Will you say YES?
by: Molli Hughes
My cheeks flush red. You can no longer see the freckles that dot my nose. Instead my face is dusted with a rosy tint. My fingers tremble as adrenaline courses though my blood. This. The moment I had envisioned for months, was finally unfolding before me. The moment I step on a plane and jet to the other side of the globe. The opportunity where I extend my hand to the hopeless and broken. The moment. The opportunity I thought I would finally do something of value.
I arrive in the first of five countries I’ll call home for the next nine months.
Internally my mind was spinning. Words wouldn’t form. My cheeks where now a mixture of red splotches and a handle full of freckles. This was it. I took a breath and jumped in. In a matter of two days myself and five other girl became english teachers, in a rural area of Thailand. Our days were long and demanding. Soon the value and validation I was looking to call my own had come to sudden halt and dissipated completely. Right alongside of all my energy and every ounce of patience. In just a few rotations of the globe. In a short amount of sleeps I had come to the end of myself. I could no longer stand in front of a class room covered from head to toe in “teacher clothes” and sweat. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to comfort. To AirCon and common knowledge of the same language. I was tired of playing a game of charades just to find a toilet.
More than anything I wanted to throw my few belongings back into the backpack I had carried into the country. Because all too soon this little adventure I had signed up for, my search for value and my humanitarian desires, became all too real.
A few nights passed when I realized I could no longer carry on. I found trampling around with my “Me Mentality” would no longer work. So that night The Creator met me in my mess and simply asked me: “Will you say yes?”
I was silent for a few days. Truly I didn’t know what to say. But for lack of a better answer or solution to my problems, I said yes.
At this point my cheeks are a perpetual state of red splotches. My hands still trembling.
My heart raced. What had I just gotten myself into? Because as soon as there was a yes spoken, He asked the most audacious question I could possibly think of. The Creator of life itself asked that I lay down my will and desires. He asked that I put to death my “Me Mentality.”
In that moment, everything changed. In that moment I realized it’s not about me. This whole thing, none if it has to do with me.The Creator, The Artist, The Father He didn’t ask me to go change the world. He simply asked me to love His children. To love each and everyone of His sons and daughters furiously and scandalously. The Fathers love is unrequited. It isn’t contingent on my belief in it, nor yours.
Our Abba Father did life alongside of the witches. The broken. The odd balls. The helpless. The hungry. The unbelievers. The scoffers. The bullies. He met them exactly where they were at, and loved them furiously.
And that’s all He asked of me. And that’s all He asks of you.
We can’t change the world. I can’t. You can’t. We can’t perform miracles or cast out demons. That’s all God. But what we can do, is love. Love deeply without asking anything in return. Because we are loved furiously.
So, here I sit, finally back in America. My cheeks again flush red. You can no loner see the freckles that were so carefully sprinkled across my face. My fingers tremble as I try to put into words how The Father taught this dead heart how to live and beat and sing and dance in the color of everyday life. He taught me how to love.
Now, it’s your turn. Love exactly where you’re at.
