the rambling missionary

by erika haveman

It has been well over 18 months since I’ve written.  There is a lot of life to fill you in on, which is all I plan on doing over the next few weeks.  If you’ve ever followed my writing you know I ramble about whatever it is God is teaching me and that certainly hasn’t and won’t be changed.  But the blog name change reflects the current vocation I find myself in and while I don’t think I’ll be a formal missionary for too much longer I know I’ll always be on mission.  I’m sure at some point I’ll explore that, but for now I’d like to take you back in time with me.

In February 2019 I confessed to being bad at letting people in.  I talked about how I was learning the difference between transparency and vulnerability and how vulnerability is hard for me.

It didn’t take long after that for God to launch me head first into living vulnerably – though admittedly the process of submission is presently only just beginning.

On my blog, when I write, I’m transparent.  Vulnerability can’t be given as the gift it is when I type these words on a digital page and your eyes consume them in an equally digital way.  There are too many wave lengths and…other internet things that get in the way from you truly encountering my existence at its most raw.  This is why writing can be so safe – I can control how I let you in.  I can be transparent but still protect the outcome.

Vulnerability just isn’t like that.  I thought it would be this easy, breezy, God ordained, gentle experience.  I could not have been more wrong, and in the February 2019 post – the loss, betrayal and hurt I had just experienced – was barely the tip of the iceberg.  I’ve always said the only way to get over something is to go through it.  I really wish I was wrong about that, but I’ve also maintained that you need to feel the depths of pain in order to know the heights of joy.  That sentiment is also one I’m really only now learning the true meaning of.  Isn’t it interesting that God really does always take us deeper?  We think we learn the lesson, but then He reminds us we’re not at the top of the mountain, because we’re still on the physical side of heaven, and we’re coming back around to the blizzard on the north side and it’s still raging, only worse, and we gotta get through it again.

2019 and into 2020 felt like a blizzard.  For most of the spring in 2019, as I began to emerge from the mess of an injured (but not broken) heart, I found myself pushed down by the weight of leadership.  It was like my heart was holding on by a thread, my mind was spinning, my soul was on life support and my body was failing.  I wouldn’t say I was burnt out, but I would say I was close.  The irony of it all?  The solution would end up being vulnerability – but despite my words from that blog post I crept to the corner, found my safety blanket and determined to find the solutions on my own.

Looking back I can recognize I was submitted to a system that itself was struggling to find its footing – but hadn’t God just told me how to survive such a system?  Wasn’t being real, raw, and honest with someone the way to find strength in weakness?  If only I had understood then.  Yet I can see the sovereignty of God at all times and I am grateful.

It wasn’t until late in the summer that someone saw my struggle, then gently heard me, allowed me to feel known, and I broke in front of them.  I poured out the weight of the stress I’d been carrying (my mind), confessing to the bi-weekly migraines I’d been pushing through (my body) and keeping to myself for the sake of looking strong (my heart) and sharing the fears I was carrying in regards to the people I was leading (my soul).

“So it’s been a hard year.” A fellow leader commented to me in the fall, after having been brought into the confidence of what I was facing.

“I’ve probably lost more sleep this year than I ever have.” Was my only, and weak, response.

“Well, that’s not good.” He’d said.

No.  No I guess that wasn’t good.

It wasn’t until he said those simple words that I began – keyword began – to see how weak I was.  I can’t even admit that I was yet aware of the thread holding my heart or the brain that was on the run or the soul that was close to collapse or the body that rose from the bed with the most strenuous of efforts.  I was in complete denial of my inner world crashing and burning – but it worse than denial.  I was completely blind.

Why is it that when we commit to a new area of growth that the enemy immediately goes there?  It’s like we identify the weak point and get excited about learning and seeing what God will do only to get bowled over and find ourselves in a “worse” position than when we started.

Recently I was going through an old (OLD) journal and I found an entry where I was so excited because for the first time in my life I was free of attachments and so aware that I was worthy.  Specifically in the entry I was writing how I believed I was worthy to be loved and pursued by a man, that I was deserving of a man to care for me, that I was good enough to be known in such an intimate way.  Not even 5 months later, in the same journal, I found an entry where I lamented that I did not feel good enough for a guy who I had developed feelings for.

Not even 5 months later.  And I mean reading the entry I could feel the pain I was feeling, the loss of confidence, the weight of failure, the reality that I wasn’t worth caring for.  I can promise you I had forgotten about the new found hope I had experienced the months before.  How quickly our hearts shift when we look to the choice but not to the journey that is associated with it.

I’ll expound more on my journey in the next post, but I’m over 1000 words already.

I challenge you: how are you feeling?  What are you feeling?  Why do you feel that way?  What was the last exciting thing God told you focus on – has the enemy stolen that joy?  How can you get back to it?