Fear and Trust

15 days out from leaving for Cambodia! I just got a pit in my stomach. I'm nervous, excited, apprehensive, joyful, expectant, intimidated, overwhelmed, really any adjective that exists could probably be applied to me right now.

When I have been talking to people about it lately the only thing I can keep thinking of to compare to how I am feeling is just imagine this: You really support AIDS research, and awareness. Most of your volunteer time is given to support the cause, give to the cause, you make others aware of the cause, you eat, sleep and live AIDS. But then the opportunity comes for you to hold the hand of someone while they are receiving the news they have it, sit with them while they receive treatment, watch them run out of energy because they just had treatment. Any myriad of opportunities to actually interact with AIDS in human flesh. Not just on paper doing research, not just doing a walk to raise money. But to actually love on and serve someone with the disease.

That is how I am feeling right now. Yes, I feel like the Lord has put this passion in my heart. And not just a little over a year ago when I saw the movie Taken. God put this in me when he rescued me from the darkness, when he gave me a crown of beauty instead of a crown of ashes, when he called me out of the darkness; he put a calling on my life, because he anointed me to preach the good news to the poor and he is now sending me to bind up the brokenhearted. I know that in my soul.

But I am afraid.

I am afraid to look into the eyes of the humble servants who are already loving on and doing their life's work to restore children of God who have been abused to an extent that we can only imagine in our nightmares.

I am afraid to walk the streets of Cambodia and see the little children who are being forced to beg me for money - money I am encouraged not to give them, because then all the children will come - that will be beaten if they do not bring home their expected bounty.

I am afraid to see a young woman on the street waiting for someone to take her to a place when she will degrade herself just to live another day.

I am afraid that I will judge every man I see to be the evil that we are fighting against.

I am afraid that I will come back so hard and bitter at this world that I will have a hard time readjusting and living a "normal" life.

But I trust.

I trust that the Lord has already looked into the eyes of those servants and has told them: help is coming.

I trust that God has walked the streets ahead of me and loves and is protecting those little children and will be with them no matter what happens.

I trust that the young woman who is trying to live just another day is a child of God and he knows her future.

I trust that these men, as evil as they may be, are also children of God and are in need of a Savior, and I can only be the light of the Lord for them.

I trust that when I come back, as hard as it will be, that God is with me. He has NOT given me a sprit of fear and he will give me the courage and strength that I will need.