To Whom it May Concern

I’ve gotten to the place where I will hit skip if, the ever popular song, Oceans comes on a shuffle list. It’s not that I don’t appreciate that song, I just get over songs, eventually. Today, I let it play.

This song is powerfully written, it beckons the heart to go deeper, but if you listen to the lyrics they are really intense. 

Your grace abounds in deepest waters…
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the water
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I remember how ardently I would sing those lyrics, pouring my heart out to God in a desire to be on that water with Him no matter what. Come to find out I don’t love being on deep waters, but I need is grace so much that I actually find myself chasing its abundance and as that lyric says…it abounds in deepest waters. 

I don’t mean it to sound so terrible, I am loving being out here on the road, telling people about Jesus. I like the adventure of not knowing what each day fully holds and leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move and use me.

What I will say is this: I have half-assed my faith when it comes to coming out on deep waters. I pridefully and somewhat ignorantly figured I could muscle through and God would get the glory. What I have PAINFULLY learned is that you cannot walk out on deeper water without drawing closer because it requires faith and the presence of God to sustain you on that water. Even if you can keep your head above water, maybe even waist deep, you’re still going to drown eventually. It’s exhausting trying to do something so supernatural in a natural capacity. 

I am learning the first decades of my faith walk of following the ways of Jesus was deeply milky in sustainability. As long as the majority of my circumstances lined up, I had adequate bible teaching in church, and powerful corporate worship experiences that would sustain me in the deeper waters. None of these will keep you atop of the waves. I have found it is done in the privacy of my own heart before the Lord, allowing him to strip you little by little to look more like him.

I didn’t sell all my things in one day, I didn’t move to Guatemala over night, I didn’t come back in one fail swoop, and I didn’t heal all the broken parts that disillusionment, church hurt, and ministry isolation through my own strength. Accepting a missions call in my native country was a slow yes.

He’s so good, but I am a witness to you that it takes every bit of surrender and then repentance to start all over again the next day. New mercies and grace to start over from where I held on to my own ways, my own thoughts, ideals, presuppositions, or opinions that are contrary to what the scriptures say and what time in his presence can do. Don’t get crazy now, I am lazy, I wallow, I live a life that looks financially stupid, and I KNOW this ain’t for everyone. But it’s my deep waters. It’s where my faith is stretched and refreshed. It is in the deep waters I meet a face of Jesus I haven’t met before and each time reveals so much more of his greater plans, purpose, and beauty. 

So to whom this one may concern, I wanted to share with you to risk the depths to access his abundance of grace. If you don’t understand what the means, I encourage you just to ask him to show you who he is. This is my one promise…I have never sought him and not found him. He is faithful to all things and that one you can take to the bank! 

To Whom it May Concern:

To Whom it May Concern:

You can’t help where you were born. Why one is born into privilege and one in to abject poverty is only answered by the creator. We have a responsibility to the position we are in to serve the underserved in our spheres. Out of the abundance of the heart we give; compassion, revelation, fasting, religion are found and centered in serving the underserved regardless of station. I’ve met women with dirt floor kitchens open their homes as a village soup kitchen during pandemic. 

When we step out God will put the next step in front of us. When we acknowledge him in all we do he will order and straighten the steps of our paths. The abide feels like a great big ole sick, but so does the gym. When you stand in the reward of that gym suck you feel good! Same with the suck of the abide. Someone told me, recently, that God was going to sustain me in this season. I know that’s true, but on days when the suck is more pronounced than the reward I have to remind myself that sustainability is meant for these times and I can trust him beyond all measure, fear, or anxiety. He’s a breath away to my cries of, “Help me!” Even when I groan and grumble, feeling like a toddler inside and I want to have a full-out-on-my-back-kicking temper tantrum I know he sustains me even then. 

He’s a good Father and faithful to be trusted. To my pals in the suck, I see you!! We’ll get there. In the meantime, what I keep doing is seeking him for answers to the questions and responsibilities he’s laid in my heart and hands. I keep short accounts with other believers I trust, especially on days when the abide feels more like punishment. I also keep my prayer language active with worship in the background to keep my heart in a posture of praise and worship because even in the suck he’s still more than worth it, and honestly, so am I. I am worth the pressing in for his peace and his presence. I guess it’s about posture. Where do you posture your heart? When there’s seemingly famine do you pour out anyway and allow Jesus to fill you again? I’m learning it’s living waters and when you acknowledge him all you do the waters stir and flow and regardless of ebbs and wanes of life tides, there is life - and life abundantly - flowing through you. 

So, choose life. 

To Whom it May Concern

I didn’t know a “nervous breakdown” was your nervous system breaking down and not being able to function as intended.. I didn’t know that eventually those things you muscle through  will show themselves. It’s been two years since the initial “breaking,” and it still surprises me that there are days when I don’t want to be here anymore.It's not a desire to die, per se, or even a lack of a will to live. It's more so a feeling of "I don't know how to do this anymore, and I would rather not be here anymore.". The more honest I’ve gotten with others about this feeling, the more I am hearing that the feeling is understood. Is this a normal thought in other people?  Or is this something of a plague we agree with and figure, “It’s ok we will just get through it?”

In experiencing my lowest days, I realized that when my nervous system is most stressed I start to get fuzzy-brained and do weird things. On one of those days, I left my iPad in the Denver airport bathroom, wrecked a rental car before I even got it out of the parking lot, and saw a project I’d dedicated my whole life to for two years go up in flames during  a three hour flight. I remember crying over how dark the day was. I had no idea how to manage all I was facing and telling my friend that I saw no tomorrows. 

I don’t feel like that today, thankfully. I think I am to the place where I know there are tomorrows no matter how dark today. I do feel deeply at times that I have very little worth to add to the world. It’s a very strong feeling that leaves me feeling loose and shaking all within my core. 

I really thought I was immune from mental health struggles, but I know that we are all the same. I know these things make it more relatable but being in the midst of days where I have to ask for help to hold myself together is very humbling. So humbling, I ALMOST don’t want to tell anyone, but the fear of keeping that in feels greater so I humble myself. I’ll be transparent…I don’t understand the purpose of this season I’m walking out, what I did or didn’t do to bring it on or exacerbate it, why I know He’s a real God but I also feel like He’s this distant judge and I just have to muscle through. My mind knows that He is not attached to how these relationships and circumstances diminish my sense of worth and life attribution, but my heart and my emptiness feels like it is. The “muscle through” doesn’t work, I’m fairly sedentary these days, and I want sustainable mental and physical health. 

So cheers to those whom it may concern, regarding our mental health and the battles we rage against and within. I’m asking for help, I’m being honest, and I’m full of faith (even if it’s a habit of faith) that nothing lasts forever and this too shall pass. You can join me, thankfully we aren’t alone. 

To Whom it May Concern

I had a very close friend for a season in my life who battled deep clinical depression. The kind there I would have to go over to her house and get her to simply take a shower. I would coax her for about 40 minutes to get up by starting with simply sitting up. It was something I didn’t understand, but I could see this weight on her and wanted to help lift its gravity off her if just through a clean PJ set. I learned a lot in that time, and it made me far more compassionate to those who battle different forms of depression. 

In 2009, I opted for a double lumbar fusion surgery in my lower back to have a chance at a less painful life. Thankfully, it brought great healing to my body at the cost of great illness to my brain. The anesthesia and drugs changed my brain chemistry sending me into an overwhelming depression. I thought I was under spiritual attack (I know it was and continues to be but there also is a definite chemical illness happening) if I’m transparent; I asked a pastor at church about it and she advised that she thought I was depressed. I had no frame of reference for identification it. 

Life continues to happen. As I pen this I am reflecting on the journey…that bout had me deeply anxious and paranoid where I only felt safe in my car. I spent weeks parking in large parking lots like Home Depot or Lowe’s, reading a book in my car all day long. I didn’t feel safe anywhere outside of that car. It was a strange time. 

In 2011 my spiritual father passed from cancer and I had an excruciatingly challenging job at the time. I found myself in the parking lot of work more than once hyperventilating and crying. I was barely sleeping and felt like I was coming undone. This time I went to a doctor and they advised I was depressed but it presented itself as anxiety. I was prescribed Xanax; that was a God send in that time and I finally started sleeping again. 

In 2019 after years of learning to manage anxiety, feeling that my bouts of melancholy were because I was a writer and it’s how artists are; I found myself getting through each day thinking that surely tomorrow would have to be better. The thing is, my tomorrows were not getting better. Then we have a global pandemic which changed all of us, maybe fundamentally.  Then, I graduate from graduate school and feel like I should move to Guatemala to serve for a year as a full time missionary. Couple that with a deep spiritual crisis over church, pastor behavior and treatment, and something stirring deeply within me calling me to bring change without specifics.

I packed all that together in three suitcase full of hope that I would arrive at the end of whatever this was I felt inside once I got to Guatemala. Let me tell ya, my whole world unraveled further. Three and a half years later, I feel like I’m still walking up sand dunes that give way regressing my progress to upward movement. I am still trodding along. Next is learning not to “muscle through” my long-suffering with the Lord. Cause honestly, I just bulk up and keep on trudging, but I’m getting tired on these dunes, y’all. Anyone else now what I mean?

To Whom it May Concern

I can remember the first time I came into a larger chunk of money. I was balanced, had cash at the ready, and felt as if I had arrived and would never need money again. There was this arrogant naïveté in my thinking that I would always have an influx of money; not learning yet, that much like all things there are tides in life that ebb and wane. I am finding that my encounters and revelations of God are much the same. From mountaintop moments I will burst from within my heart thinking I will never be the same again. Though this is true, proximity of time changes the shine of high moments.

When I was younger still, I would chase the highs of God. I wanted dramatic supernatural moments that made me feel so good in a way I only feel in those moments. It was and still is the best high I’ve ever felt. But therein lies the issues; we must guard ourselves from chasing those highs. Frustratingly, I must admit, my greatest growth and maturation comes in the lows when I’m processing the highs, and sitting in whatever abide the highs have given birth to. 

I am learning, God never reveals himself just to show us Himself simply for the heck of it. He does it for myriads of reasons and the longer I sit in the stays,  I am finding how He deepens the relationships between He and I. The earlier highs were beautiful, but these new highs are deeper and more hard fought for. Not because He’s a God who doesn’t want to be with us, but because He’s a good Father who is in the process of making us into who we were designed to be. It’s not easy, but it’s a good leading. He’s faithful, he’s good, and he’s just as profound and elevating in valleys as He is atop the mountain. 

Street Foods and the Process of the Making

As I walk down La Calzada de Santa Lucia, the main street of hustle and bustle in Antigua, I smell tortillas being made on the street. It’s a distinct smell, one that makes me start to salivate. Tortillas in the states are nothing compared to here, how they make them, the sound of the hands slapping them flat and then dropping them onto the hot stove is a true cultural experience of street foods in Guatemala. There are beautiful views at every turn, the weather is ideal, and I am learning a new language! If I’m honest, I really don’t think I believed I could do that. 

There is a different pace of life here, I walk to the market and buy fresh flowers that overtake my house for pennies on the dollar, I pick out fresh vegetables every few days because they won’t make it longer, and I take a coffee break by walking two blocks from my house and grabbing the best iced dirty chai latte in town. There are also some things that slow the pace of life down because they aren’t the same conveniences I had in the States, for example, filling ice trays is a longer process. I have to keep my eco-filter filled with water so I have clean drinking water to fill the trays with. My filter is a literal five gallon bucket with a spout on the side that I use to open and close in 3 second bursts as I fill each cube with water. It’s not inconvenient or annoying, it’s just more time consuming than using the faucet. It’s micro-changes to my life that change the pace and rhythm of how things are done. 

I like it, but I have a hard time adjusting to it. I’m used to the busy paced hustle of American life and when I was there I longed for a simpler lifestyle that allowed me to explore the areas of life I felt were needing to be explored, but now that I’m in it, I have to make myself be ok with it. Trying to compare who I was when I was in America, to who I am and how I live my life here is a hard comparison. Transitioning to a new culture was a lot harder than a two week trip somewhere. I felt like I was in a fog for the first four months of being here. Now, nearly seven months in, at times I feel like I’m disappearing. Not sure what that means, but I don’t know who this Ginny is right now. She’s still the same at the core, I’m not running amuck and acting a fool, but the questions I’m asking in my heart, the laziness in my heart, it’s not who I’m used to being. I’m not sure if I’m in an undoing or just in a new thing, but this life I’ve taken on is weird and one hell of an adjustment. 

I’ve been walking this Way for a long time. In November, I will celebrate 20 years of intimate relationship with Jesus. In all this time, I have had seasons of “proofing” and they have always strengthened my faith in His goodness and faithfulness. That being said, I find it so beautiful that in my internal heart wanders right now, in the moments when I feel like I’m disappearing, I remember I am in the middle of the making. He is making me and though it may not always be tidy and attractive, it’s honest and in progress. I read something by Oswald Chambers the other day where it talked about how the destination is the process. I guess that means I’m here, I got to the destination because clearly I’m in process. 

I think even when we know the strippings and unlearnings are coming, we feel lost within them when they hit until the truths fill back into those places. Most of my lessons are an unlearning of something I thought was but, come to find out, was not. Being committed to the unlearning and the process of the making is as important as our “yes” when we first encounter Jesus. It’s what sustains us to the finish line of this great race we took up the baton in.

So, fellow friends who are in process as well, I hope you embrace it and let it truly mold and shape you. I am and though sometimes I don’t know why I keep going, I know it’s all worth it and Jesus is worth every lost feeling, every frustration of wanting my way and my own glory in the surrenders, and I know I can trust that He is busy in the making.