*WARNING: RATED "R" for REALNESS* :-)

Sometimes it seems that missionaries always have the right words, the right stories, the perfect attitudes, and the most successful Christian lives. As I've listened to the narratives of returning missionaries, I find myself wishing that my life always looked like as much of a success story as theirs sound. I wonder why at least 10 people have not come to know the Lord in my time here thus far; why I fight against my own weaknesses and sometimes seem like I'm losing; why my attitudes toward brokenness and dying to myself often do not reflect that of Christ Jesus. I find myself some days feeling more like a sinner than a saint, more like a hindrance to Christ than an instrument, and more like a hypocrite than a faithful follower. Yet, all around me I see and hear glowing reports of lives where hardship is always met with a smile and an attitude of joyful persistence. I must tell you:Though smiling faces abound, a nagging feeling leads me to wonder what sort of masquerade ball is happening that I was not invited to. Where are the Davids, the Jobs, or the Jeremiahs of our world? Where are the people who are brave enough to fall on their knees before God in recognition of the fact that life is not always happy and a smile is not always the most appropriate response? Where are those that know they cannot do it, that they have many questions without answers, that they have at times felt forsaken, alone, hurt, and defeated? Where are the people that plead for more of the power of the Holy Spirit to be seen in their lives, who feel complete and utter brokenness over their sinfulness, or who know that even though they have lost everything and they grieve that loss with an inner sackcloth and ashes, what they really need can never be taken away? Lord, by your grace, make me one of those.

Though it is easier to only hear the success stories and the ministry moments, I have no intention of being one of these missionaries that presents only those things that look glorifying to myself. I come before you in honesty and proclaim to you that I am weak and that I need the grace and strength of God to make it through each day. I admit that there are days that I struggle to live in the joy that is set before me, where I wonder where the victory of Christ has fled to and I wallow in self-pity for a heart being broken by my Lord. I live each day in a deliberate effort to glorify God and find myself hurting him and others with the very means and words that I have been hurt by throughout my life. I strive for a life lived with my eyes on the Lord and find that at the first trial, my eyes are back on myself- my needs, my wants, my hurts. But I believe, in all these things, that in our weakness, Christ's strength can revealed. In those places where I am keenly aware I am not enough, I am even more aware that He is.

All that I am learning and experiencing, dear friends, should not lead you to feel as though I need encouragement or lead you to concern; it should, however, lead you to rejoice, for I am being refined and transformed by Jesus and I will never be the same again. So, my brothers and sisters, please pray for me as I pray for you. Pray that I might honor Christ in all that it means to be a "missionary". Pray that as these weaknesses are revealed, the power of the Holy Spirit will grow to take over more and more of my life. Pray that I might be His and only His- devoted to His purposes and not my own or anyone elses. And as you pray, please know that I am also on my knees for all of us, praying that we might know the authenticity of following a God who delights in weakness and knows our true frame. I pray that He might crumble walls and fake smiles so that we can be free to decline the masquerade and choose to live a life of sincerity in Him. I pray that His heart might be all that we seek and trust in and that no matter how foolish or inadequate we may look to others, we will choose to bear that cross for the sake of a glorification greater and far more deserved than our own- that of our Lord Jesus.