Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 5/22/2012
“We’re here!”
I drew a deep breath and shook myself awake as we piled out of the van to head into another eye clinic on Saturday. This time we were two hours from home at a church in Pervomais’k, and the building was already flooding with patients as we arrived and set out the boxes of lenses. We were invited to the kitchen for coffee and cookies, but almost as soon as my coffee was poured, Bruce asked if we would come and play music for the people waiting. Robin and I ducked into a side room to practice a few songs, got interrupted halfway through and reminded ourselves that it wasn’t a performance anyway as we headed into the sanctuary. There were already about 40 to 50 patients gathered (a huge turnout compared to what the church had been expecting), which meant a several hour wait for many of them and an awesome opportunity for us to engage with Ukrainians who would normally never set foot in a church!
We played a few worship songs, singing out the lyrics of “Revelation Song” in English. As Robin’s voice rang out and I harmonized, the familiar thrill of worshiping my Jesus bubbled up inside of me and poured out through my lips and guitar strings. The words may not have been understood by anyone in the room but us, and yet God’s presence was unmistakable. Afterwards, Bruce introduced the four of us (Wes, Hugh, Robin, and I) and asked Hugh to share about where we have been and what we have seen so far on the Race.
Hugh’s words were simple but powerful, and he did not waste the opportunity to reach these people. As Bruce translated, he shared some of his own testimony and then told stories of healing that he has seen God do in the last few months. As he talked, I could feel the atmosphere in the room shifting, many people perking their ears to catch every word. Excitement rose in my own heart at what might happen next. I kept noticing one of the babushkas who had caught my eye earlier while we were worshipping. She was wearing a sparkly pink scarf on her head and her face glowed with joy, her head bobbing up and down enthusiastically at Hugh’s narrative. As soon as we left the stage, she made a beeline toward Hugh, speaking excitedly as Tim (Bruce’s son) translated.
We learned that she had blurry vision in her right eye that was likely due to cataracts, and Hugh asked her if she wanted us to pray for her to be healed. She was so eager and full of faith, as if she knew something that we didn’t. We placed our hands on her and prayed. I was awed by her belief – she was so certain that our prayers would be answered, and her joy was contagious! When we finished praying for her, other women crowded around to greet us, talk to us, and hug us.
The afternoon progressed and I grew exhausted as the hours passed and I struggled with my inability to communicate separate from Tim’s translation. The room was full of people in need of Jesus’ love and a healing touch, yet my strength was sapped and it was an effort just to keep interacting. As the day drew to a close, we snapped photos with several of thebabushkas as they pressed in to be near us and hug us. The woman we had prayed for was among them, and her joy once again caught me off guard as it overflowed onto everyone around her. Just having our arms around her made her giddy, and for a few minutes, I couldn’t stop laughing with her because it was so contagious that the joy was uncontrollable!
 
 
As we bounced around in the back of the van on the two hour ride home, I thought about Jesus’ ministry. It struck me how exhausting it must have been for Him to have the crowds pressing in around Him all day long, wanting healing and nearness and to hear His words. What we experienced that day was a little taste of what His life was like. While I am very conscious of my inadequacy and weakness, I am also hungry for more. I am hungry to have His power so fill my life and my team that people are drawn to us like a magnet everywhere we go, and His power is poured out on them in response. I am hungry to see people healed and touched by Jesus’ love through my words and my hands. I am hungry to see salvation come to the people of Ukraine who often live in poverty and the pervasive bondage of alcoholism. I am hungry to come to the place of confidence and boldness in speaking about Jesus without fear, in letting my voice be heard because I have stories and truth that He has given me to share.
I feel Jesus saying to me, “It is time!” He is speaking to me not just through my own time with Him and His Word, but through my teammates. I have been in the training grounds these last few months, learning to hear God’s voice for my team, pouring into them and growing in love and community with them. But there is more. It is time to step onto the playing field and let God’s Spirit move through me to reach the people of Ukraine who are living in darkness.
Greater things are yet to come!
Team Meizon (with an English teacher at a local grade school)
Sunday afternoon, Bruce told us the end of the story and it rocked my world. One of his friends who pastors the church in Pervomais’k had called him and told him about the service that morning. The woman we prayed for on Saturday had stood up in front of everyone, glowing and crying, to give her testimony. She said that during the night after we prayed for her, Jesus had healed her eyes! She testified before the entire congregation that her eyesight was completely clear. In fact, she told them that it was as good as when she was a little girl!
As I write this, I marvel at what God has done and am humbled by my own mustard seed of faith. Father, increase my faith! As I read back over the gospels and book of Acts, I am reminded of who my God is.
“A vast crowd brought to Him people who were lame, blind, crippled, those who couldn’t speak, and many others. They laid them before Jesus, and He healed them all. The crowd was amazed! Those who hadn’t been able to speak were talking, the crippled were made well, the lame were walking, the blind could see again! And they praised the God of Israel.” (Matthew 15:30-31 NLT)
What more does God have in store? Why do we put limits on Him and stuff Him into a box? It’s time we let Him out and let Him be powerful in our lives and through our lives! It is a choice to believe. It is a choice to ask. It is a choice to invite Him into each and every day of our lives and refuse to settle for the ordinary.
It is time to see the world through new eyes!
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 5/14/2012
Debrief in Bucharest...
was amazing! Our entire squad stayed for 5 days at the Happy Hostel. We worshipped, spent time with our teams to debrief our first month together, and received incredible teaching from our coaches and a couple of AIM staff members. It was a time of huge transition for our squad as our three original leaders, Hope, Mac, and Caitlin, headed home, and our new squad leaders took up the mantle of leadership for D squad!
In our free time, Hosanna, Sammie Jo, and I went downtown to play our instruments and sing in the street. We ended up earning 25 Lei (about 8 USD) in the 45 minutes we played... enough to buy ice cream and dinner for some gypsy kids we met in the park! :)
50 hours of travel!
The next morning, my team was up at 5 am and headed for the train station with all our belongings. For the next 27 hours, we were on the train from Bucharest to Kiev, Ukraine (yet another stamp in my passport!). We made a new friend in our car, Nick, who gave us a bag of Ukrainian chocolates, helped us find a local store at one of the train stops to get water and snacks, and even traded us his own Ukrainian Hrynva for our dollars since we didn't have the local currency yet.
Me n Robs chilling on the Metro early in the morning on our way to the train station. Photo by Robin Brooks (http://seerobinfly.tumblr.com/)
We had an eight hour "layover" in Kiev, so we set up camp in the McDonalds across from the train station, then five of us ventured out to spend a few hours exploring the city. It was a splendid afternoon. The city is beautiful, with gold-capped churches, lovely parks, and a subway that runs 400 feet under the ground!
Jo Linda, Wes, me, and Nomes in Kiev
 
Left: Wes, Jo Linda, me, and Naomi in front of a cool structure... Right: Hugh, Jo Linda, me and Wes on the crazy long escalator that leads to the subway
After another overnight train ride, we arrived in Lugansk!
Home sweet home!
We were welcomed by the MacDonald family: Bruce and Pia, Timothy (17), Michael (14), Carianne (10), Toby (8), and Mercy (4), and are living with them this month in their farmhouse! They are from the States but have lived here for the last seven years as missionaries, partnering with local churches by doing eye clinics that bring in people from the community, as well as a variety of other ministries including softball, English camps, and construction projects. I fell in love as soon as I got here! With this family, this country, these people...
First taste of ministry
This morning Hugh, Naomi, and I, along with little Mercy, joined Bruce on the hour-long drive to the town where we were doing an eye clinic (Bruce usually does two to three of these a week, so this will be our main ministry while we are here). The three of us spent the day worshipping in the "waiting room" with church members and patients, improving our non-existent Russian skills, eating and drinking the endless pastries, cookies, sandwiches, coffee and tea, and two-course lunch that the church ladies prepared for us. The hope is that we are able share the love of Jesus with the people who come to these eye clinics to receive free glasses. We look for chances to talk to them, pray for them, and worshp with them, using Bruce or anyone else who is bilingual as a translator :)
Today, all I can say is that I was the one who was blessed. Spending hours with our Russian brothers and sisters in worship was incredible... we mingled Russian and English lyrics for some songs, but for one song that I played, the language was universal: Hallelujah. The song simply repeats that one word over and over again and we sang together, hands clapping, voices ringing out with no concern for how we sounded or looked. The church ladies were so enthusiastic, they asked me to play it multiple times, and would continue to sing as long as I kept playing! Our new friends Ivan and Yanna joined in and seeing their hearts of worship blew me away. In the afternoon, Pastor Vitaly, Ivan, Bruce, and the three of us sat in the little sanctuary of the church sharing testimonies with the help of Bruce's translation. I was so encouraged to see the depth of these men and their hearts for the Lord!
 
Left: Pastor Vitaly played my guitar and sang us worship songs in Russian along with other church members! Right: Anya is one of the eye doctors that Bruce hires to do clinics
At the end of the day, we all gathered in the kitchen to enjoy tea together before our van headed home. We were asked to share, so Bruce translated for me as I told them how much the day had meant to me and thanked them for the time of worship. Pastor Vitaly responded with so much warmth, and prayed blessing over us and our future work. It was an amazing time!
Ivan and Yanna, our new friends, are at the end of the table to the left of Hugh and Naomi
God is blowing my mind yet again! I can't wait to see what this month has in store. I am excited for the new depths that the Lord is bringing my team into as we seek Him together. I am thrilled to already be connecting with this amazing missionary family, and to be learning from Bruce as he freely shares with us and draws us with him into every aspect of what he does. I am stoked that I get the opportunity to worship more this month and that my guitar has already been in and out of its case a half a dozen times in only a couple days :) I am eager to hear the Lord's voice more and more clearly, and to continue to enter into and walk in the freedom He is setting before me!
Our song from this afternoon echoes in my mind and beats on my heart as I sit here on the couch, long past midnight, bursting with the joy that He has laid within me!
Hallelujah!
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 5/12/2012
Silence.
Silence wrapped around me with a suffocating grip and as I stared down, it felt like all my worst nightmares coming true. This was the moment when I wanted most to pour out my heart and be heard and understood. The moment when seven pairs of eyes were on me, waiting for me to speak, and nothing was going to shift the spotlight off of me. The moment when there were a thousand things racing through my mind and not a single word to express it, and my lips and tongue were paralyzed.
The moment when my façade of strength shattered and I sat shell-shocked, exposed, and completely raw as my heart lay pulsing franticly on the table.
Photo credit: http://reformbama.wordpress.com/page/10/
During the last couple weeks of our time in Romania, God had orchestrated circumstances in the environment around me in such a way that I was hit hard in the most tender and raw places of my heart. I had not anticipated this. The beginning of the month had been an incredible season of seeing Him using me, speaking through me, calling me into new places of confidence and servanthood. I felt strong. Then suddenly, from what seemed like nowhere, the inner battle began. I was forced to come face to face with two of my greatest insecurities.
The first was my insecurity in relationships with guys. Over the past three months, God has been doing a work in my heart that feels miraculous because it is above and beyond what I could ever have imagined or hoped for. I have always longed to be close to my brothers, to enter into authentic relationships that are founded on true love and trust and not false motives, mind games, and a self-seeking attitude. I was plagued with my own inability to truly love them and not to let fear enter into those friendships and keep me from being real, from being me, and from letting my heart engage. Yet I have failed countless times. What the Lord has shown me is that it is because of my own struggle with my value, my failure to see how much worth I have in Him, and my refusal to receive His love as the complete and ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment of my heart’s desire. I have felt insecure in the knowledge that I have never been in a relationship, and wondered when and how that would happen, and what the lack of “romance” in my life says about my worth. I have put up defenses by claiming at times that I have no desire to get married, and my first instinct was to deny, hide, or negate my feelings whenever I did have a crush on a guy. So, in relationships with my brothers, my heart was responding from a place of fear and doubt.
My issues go even deeper than that, though (yup, I’m gonna be completely real right now!). An even greater cage I have felt trapped in is something that I really don’t want to give a label to, but for understanding and explanation’s sake, I’m going to call it social anxiety. I have spent my entire life in fear of large groups of people, feeling like a failure time and again in social settings. Feeling like I was always a little less fun, a little less attractive, a little less cool, a little less entertaining than the next guy. There is a familiar fear that I have grown to know so well and I can’t tell you how badly I wish I could take a knife to it and chop into bloody bits once and for all. That is the feeling of being unseen and alone when surrounded by people. Of being awkwardly present, yet silent. Some would describe it as feeling like a “wallflower”. Yet on the same hand, with my fear of being unseen is an equally great fear of being seen. The spotlight is a terrifying place to land and I find myself avoiding it as if it were a matter of life and death. I can’t fully explain this weird paradox or why it has so much suffocating power over me. All I know is that it sucks and hurts like heck and makes me want to run away and hide and just quit trying sometimes. I also know that the answer again comes back to knowing who I am in Christ, and grabbing onto my worth in Him. To know that I am worth being seen, I am worth being heard, I have a voice that holds value and will never be ignored and trampled in His presence.
As God pressed those things heavy on my heart, I was brought me to a place of personal vulnerability. One afternoon it hit me so hard all at once that I wanted to run for my life from everyone around me and hide. Instead, I found myself face down on a blanket in the sunny lawn with four girls around me. I was sobbing in their arms, broken and in a place of feeling completely overwhelmed and like a scared little girl. Dani, Jen, Katie and Robin poured out love onto me in that moment, praying for me, holding me, and simply being with me in that place of brokenness. In that moment, Katie spoke prophetically into my life in a way that I will never forget. God had given her the words “social butterfly” for me. When she read that to me, along with other words of life, I burst into uncontrollable sobs. Those words epitomize what I feel will forever elude my grasp, what I can NEVER attain or become or embody because I have been so deeply entrenched in this place of fear and doubt.
Photo credit: Robin Brooks (http://seerobinfly.tumblr.com/)
Out of this place, I knew that I had to share with my team what God was stirring in my heart. I wanted them to know me in my strength and in my weakness. I felt an urgency to blow my cover and let them see the true Jill in all my brokenness and need for their love, and even more for the Lord’s. I had not yet shared my testimony with them, so I took that as the opportunity to pour out everything.
And that is where I found myself. In silence. Face to face with what felt like my worst nightmare. Trying to speak and left speechless. In the spotlight with nothing to say. In the gaze of the people before whom I most desired to bare my heart, and left feeling like a failure even in my ability to do that.
Somehow I pushed through and got it all out. During the week that followed (this last week), I sat in the rawness of that night. I found myself fighting the desire to hide from them, run from them, pull the shell back up around my heart, because I felt so exposed before them and in my mind, they would never see me the same again. The words I had spoken about my feelings and fears still had power, and I was sucked into the belief that they now saw me as I portrayed myself from that place of fear and doubt. The Lord was trying to speak, whispering truth to me, but my wounded heart struggled to receive it. One morning as I walked back from work with Alys, He gave me a picture of what was happening.
I saw an open can of worms. The lid comes off, and out wiggle the slimy, ugly, gross creatures, crawling down the side of the can, onto the table, in plain view for all to see. Everything in me wants to grab those worms, stuff them back in the jar, and clamp the lid back on tight. Nothing seems worse than for my team to sit around the table with me and watch the worms crawl out… maybe I can let them out later when no one is around. But God says no! He says, “Jill, there is only one way for those worms to be gone. Don’t put them back in the can – you don’t want them in the can anymore! No, instead you must sit on your hands and restrain yourself as they slowly wiggle out… and then slowly, so painfully slowly, crawl away.”
The Lord is asking me to sit in it, the reality of the worms and the reality that there was nothing concealing those worms from the view of my team and even my squad, until every last one is gone.
I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know if I’ll ever be totally free of the nerves that flare up when I know I’m going into a new social setting, an overwhelmingly large group of people, or the spotlight, be it in front of a thousand pairs of watching eyes or only a half dozen. But I do know that in my Savior’s love there is a freedom that I have gotten a taste of and it is the most addictive substance I have ever experienced. The freedom comes in stepping into the light. I am out of hiding!
During this week of debrief, my team responded and shattered my fears in the aftermath of opening that can of worms. They spoke life into me that blew my mind and blessed me into a place of speechlessness completely devoid of fear. They spoke even greater worth and love and gratitude than ever before when I expected disappointment and a lessening of their regard for me.
My amazing teammate, sister, and friend, Jo Linda :)
As I sit here on our train, having said goodbyes for the month to the rest of our squad, I am now surrounded only by these six people that God has given me as family. My team will be spending this month on the far-east border of Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the rest of our squad and thousands of miles from you all at home. Yet in this moment and this place, I feel safe. I feel known. I feel exposed before these six people and the negativity of that has faded into something beautiful. Even more than that, I am exposed before God. There is nothing hidden from Him! I am choosing to have nothing to hide, because I am hiding nothing. Before His throne in this moment, I have reached a new place of freedom. To have everything exposed – everything – and then to be embraced and held! This is incomparable, this is what every human heart longs and thirsts for – the place of intimacy with our Creator! He is inviting us back to the nakedness of the garden, the place where shame does not exist and perfect love covers every fear. It is too good to be true! But it is real.
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 4/25/2012
Have you ever felt completely lost in a room, panicky at the chaos around you or at a loss to know what is expected of you? Have you ever been in pitch black darkness, helpless to move forward or backward unless a light is struck? Or perhaps you’ve been tossed beneath the pounding surf until you don’t know which direction is up or if you will ever draw another breath?
Have you ever been so desperate for the Holy Spirit that you don’t know how to take another step, speak another word, or draw another breath without His help?
I have a new prayer on my lips tonight as I come before the Lord. It is this:
Let me be desperate.
Let me live desperately.
Let my confession be desperation.
We’ve been attending a youth conference this week at our church here in Oradea. Beginning Wednesday, we’ve gotten off work at the construction site at 4 pm, washed up, gobbled down some dinner and rushed out the door by 5 pm for a three hour service. The Spirit has been so present – high school and college age kids from all over Romania raising their hands to worship God, jumping up and down in excitement and joy at His presence, listening intently to the speakers and then responding to the altar calls in humility and hunger for more of the Lord.
Photo by Wes Vickers
My first night at the conference was a bit of a roller coaster ride. I came in from a long day of work, my sleep schedule had been inconsistent and inadequate, and the entire service was in Romanian (a language of which I know approximately three words). Yet I felt like the moment I grew weary or reached the end of my attention span, the Lord would zap me with energy in one way or another.
One of those moments was as I was listening to our translator. She was sitting in the row behind me – for the entire teaching time, I sat half-turned, ear strained to catch her words. The sermon was powerful and I felt so encouraged and blessed as I listened to the truth of the Word! But it struck me that I was not even aware of the man who was actually delivering the powerful words – in fact, I was not even looking at him. I was also oblivious to the people around me. My entire focus was on the soft voice guiding me through an experience that was completely foreign. I had no way of navigating or understanding on my own – I was desperate to hear what she said.
That was when the Lord whispered, “This is how the Holy Spirit is. He is your translator!”
Without a translator, I would have no idea what was going on or what I was supposed to be doing in that service (whether to stand, pray, come forward, etc.) – I would be completely lost. The Lord was telling me, “You are tuning out everything else in your effort to catch her words. In the same way, you must make My voice your number one focus every day, tuning out all the noise around you in order to hear the Spirit. He will make sense of the chaos, He will interpret the things you cannot understand, He will tell you what to do in every situation, He will navigate for you when you feel lost and confused. Your understanding of your own life and surroundings is narrow and limited, but I see the big picture! My understanding is infinite!”
I’ve been hanging out in the books of Galatians and Ephesians for several months now. As I dove further into this idea, a couple of verses came to rushing back to my mind.
Galatians 5:25 says, “Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.”
In every part!That doesn’t sound half-hearted or “when I feel like it”. That sounds like desperation, like my next breath is dependent on it, as if it were the inspiration for every single word I speak. That sounds like He is supposed to be the One navigating me through my day, not my own conception and understanding of the events and people and circumstances around me.
Ephesians 5:17 tells us,“Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.”
Man, it is so easy to run off our own ideas, our own strength, and our own intuition. It’s what we do naturally: it’s what we’ve always done. But God is showing me that He has so much more.
I want to share just one example that falls very close to home in my life right now. Every night before bed, my team meets for team time. The central focus is on sharing feedback with one another, both positive and constructive, calling out each other’s gifts and also calling each other to greater things. I have been realizing that there are two options for how I approach feedback. Option one: show up unprepared and exhausted, rack my brain to think back over the day and then throw out something off the top of my head. The words I share may be nice and encouraging, but I feel like there is more that I could offer... Option two: I can intentionally seek the Lord in prayer for my teammates, honestly reflect on who they are and what God is doing in and through them, and ask Him for specific words and truth to speak into their lives, to call out the gifts in them and call them to greater things! Ironically, as I contemplated this I realized that our team name, “Meizon”, is the Greek word for “greater” – a greater used not to describe quantity, but quality. Jesus said in John 14:12, “Anyone who believes in Me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works.” When we first settled on the name it didn’t mean a whole lot to me, but I am coming to see it more and more as a prophetic name over our team as it is playing out in the things that God is calling us into!
During our first week here, He began answering my prayers as I asked for insight and truth to speak into my brothers and sisters. As I spent one morning journaling for my team, He placed specific things on my heart for every one of them that I was able to share that night. I was blown away by their responses and confirmation that I had heard God’s voice.
God is bringing me into a place of richness and joy and blessing this month that is blowing my mind! I am so overjoyed to be here, to be serving Him, to be placed on this team, and to have the privilege of seeking Him and finding Him. There are moments where I feel so blessed and overwhelmed by all He has done in me and the ways He is working and changing me that I feel like I will weep with joy! And yet in all of this, I am continually reminded that my wisdom is weak. My love is short-lived. My insight is blind. My entire strength and hope is that I have access to the voice of the Spirit, the Word of Jesus, and the throne of the Father. He continues to renew me day by day and speak into the uncertainty and questions and noise of my life in a voice that is mesmerizing and full of grace and truth.
So my encouragement and plea to you, my dear friends, is this: stop trying to control and sort out and bring balance to and make sense of your life. Instead, come to your Shepherd! Come as you are, come where you are, with honesty and humility and brokenness. Listen to His voice and let His voice calm the chaos in your heart and the questions in your mind. Let His voice be the light to your feet and the lamp to your path.
Come to Him desperate. And I promise you that He will make sense of the chaos and give you the light that leads to life! (John 8:12)
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 4/14/2012
It is Easter weekend here. So after only one day on the construction site, we are already off again for a four-day holiday! By yesterday afternoon I was already super antsy, so my friend Alys and I took a long walk out into the farmland that surrounds our home. For a full hour we ambled deeper into the vast flatness until every direction was green and dirt and sky. Our conversation was as full and vast as the landscape. But one topic stood out above the rest, and I continue to mull over it as I wake up on this Saturday morning with a cappuccino, my Bible and journal…
Multiple times so far on the Race, I’ve been asked by squad-mates and friends from home, “If you were to come home right now, how would you be different from when you started?” Sometimes it’s easy to answer the query, and other times I’ve had to pause and think long and hard. In my conversation with Alys, we talked about how hard it will be to go home in eight months. My heart longs to see all of you, my family and friends, but nothing in me right now is ready to be back in the US. If I could have you all here with me, I would be content to live the rest of my life without ever setting foot back in my native land! And there are so many other aspects of the race that have my heart – living in community with people who spur me on each and every day, continual change and new experiences, new sights, new smells, new languages, new challenges.
Me and Alys on our walk around the farm
“Now I understand why people say that this will ruin you for the ordinary,” Alys commented, and I had to agree. And yet as I thought about it, I realized something awesome. By far the biggest aspect of the adventure we are on – the greatest unknown and most enthralling area of discovery – is the Lord. And that will never change! Though our lives may lose the sensationalism of constant transition and travel, the stimulation of new foods and people and languages and landscapes, we will continue forever on the ultimate adventure of discovering new depths of our Savior, new facets of His character, deeper awareness of His love, greater freedom in His embrace, and vaster understanding of His heart and the place that it collides with ours.
Endless Romanian farmland
Isaiah 40, a chapter that I memorized years and years ago, has been encouraging and challenging me once again in the past couple weeks. One section hit me especially hard a few days ago: “Shout that people are like the grass. Their beauty fades as quickly as the flowers in a field. The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the Lord. And so it is with people. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.” (vv. 6-8) I wonder if I woke up tomorrow morning and found myself gray and wrinkled, with creaky joints and a raspy voice, how much would it crush me? Is my hope in my youth and my strength and my appearance? Or is my hope and my joy and my purpose so wrapped up in the Lord that losing all those things would not even phase me? The latter is my desire and my goal!
With those thoughts, this is my prayer this morning as we prepare to celebrate Christ’s victory over death tomorrow, and each and every day to come!
Father, let my being sing out in worship from my very core, even when my lips cannot form the words or do not know the language! Come be the Fire inside of me! That every other stimulation, thrill, promise and hope would pale in comparison to You. That if this place and these people were stripped away, I would be fully content simply by Your presence! That if I woke up right now and realized all of this was a dream, that my life on the Race was not real, I would be okay and not devastated. Because the greatest thing I’ve gained is not new friends, or awesome traveling experiences, or cool ministry opportunities, but a closer intimacy with my Jesus.
Amen.
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 4/13/2012
Ok, so it’s time for a blog that is completely and entirely just for fun – no deep hidden meaning here, but it will give you a glimpse into my new life this month in Romania. We’re here at Caminul Feliz near the city of Oradea, living in a beautiful guest house that is by far and above the nicest accommodations we have had so far on the race, and probably ever will! Quite the blessing from Jesus! It’s funny how easy it was to adapt to camping out last month, and how equally easy it is to embrace the comforts of home this month. We have wonderful mattresses on our bunk beds, hot showers, a couple of pianos and a number of couches in our living room, along with a big long table where we eat our meals (all 21 of us racers that are living here together).
Our ministry this month is building houses in the “village”, where the families that make up the ministry live. These parents are Romanian couples who have taken in a handful of the many orphans in Romania left in the wake of communism. Most of the parents have about 12 children, mostly orphans, though some may be biological as well – the awesome part is that the kids get to grow up in a family environment rather than an orphanage. There is also a cow farm here, so we get fresh milk and miles of beautiful farmland to go running. Arriving here on Monday felt a bit like coming home.
We are cooking for ourselves this month, and another wonderful amenity we have here is a massive kitchen. Yesterday afternoon my teammate Hosanna returned from a grocery shopping trip with the announcement, "Jill, we got chocolate torte mix for you to make for our team!” It hasn’t taken long for my new teammates to discover how much I love baking… especially desserts. ;) So after dinner dishes were cleaned up, I pulled out the box and found myself face to face with obstacle number 1: the directions were all in Romanian! Problem solvers that we are, we used Wes’ laptop to translate it on Google (granted, the process of typing it all in was a bit arduous). While Wes hunted down a baking dish and other cooking utensils in our amazing kitchen here at the house, I stumbled onto obstacle number 2: everything in a Romanian recipe is measured in the metric system! So, how much is 50 ml? Anybody?
 
The mix... and me trying to translate the back of the box (Photos by Wes Vickers)
We hunted down a measuring cup that read “50 dl” and calculated the conversion. Meanwhile I moved to the stove to make the syrup, mixing the sugar and water until dissolved. I asked Wes to read the translated directions that were next (I had typed in the Romanian words but not bothered to read the translation in advance…) Obstacle number 3:
“Add a vial of rum…” he stopped and after a brief moment of confusion, all we could do was burst out laughing. No clue how much a vial is, and I’m afraid the girls forgot to stock the pantry with rum... ;) Our solution was a packet of Starbucks Via mixed into the syrup to add flavor in place of the missing liquor.
Next, it was time to bake the cake. Obstacle number 4: Unfortunately, the oven scale was rather strange and instead of having temperatures on it, the dial had a scale of 1 to 9. Okay, even Celsius would have been manageable – this I had no idea what to do with. Google came to the rescue again. Apparently, on a gas oven, 4 is equivalent to about 175 C or 350 F. Perfect! Into the oven went the cake.
We translated directions for the fluffy chocolate frosting, substituted cane sugar for powdered sugar and Wes’ arm got a workout in lieu of beating with an electric mixer for 5 minutes until fluffy… Meanwhile I made the chocolate glaze. We crossed our fingers that the result would be decent after all the unexpected alterations and hurdles.
Then I discovered obstacle number 5: “Chill the cake for three hours before serving.” Oh no! That was absolutely out of the question… it was already close to 11 pm and we had work the next morning. We brazenly cheated and popped the assembled torte into the freezer instead for about half an hour.
The finished torte!
It was a success! After Bible study, we dug into the delicious chocolaty layers and decided it was well worth the effort.
Jo Linda and Naomi digging in :)
So there you have it: how to make a chocolate torte in Romania!
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 4/8/2012
It was a simple blue notecard, placed in my hands silently. I took it, held it, and slipped quickly out the door of our meeting room to find a solitary spot. My hand trembled a little as I held that weighty paper – alone on the stone wall looking out over the beautiful Honduran landscape, I finally flipped it over…
A list of seven names met my gaze. One was mine. The other six brought a rush of emotion that poured out in tears and laughter as I sat alone before God for the next two hours of journaling and prayer.
My new team!
Here we are in Honduras during our first afternoon hanging out as a team! Photo credit Jo Linda Sala.
Left to right: Wes, Naomi, Hosanna, Robin, Hugh (our leader), Jo Linda, and me
Change is a daunting thing. Sometimes it arrives in our lives after long anticipation, and sometimes it blindsides us completely. The latter is how it happened to me, and even if I had been fully warned what was coming, I still don’t think I could have been prepared for the emotional surge that hit me in that moment. It was a tsunami of grief at the loss of sisters who have come to mean the world to me. It was a thrill of excitement and hope for the new season ahead with brothers and sisters that I already love, but only begin to know.
I knew that our last week in Honduras was going to be a week of transition. I knew that a couple of my closest friends in the squad were being raised to leadership roles, and I was struggling to process that reality as a huge sense of loss engulfed me. But I did not know that in the changes that came for our squad, I would be placed in a completely new team as well. Honestly, I had come to the point of expecting to be with the girls of Team Cherished, who had become my family, for the entire 11 months.
The reality that our original team has disbanded continues to hit me in fresh waves at random moments and bring tears of mourning and a pang of sadness. And yet I also feel a deep sense of anticipation stirring as fresh fears, renewed challenge, and brand new possibilities open up before me. My role on this new team is going to be completely different, and I already feel that God is raising me up in new ways and giving me a passion and heart for the team, MY team!
The most amazing part to me is that over the past month, God has at different times and in different ways been placing each of my new teammates on my heart. This was before I had any idea that we would EVER be on the same team! That is why my first glance at the list on that blue notecard made me laugh out loud – I instantly knew that there was no doubt of God’s hand in the decision to place the seven of us together.
Team Cherished will never leave my heart and these girls will continue to be my sisters and lifelong friends. I cannot speak my love and admiration for each of them loudly enough. And yet I also realize and joyfully grasp onto the reality that God has completed the work He intended for this season in which our team of girls was together. His definition and word over us was “cherished”: we came together as women desiring to fully grasp His affection for us and live as daughters of the King. As I think back on the past three months, I see the fulfillment of that prophetic word. If you’ve been reading my blogs, I hope you can see it too. The Father has continually been revealing to me that my worth and identity is in Him alone, as His daughter, not in my working and serving and striving. I am cherished, for no other reason than that He is good and filled with love. I know that the things He has taught me in that will be vital as I enter this new chapter of the race. He is giving me the desire to jump in with joy, having grieved what I am losing, and now reaching forward with excitement for all that is in store! My time on Team Cherished is fulfilled and He has used that season to accomplish its purpose in my life as well as my six Cherished teammates.
In change comes a letting go of what is good to grasp onto what is great. In all honesty, I am scared. I won’t deny that. It took three months to reach the point of trust and safety that I now have with my former team. I am afraid that I will go running back to that safe place with them, rather than pressing into the new safe place God is giving me. But ultimately in that fear and in the unknown, He reminds me that He is my safe place and that His grace and love will carry me to new heights beyond where I have been yet. Yeah, you bet that scares me! But I am choosing in! What God has in store for me, each of my former teammates, and each of my new teammates in the coming season is beyond what I can guess or anticipate. All I know is that He has opened the cage door, drawn me out into the open sky, and now He is calling me to soar.
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess the perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Philippians 3:12-14 (NLT)
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 3/31/2012
I sit cross-legged on the dusty tile floor, back throbbing, brain weary and stomach knotted. We are coming to the end of our first 24-hour fast as a team. It’s been a memorable day, made complete by painting projects and digging up rocks in the yard, asking hard questions, girl time with all 33 of us in the squad, and recognizing weakness in ourselves brought out by hunger and physical exhaustion. Yet as my eyes move around the circle, landing on each of my teammates in turn, I see the resilience and peace beneath their tired smiles. We excitedly share V8 juice and laugh at ourselves, then dive into our usual nightly routine of discussion, feedback and prayer.
This is my life. It’s not always glamorous. In fact, it usually isn’t. At times I forget I’m in Honduras, or how far I am from home, or that this is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. And here I am, living what feels like a fairly normal day-to-day existence! Granted, we’re camping out in our tents this month, sharing one 3-stall, 2-shower bathroom between 41 men and women (our entire squad), and sitting on the dusty floor to eat our meals. In addition, we are living with a handful of teenage boys who used to spend all their time getting high on paint thinner and had notorious reputations in their community, Los Pinos, just a few months ago or less… Yep, this is my life! :)
Some of our tents with Tony's house in the background (mine is the green and orange one, third from the left :)
PHOTO BY ROSE HUBER
Tony, our ministry contact, is a white guy in his forties who has been here for over four years now and plans to be here for another 40 (i.e. the rest of his life!). He is simple, transparent, and full of vision and love. His primary ministry, along with his beautiful wife Nidia, is to the boys who live here on the property with him, all of whom have come out of lives of poverty, addiction, and abuse. Now these same young men are attending school, discovering their passions and learning about the love of Jesus firsthand as they are discipled and poured into here at Zion’s Gate Ministries.
As awesome as this ministry is, and much as I admire Tony and the work he is doing here, this month has been a dry season for me from which I am just now beginning to emerge. It is humbling to walk through the desert and admit that I am weak, just as it is humbling to give up food for the day and have no energy to attack the rocky soil that is perpetually waiting for us to refine it. It is humbling to wonder where my passion is and to feel helpless to reclaim it.
It is humbling to come honestly before God and admit that I wish I could be good enough, strong enough, and loving enough in my own strength, and I’m frustrated that I’m not. It is humbling to admit that all I am is what He has made me and given me, yet I keep trying to be all that in my own strength. Without Him I am formless clay, and yet by His hand I am a beautiful work of art formed by the Master Craftsman. I can’t take credit for the beautiful and artistic merit of that product – it’s all Him! Yet I keep on trying to find ways to assert my value and worth separate from Him, and keep rediscovering that dead-end road.
The girls! Covered in dirt and sweat after a hard day's work :)
That is what this month has done for me, even with its moments of confusion, sadness, and frustration. It has brought me back to the reality that He has chosen me and made me who I am. I cannot conjure up love and passion and a heart to serve from within myself – I must come yet again and fall on my face before Him, acknowledging my weakness. He brought me to Ephesians 1 a couple mornings ago, and it struck me so hard that I am blessed because I am united with Christ, not because Jill Schulenberg is a big deal and has unique and rare gifts to bring to the table. My life is not my own, it is all for His glory! I know we say these things all the time but it is painful when I look at my heart and realize that I haven’t been living that way. My top priority oftentimes is my glory, not His. My desire to look good and feel good about myself can so easily outweigh my desperate hunger for Him.
Fasting brings me back to that place of humility before Him. As my team prayed together this morning, God reminded me of Isaiah 40 and I was awed in His presence at the reality of His power. “Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of His understanding” (Isaiah 40:28 NLT).
Yet again I am in the place of acknowledging that His strength is made perfect in weakness! How grateful I am for that, considering that I sure have a lot of weakness to offer and not much strength. He still has that twinkle in His eye when I would expect irritation or impatience. To my amazement, His attitude is joy at the discoveries I am making rather than frustration with how long it is taking me and how many times He has to teach me the same lessons.
In less than a week we leave Central America, layover in JFK for the day and then fly to Romania! Talk about drastic change and new opportunities for discovery, growth, and living as the hands and feet, but more importantly as a daughter, of Christ. I have the excited feeling of a kid on Christmas Eve, like I am about to be given a fresh start. Ya think maybe my Daddy has some cool stuff in store for us in this next season? That maybe pruning and the desert season precedes fruit and the downpour? I’ve got a good feeling…
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 3/25/2012
Hey all! I'm in Honduras with lots of stories to tell, but God is putting a message on my heart heavily right now and so I want to share this with y'all first. I've been working on, praying about, and composing this blog for several weeks now. Please let God speak to your heart as you read it. And stay posted for more news from Honduras soon! Love you all!
WHO AM I? That is the question that racked my brain and quaked my world during our four days of debrief. We had come out of month two, gathering as a squad at a hotel in Honduras for what was meant to be a time of rest and refreshment. Instead, I felt storm-tossed and confused, as though I had taken a leap forward only to fall three steps back. I was once again questioning my identity and even something deeper… my worth.
I’ve always been the good kid. I can’t remember an instance in my entire life when I’ve been accused of rebelling or going off the deep-end. I have an endless list of “I never’s" that begins with “no tattoos or piercings” and ends with “never been drunk or high or slept around”. And since I grew up in a community that valued all those things,it was easy enough to find my worth in how I was perceived by the people around me.
Like I said, I’ve had this blog in the back of my mind for several weeks now, but haven’t yet been able to put it on paper. In fact, I’ve been brainstorming on it ever since I got the wild idea to put bright purple dye into my hair, something I had never dreamed of doing in my “former life”. Why? Because I knew it would rock the boat, and the driving force in my life has always been to please others. But God was rocking more than my boat. He was rocking my world, inviting me to jump in over my head and leave the safety of my shell once and for all.
Let me divert your attention for a moment to look at my shell. I’ve lived in it my entire life, so I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you recognize what I describe from having watched me, grown up with me, and lived with me. MY SHELL is fear of the spotlight, fear that I will stand out or draw attention to myself in a way that would threaten the favor I receive from others. MY SHELL is smiling and saying “I’m good” when I am DYING on the inside. MY SHELL is sitting quietly in the background, apologizing if I ever make a mistake or offend anyone, avoiding arguments and conflict at all cost, making sure that everything I do is as close to perfection as possible.
Month one of the Race, I climbed out of my shell, and then climbed back into it. Month two, I climbed out of my shell and stayed out, though I kept it nearby just in case things got too scary. Just knowing it was still there was comforting. Month three, by the grace of God, I am going to take a sledge-hammer and shatter my shell so that I can never climb back into it again!
This is what God has been doing in me. He is inviting me to take a bold step in proclaiming that I AM FREE! To renounce fear by facing it head-on, denying it the power of holding me captive in the dark and hidden recesses of my heart and mind. In that process, He was bringing up things from the past and revealing to me the obsessive intensity of my people-pleasing, performance-driven mentality.
I believe that part of this process was for you. I have hesitated to compose this blog because I desperately want you to receive these words that God has put on my heart. So many of you, like I have been, are caught up in a Christian lifestyle that is focused on, even obsessed with external appearances… i.e. people-pleasing. How can I convey this message to you in the full weightiness with which the Lord is placing it on my heart?
The process that God has been bringing me through (leading to the idea of getting my hair highlighted as a symbol of His work) has brought up a lot of realizations about my past. I am rediscovering the truth that if we value external appearance and performance over heart-attitude we are causing injury to the body of Christ and acting against the heart of Christ. Demanding that we live by law is to enslave those that Christ has set free (Gal. 2:4)! I have seen an attitude of legalism deeply wound my friends and family members by causing them to feel that their value is determined by their compliance with the rules, rather than their worth in Christ alone.
In 2 Corinthians 5:16, Paul says, “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view.” In contrast, I feel like my life has been consumed with evaluation from a human point of view. Want a peek into my head? This is so often my thought process:
What if you think that purple hair demonstrates rebellion and I’ve gone off the deep-end or am being extremely immature? What if you disapprove of me when I dance undignified during worship at church because I am so filled with joy at the Spirit’s presence? Or even worse, what if you think I am trying to draw attention to myself? What if you don’t like the sound of my voice when I praise Jesus or think that I am singing too loud? What if you dislike my outfit and think it is inappropriate? What if one of these things, or any number of others, cause you to question my heart and my relationship with Jesus?
Like myself, I believe that many of you live in crippling fear of what your community, your church, and your leaders think of you. You are consumed with their analysis of your spiritual status. You have neglected your heart and relationship with God as secondary to keeping the people around you happy. You are more focused on what you look like when you are at church then on what God is doing in your heart while you are there! My dear friends, THIS REALITY BREAKS MY HEART! God is inviting you into freedom like you have never known. I considered before I dyed my hair that some of you might find fault with it. And then I read 2 Corinthians 6:6, “We prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love.” Not by the clothes we wear, the color of our hair, or the amount of make-up or jewelry we have on.
WHO ARE YOU? When it is just you and your Father, removed from the expectations, the demands, and the desires of anyone else, who are you in that moment? That person is who He is freeing you to be at every moment of every day. That person is who He created you to be in the beginning.
That person is defined by grace.
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Posted in General Posts by Jill Marie Schulenberg on 3/6/2012
In the last week and a half, God has brought me through some crazy processing, leading to a giant personal leap and some massive growth. I want to share with you some of the journaling I've been doing as I continue to navigate this new and unfamiliar trail that God is inviting me on. My disclaimer before you begin reading is that this is long, but it involves some HUGE breakthrough. My hope is that this can encourage you to ask what things God might want to break in your own life that you never thought could be broken: unhealthy patterns of thinking, habits, insecurities, and so much more. I am opening my heart up completely before you all in posting this, because that is what God is teaching me to do here and I feel like a caged bird that has been set free to soar at last (which is why this sharpie-drawn tattoo is so meaningful to me)! I want to proclaim and share that freedom with each and every one of you!
One of my goals for this trip was “Growth in interdependence and relational ability”. Ha! I have just lived through two and a half months of very tight living quarters with never fewer than 15 other people at a time, sharing one or two bathrooms between all of us. I have been asked to break down walls around my heart and let myself be truly seen and known. Transparency. It is a word that has terrified, intrigued, and captivated me. It is a word that means nothing is hidden, nothing is held back, nothing is concealed – like a clear shower curtain or a light turned on in a dark room at the most unexpected moment. There is huge vulnerability in that word. There are many things that I did not want to have to reveal, that I wanted to have the control of keeping hidden. Yet I can now say that “transparency” is a word I am learning to embody in the way I live and interact with those around me, and I have never felt more free in my life than I do right now. One of the issues that has come up repeatedly during this journey is the social anxiety that has haunted my family for generations and more subtly haunted my own life. New social settings terrify me. When I arrived in Florida two and a half months ago for launch, I was scared out of my skin. I struggled with the most intense bouts of loneliness, insecurity, and fear of people that I have ever faced. I was surrounded by 40 other young adults, my squad that I would be spending the next year with. In the midst of fighting to build relationships, fighting to find my place, fighting to realize my voice, I fell flat on my face. All the growth and confidence I have gained in the last few years during my time at Portland State was stripped away and I was completely broken and raw. I could no longer pretend that I had the strength to undertake this adventure on my own. I needed God. I needed healing. I needed transformation.
My journal entry from January 11 reads, “I want to and expect to change this year. Did I think a year of fun and ease would lead to that? I think not! The challenge is what leads to change. This won’t be easy – it can’t or it couldn’t change me to the extent I’m hoping it will! Father, give me grace! I feel now like I am at ground zero – the only direction I can go from here is up. Closer to, more like Jesus.”
Slowly but surely my shell began to crack. I began to learn to trust my teammates and the other team that we were living with in Guatemala. It was a painful process. Through it, old insecurities resurrected with each passing day. Insecurity about my past, being home-schooled and feeling trapped in that label and stereotype. Insecurity about the fact that I’ve never had a boyfriend or even been kissed. Insecurities that screamed, “You are alone, you are different from everyone else and nobody knows how to relate to you.” Slowly the lies began to unravel as truth was poured into my heart. My teammates told me that I brought so much to the team, that my perspective was vital and beautiful. They reaffirmed their love for me with each passing day until I began to actually believe it. They empowered me to step up out of my insecurity, and take the risk of leading worship on my guitar (I am still learning to play and was so afraid to take those amateur skills into the spotlight). They called out the gifts they saw in me and challenged me to take greater risks, because they believed in me.
But more importantly, my Father was working in my heart. With each freshly-exposed insecurity, I came running back to His arms, broken and bleeding and afraid. And each time He picked me back up, dusted me off, bandaged my scrapes and tipped my chin up to look into my eyes and tell me how beautiful I am to Him.
At the end of month one, my team and our sister team took a long bus ride from Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, to La Libertad, El Salvador. I remember the bus ride vividly. I was in the back seat between two of my friends from the other team. For the last hour or two, I listened to worship music and closed my eyes as the breeze rushed around me from the open windows all around. I felt completely safe and loved and surrounded by family in that moment. Even with the deep sadness of saying goodbye to our new friends in Guatemala, I felt peace in being with these two teams.
We spent the weekend at a hostel just minutes from the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. A third team, the team that we would be spending our month in El Salvador with, joined us there, as well as our three squad leaders. Suddenly a fresh wave of fear overwhelmed me until it paralyzed me. I began to panic. I had poured everything into the relationships of the past month. Over that weekend, I felt that all my hard work was suddenly for naught. I was back at ground zero yet again! The team we had spent the month with was moving on to a different location, and I did not have the closeness and sense of safety with the new team we were partnering with.
A new issue arose as well that I had not anticipated. I realized that I felt especially intimidated by the guys on the other team. For the first few weeks of our month in El Salvador, I coped with that intimidation by avoiding them, pouring my attention and energy into the girls around me and finding so much joy and freedom in those relationships. Meanwhile, God was breaking much of my social phobia, even in the ministries we were doing. I continued to find greater joy and freedom in worship, especially as I was asked to lead and step up in new ways in the church services and programs in the community. I felt so affirmed in my musical giftings by the people around me, and it went miles in boosting my confidence and willingness to step up! On top of that, my Spanish continued to improve and I felt empowered to practice and speak it, as I understood the language better than many of those in our group and I would receive frequent questions: “Hey Jill, what is he saying?” or “How do you say…?” Yet the rift between me and my brothers on the other team began to plague me more and more. I felt God whispering gently to me, “There is more.” I had come to a point of total honesty and rawness before my sisters. But I had not even attempted to build relationships with my brothers and was terrified of letting them see that same rawness. God showed me how much I was missing out on by not seeking out the perspective and wisdom of the guys that He had put in my life. There was so much growth happening as a result of relationships with my sisters, but there was so much more growth I was missing out on because of my lack of relationships with my brothers. One of the guys specifically intimidated me, simply because I had great respect for him and did not know how to relate to him. Yet I longed for that ice to be broken and that fissure to be filled.
My Father was asking me to take a leap that I had never considered taking before. To “cut the crap”, so to speak, and be transparent in a whole new way. I was terrified. I began to journal incessantly, staying awake until 1 or 2 in the morning every night as I processed and prayed through the things that were heavy on my heart.
Finally the moment came. I remembered a time earlier in the month when we visited a beautiful waterfall on our free day and my friends began to climb the rocks to jump off into the pool from a height of near 20 feet. I jumped at the opportunity to scale the rocks, but when I got to the top and realized that there was only one option for getting back down, terror enveloped me. As long as my toes were still curled securely on the rocky ledge, I was still safe, still dry. But I had to leap. And once I leapt, there was no going back. No escape from the clear, cool water below.
Yet that was exactly what I wanted! I woke up at 6 am on a Saturday morning and began to write a letter. Insecurity and honesty and brutal transparency spilled out onto the page. “I am realizing that I have a lot of fear of relationships with guys and it keeps becoming more apparent to me. In our squad, I’ve pursued relationships with the girls and held the guys at arms’ length, cuz that’s how I know to live and how I feel comfortable. I grew up believing a lot of lies about how girls and guys should interact, that dating is basically a sin and probably flirting as well, and since I was shy and didn’t know how to find a balance, I kind of gave up trying and filled my life mostly with girls… I often feel like I have something to prove. I do not want to be seen by guys as weak – ever. Which inhibits me from allowing you guys to help me, serve me, encourage me, lift heavy things for me, help me out of the truck, and be my brothers. I don’t want to be that way. God has been breaking my heart about the way my arrogance and fear is getting in the way of relationships.” I filled nearly three pages of my journal with the letter.
And then came the leap. That morning, I pulled my brother aside and read it to him, every page, every word, tears and emotion overflowing as I took the first step on the road to freedom. The plunge into the sparkling waters so far below my trembling perch.
The road to complete freedom in interdependence and whole relationships is far from over. But I am so grateful for the distance I have come! I feel like I have stepped into a whole new realm of possibilities, and am on a new and uncharted path. At times it terrifies me. Last night I lay my head in my team leader’s lap and whispered, “I’m so scared.” I don’t know how to navigate this trail! She reminded me softly of the mountain that I climbed with two of the other girls a week ago. We traversed the looming hill through thorns, barbed wire, swarming bees and a bat-infested tunnel until we reached the summit, scouting out a trail that had never been traveled before.
“Jill, were you afraid when you climbed the mountain?” Kate asked.
“No,” I replied immediately.
“Because your sisters were with you,” she said gently. “Your sisters are going to be with you through every step of this process.”
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