, it is also the greatest thing that could possibly happen to our selfish souls. As long as my Lord goes with me
and before me, I have nothing to fear.
To learn more about what Kaye will be doing in Spain click HERE
To learn more about how you can pray for Kaye click HERE
To learn more about how you can financially support Kaye click HERE
