Check

I´ve spent the last like 6 months checking all of these things off my list - buy a tent, bug repellant, sleeping bag, plenty of decently cute clothes so my self esteem doesn´t come entirely unglued as I slowly devolve into an amazon missionary woman... yaknow, the normal stuff. As I´ve gotten going, tho, I´ve noticed the main check has been in my spirit. (how cool was that transition?) (ok, it´s contrived, but I seriously have way too much time to think through all these rather boring training sessions) (moving on).
I´ve realized two main things - missions is my callin (I´m alive again!) and I need daily reality checks.
I´m reading Francis Schaeffer to keep my brain alive.. and this quote grabbed me by the throat and held me up for a second of breathless self-examination -
¨Man´s attempted autonomy has robbed him of any certain reality.¨
It´s so easy for me to say that I depend on God... I don´t stress about 30 hour bus rides or sleeping on a cement floor or bugs... I´m easygoing, I want to do the Lord´s will with all of my heart, I will go wherever he says... and yet... and yet.
And yet of course there is a part of me - maybe quite a large part if I´m honest - that separates. I escape from a God who knows me too well, a God who loves me too much for comfort sometimes (I´m not worthy! says my false humility), who sees everything. And I want my autonomy. I want to be Joy. All that that is in its uniqueness and specialness. I don´t want to die to flirting, gossip, self-indulgence, pride. I don´t want to be completely honest about my past or my pain. And that is the catalyst for a life disassociated from reality.
I think I feel this most acutely because I really am most myself on the mission field. This is me, the purpose for which I was born, and my soul knows it very well. So I am confronted in that incredibly naked moment by the reality of God... and I would rather dream. I would rather think I´m great.
I doubt this is an unnatural place to be but it is undesirable. I want this year to really be totally present in every moment... without my typical daydreams or fantasies. Even if my fantasy is an orphanage with charismatic 3 year olds, that dream can still be an escape for me from the moment of smallness or helplessness that I don´t want to feel.
I want to see God´s eyes and not turn away.
I don´t want to live embarassed...
I don´t want to live escapist...
I want to really live...
And my reality check is that the only way to do that is to really die.