Shall We Dance?

I stopped at a gas station to grab a drink and while paying the cashier I noticed a wisp of a young girl, pregnant, looking tired, and counting change her in hand. Back in my car, the pregnant girl caught my eye as I started to drive off.

For a moment I debated going up to her, but I had to. I drove over beside her car and asked if she needed some gas in her car as she’d only pumped $4.81. As I pumped the gas she looked at me and shared, “It’s been a bad day.”

“They happen,” I responded. She told me her boyfriend was taken to jail this morning, and it was the worst day. As young and pregnant as she was, I empathized that it probably was for her. I asked when she was due and asked a few more general care questions. Then we sat in silence as I continued to pump the gas. When I was done, I gave her my contact information and offered to pray. I invited her to church and shared that she was welcome anytime. If anything, I wanted to reassure her she wasn’t alone and that someone did care about her. Though I may not have the full resources to help, I know who does and places I can send her for help.

As I drove off I reflected on the tugged whisper to see her. I have learned that you have to train yourself to see people. Life is busy, and it’s very easy for our lives to turn inwardly to ourselves and not have time or eyes to see the needs of those around us. Needs can simply mean a friendly smile for that human connection. Then, the more you do it, the more you see them. It’s like when you buy a new car, all of a sudden, you see them on the road all the time; you have trained your eye to see them through the association of owning one. I have trained my eyes to see people through the association of being seen by a Savior when I was lost.

I have learned to just keep deciding to see people. I had to practice seeing people and the more I did it the more I saw people. I’m not great at it, I am rude to others at times, but I try hard to see all people as people and treat them as seen and valuable in my small encounters. The more I practice, the more naturally it comes to me.

There are many people roaming past you on a daily basis who feel let down, beaten, conspired against, betrayed, lost, afraid, and isolated. It’s important to learn to see people where they are. There’s something about the moments when we see the broken pregnant girls alone in their car, where the power of the everyday is elevated and illuminated. The power of the every day is generated when we take the time to stop and see others. Rise or fall, sink or swim, we are all tied together, and we shift and move each other by the actions we choose to take.

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

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

Sometimes courage is like cardio, painful in application, but rewarding after the endorphins kick in.

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. 

Cats, Hamsters, Butterflies, and Quarantine

Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag, Guatemala became very real, very quickly last week. It was exciting to tell the world, but then it meant that I was moving to another country. As if my plane ticket and AirBnB reservation weren’t “real” enough. This week I had a lot of conversations with Angela, with This is Vida. It dawned on us that I would probably need to quarantine for two weeks upon my arrival in the country. They will get my groceries and leave them at the AirBnB and I will spend my first two weeks hanging out in my room. Guys, that’s 14 days all by myself. Real talk, I’ve NEVER spent two solid weeks alone in my entire life. I’m an extrovert, I hate being in the house alone too long, let alone being INSIDE THE SAME SPACE FOR 14 DAYS! Even on sick days, I typically need to at least drive to the 7-11 just to get out of the house for a few minutes. 

My initial internal reaction was dramatically, maybe I shouldn’t go after all? But then I thought, what in the world would I do instead?! The other downside of this is an additional two weeks in an AirBnB is nearly the equivalent of a month’s rent. I got over both of those circumstances, but still was tied up in thoughts of leaving. I had told the world now but not my boss. So I had to work that out too. I think the hardest part of this transition in letting the life changes Covid has brought carry over in all areas of my life and not being frustrated at its impact. I didn’t expect Covid to still be impacting my transition in September when I was making plans in March. I didn't think that I would have to consider sitting in an AirBnB with Winston for two weeks until I could get started in establishing my life in a new country. It also eliminated my hope of someone coming with me for the first two weeks to help with the transition. 

There are many things I could be distracted with in this season of transition. It truly is a challenging time, exciting for sure, but challenging. I’ve cried a lot, I have butterflies in my belly when I think about leaving, I feel isolated from people in a unique way and I get scared that I will be so lonely that I find myself striving in things now out of anticipation of that fear. I’m trying to learn not to let those things get in my way, I can run on these hamster wheels of fear and uncertainty or I can sit down, take a deep breath, and rest. Sometimes, I spend so much time trying to make something happen for myself that I make matters more frustrating for myself. I can’t control a virus, I can’t make the president open up borders, I can’t avoid sitting in a room for two weeks, but I can control how I approach each of these circumstances. I can trust the plan that was put into motion two years ago when I looked at my friend and said, “Let’s go on one of these trips,” is still moving forward, still on time, and still perfectly laid out to accomplish all it was supposed to. 

The beauty I’m seeing in inviting my world into all of this is the support from others; the expressed connection and support to the adventure. So many times in my life people would say they just didn’t understand my life choices - how I had such wanderlust, but this time, this life choice has been met with resounding excitement and support. It is as if this one just clicks for people and it makes sense to them. Not that I need my life to “make sense” to anyone, but to have the people in your world resound with you is nice. It encourages and reminds me community is important, they spur us on and those that don’t...just let those go.