character, mexico, and COVID-19.

Character.

It’s a word that makes me think of Calvin and Hobbes: the familiar scenario of Calvin being told to do something he didn’t want to do, Calvin freaking out, and his dad saying, “It builds character.”

Character seems deeply unromantic, and terribly unadventurous. 

However, that’s my word for my mission trip to Mexico. It built character.

God the Father cares tremendously about character. In the Old Testament, we see him choosing people again and again based upon what they do in the secret place of their hearts. We hear that the secret place bears fruit, and that fruit can be seen, clearly.

I was challenged by my own words: I wrote a post on developing interiority, and then I boarded a plane to Mexico. It had been a crazy week, a crazy semester, and I kind of forgot that I was going. As I left the airport, it hit me: I had no idea where exactly I was going, I didn’t know what I was going to be doing. 

It’s a strange experience, in our overplanned world. To realize that it’s all unplanned, and you’ve already said yes, and you’re foraying into the unknown, simply trusting that everything will unfold how it’s supposed to.

Building character.

I’m a ministry leader. I’m a blogger. I’m a speaker. I’m a podcaster. I’ve built a great resume, and I’ve been blessed with incredible opportunities. But in Mexico City, none of that mattered.

No one cares what you have to say, or how well you can say it, when no one speaks your language. It’s humbling, to say the least, to have a ton of old women and mentally-disabled young adults think that you’re stupid because you can’t speak the same language. 

It doesn’t matter your “success rate” when you’re spooning corn mush into the mouth of a woman your own age, as she spits it up again and again. No detail about you matters when you're scrubbing laundry on a rooftop until your hands are raw. That's the beauty of it...the Lord was still present there.

There are no cute pictures to post from my trip, really. None of the stereotypical orphaned children climbing all over a blonde American girl with a boho headband and flowy pants.

But my character was forged, as I mopped floors with diluted bleach. As I choose not to gag at the smell of somewhere towards one hundred adult dirty diapers each morning, when I left our little room.

There was no place to process as I went, at least not in the way that I know how: externally. Like the women I was serving, I wasn’t with anyone that I was close with. I was fasting from emotional intimacy, and it was the greatest gift. 

Because I saw how the Father spoke in silence. I saw how the Father spoke in my fear. I saw how He spoke when moments were so, so painfully slow and my heart was missing home. I saw how He filled me with strength and grace and courage to be fully present, and make myself a living sacrifice. I saw how He filled me with peace, as I heard drug calls every night. I saw how He gave me His heart, as I held deformed babies that had been thrown away and abandoned, and stroked the heads of 30-somethings who were completely abandoned because of their mental and physical illnesses. It was the greatest honor to carry His heart, to have my own heart broken, for the least of these, and to have nothing to show for it.

I saw how He never let me down. Again and again.

Dramatic words for simple actions like mopping and feeding and praying. But that’s what it was: every moment was an invitation to go all in, in a way that no one would ever see, and would I accept it? Would I accept this calling of the God of Love who was inviting me out of myself, and also, deeply, deeply into myself?

I have no dramatic moments to share where I realized exactly why I was there. I don’t need a why, I don’t need a dramatic story, beyond the reality that I encountered the Father’s love. I can’t tell you that I changed anybody’s life. 

Life is not about creating content to post, or even having a story to tell; it’s about partaking in a beautiful, simple, slow dance with the King of the Universe. Do you choose to meet His eyes? Do you choose to let Him lead?

Character. It comes slowly.

It’s not something that you passively-pray your way into; it’s something you actively-pray and your heart is broken into...it's what you walk out with the Lord, you live out, when it’s hard and when no one sees. There’s a million moments that I’m keeping to myself, that were radical invitations of self-gift during this trip. And that’s so okay...because the power of them is not based on human validation.

They’re precious moments, of a Father holding a daughter.

I came back from Mexico, and I was ready to finish out senior year and launch into my new job. My heart did not entirely change; it was merely stilled and slowed and healed, even just a little bit more than before. Even with my visits to see Our Lady of Guadalupe, there was no earth-shattering epiphany: just a little girl who grew to know more of her Father's Presence, beyond emotion.

That’s something I love about Jesus: He doesn’t want to change our life every day. He speaks in consistency. He breathes peace. He takes us deeper, and He gives us more. That’s all that my mission trip was. And that's all that right now is.

Simple moments, swept up in the Presence of God.

A couple days after I came back, the whole country started shutting down. And here I am, home when I wasn’t planning to be, except for Easter and a weekend or two this summer. No end of the school year, no graduation, and everyone is in the exact same boat. Everyone’s home. Everyone’s plans are ripped up. Everyone has suddenly boarded this plane and they don’t know what the next minutes hold. 

Character is being built, here. Character is built in the secret place, where you find that maybe-- just maybe-- you’ve been finding your worth too much in what you do, rather than who you are...than who He is. Character is built when you have to invest relationally, and all you want to do is run. Character is built when there’s a floor to be swept, and you choose to actually sweep it instead of ignore it and walk away.

When you’re a college student, used to running things and leading and your own schedule, and suddenly, you’re back to family life. When you can’t walk at graduation, or you’ve lost the internship you applied for this summer. Character is built here, when we decide to be aware of the secret place in our souls and rest in the Lord. When we choose to trust.

This is where we see the fruit of relationship-- the only relationship that matters. The one where you learn that you are created by Love, for Love, totally out of Love.

Your skillset doesn’t matter in the Presence of the King. He wants your heart. He wants your worship. Your degree doesn’t matter in the arms of the Creator; He wants His child.

In the stillness, your character is forged for something greater, because there is more to come. He wants to build our character, so that He can entrust big things to us: things that are worthy of a son or daughter of God.

Are you all here, where it matters? Are you all here, showing up to prayer, showing up to love, when no one sees?

All it takes is our simple submission, our simple yes. Our yes to today, our yes to this moment...our yes to not knowing what is going to happen next week, or the week after. 

What a gift, this not knowing. What a gift, because we become like children here: pure and innocent, and completely depend on the love and goodness of a Father. And this Father? He’s going to prove again that He never lets go and He never lets down, that He always provides...on His own terms.

How beautiful is this time. I was not entitled to the end of this year; to my perfectly packaged end of college, with senior formal and cruise and graduation. How beautiful it is to not be rooted in these things, but in the Lord.

How beautiful it is that my Jesus is here...even here. That He has more for me...should I choose to surrender my heart again, and again, and again, and receive Him, exactly as He intends to be received.