I arrived in Africa and ran out of my supplements
quickly. After the first 2 months, I
wasn’t doing anything in the physical realm to support my healing.
I was working @ an orphanage and a high school for at-risk
youth. I loved the work and it shifted
and expanded my heart to want to help vulnerable youth and babies who had been
abandoned.
During my time in South Africa, I noticed an increasing
amount of guilt and condemnation in my thinking and emotions. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was going on
but over time, the weight of guilt became heavier and heavier.
I never felt like I was doing enough. I saw the needs around me and it was
overwhelming and beyond comprehension. I
did not know how the need was ever going to be met. It felt like the black hole of never-ending
need and vulnerability surrounding me continuously. I
felt completely helpless for the first time in my life. The little that I could do every day seemed
like a drop in the deep ocean of need in each child’s little broken life.
I became very attached to a little toddler who had no father
and a mother with HIV. She also had
HIV. She was in the orphanage, sick, and
with no family to intervene. I felt such
pain and hurt for her. I spent a lot of
time with this little baby. But it never
felt like enough.
And at the high school, it would even be worse. One of the older kids was a child solider and
had came to South Africa for refuge from a war torn nation. He had seen death and had even been forced to
kill as a child soldier. Another young man
had grown up with no father and his mother was a prostitute in their home growing
up.
I loved these kids so much.
I never felt so much love for anyone in my life. But it never felt like enough.
One day, I did a Google search on the word
“condemnation.” Now, I am not the type
to Google everything every day to find information. I am cautious at best with Google search
because I know that there are a lot of half-truths and blatant lies on the Internet. But this time I felt the need to Google.
To my surprise, a Pastor by the name of Joseph Prince came
up in my Google search of condemnation.
He explained in detail the Biblical stance of grace and freedom from
condemnation.
The biggest concept that spoke to me was the concept of the
“gift of righteousness.” I had never
seen that term in the Bible before this day.
Biblically, the gift of righteousness is what Jesus gives a believer who
turns to the Lord. Jesus lived the
perfect life that I cannot live. Every
mistake that I ever made can be redeemed and does not disqualify me from my
calling.
This was revolutionary to me. I had never understood grace. Until this moment. I realized that I was off the hook. That God was actually not expecting me to
solve the world’s problems. I realized
that I was actually not the answer to the well being of these children. God was and it was already completed in
Christ.
I realized that all of my life, I was trying so hard to
fulfill a role that I felt I had to play.
I was in a constant state of performing for everyone and internally
battling the feelings of not being enough and not doing enough. Or worse, I was not going to fulfill my
calling.
That day, I felt the weight of guilt and condemnation lift
off of me and for the first time in my life, I felt free. I felt free from not doing enough, not being
enough, and not changing the world. I
finally felt like I was okay. Jesus not
only paid the price for my sins on the cross, He lived the perfect life that I
could not live and fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law. The law or commandments were the tutor to
bring me to Christ. It was Christ who
had fulfilled every law and commandment that was set forth in the Bible. It was my job to receive this gift and allow
it to set me free from condemnation and not measuring up to my conscience or
conviction of what is right and wrong.
My whole life, my internal dialogue was about beating myself
up for saying something the wrong way to someone. Or, I should have done this instead of
that. Or, I can’t believe that I messed
that up. It was always an internal
dialogue of not being enough, not accomplishing enough, and generally messing
up every social and professional interaction that I have ever had.
But in that moment, I felt so free.
The next day, I went to work feeling light and happy. Loving the kids was enough and was what I
could do. God would just have to do the
rest. That was a cool feeling.
After the first few hours of being at work, I had my cycle
for the first time in 8 months. It was
also that first time I had my cycle without oral contraceptives, which
increased my estrogen levels so that I could have a cycle.
I was healed. And the
root was completely different than I had thought. It was an emotional/spiritual root. After that first period, I had my cycle every
month, without any synthetic, or natural aid.
This was the first major shift in my endocrine health and in
my health in general. The fears of not
being able to have children completely dissolved. I knew that I was going to have awesome babies
and easy pregnancies.
And having a cycle was the tip of the iceberg because the
feelings of joy, peace, and freedom stayed.
I was free, more free than I ever thought possible.
If you can believe it, there is more to my story. I would say without reservation, however,
that this was the pinnacle of my healing and the most profound shift in my life
that affected my body, my soul, and my spirit in the deepest and most
meaningful way. Grace was real and I
found grace in a person: Jesus
Christ. I no longer had to live up to
religious standards or rules, I had life and He filled me continuously with the
life of God. Forgiveness was a fountain
that never stopped flowing in me and through me. It was always available.
