What Are You Willing to Risk?

“How much are you willing to risk?”

It was a blazing hot day in the middle of a midwestern summer when these words were laid upon my heart. I had just come out of an incredibly hard relationship that had cost me countless valuable relationships, my self-worth, and almost my heart. My whole being ached in the deepest way, and my soul felt lost and utterly alone. I had no idea where my life was going, and doubt was beginning to set in on if it was ever going to amount to anything. I felt like I had entirely blown this whole life thing. So, I did the only thing I knew how to do, and I drove six hours to Emmetsburg, Iowa, to escape my mind and fill my days with lake water and laughter alongside family who, despite everything, have never once stopped believing in me endlessly and loving me wholly. And it was there, with the wind whipping us in the face as we sped over the water crashing into waves, that He crashed into my heart and changed my whole world.

The day couldn’t have been more beautiful. The sun was shining bright in the sky and the water was just the right refreshing temperature to cool off our sun kissed skin. It was everything I needed, and I was taking pictures of all of our fun pulling the tube around behind the boat and sending them back home to a friend as we laughed about all the hilarious expressions on the kids faces as they were flopped around like limp noodles and tossed into the air with every big wake we hit. Then my little cousin excitedly grabbed my arm and said “come on, I want you to ride with me this time,” which of course I couldn’t say no to. As I climbed back into the boat and dried off after our ride a text popped up on my phone. “You’re crazy. I can’t believe you’re going to trust your uncle to pull you around on that thing again after what happened last year.” I chuckled as I thought back to the summer before when I had, all in fun, bet him that he couldn’t throw me off the tube, which lead to me getting pneumonia as I stubbornly held on a little too long, even after the tube had flipped, dragging myself under water and in turn inhaling a little too much muddy lake water. I picked up my phone and jokingly replied, “Of course I am, I mean, does your family even really love each other if they’re not willing to risk almost dying/killing each other to win a bet?” But as I pressed send, it was like the whole world stood still for a moment. Words began slipping into my heart that asked, “How much do you love ME? How much do you trust ME? How much are you willing to risk, for ME?”

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful (beside my uncle trying to almost kill me once again, this time with a jalapeno he SWORE he smoked the heat out of), but as I made the long trek home Sunday night, I couldn’t get those words out of my head. If I was so willing to trust these people, amazing as they are but still human and flawed nonetheless, then why couldn’t I trust God this way? Why was I so hesitant to give up my life to the very One who breathed this breath into my lungs? Why could I so easily give up control and jump behind the boat when it was family at the wheel but I was unsure of His intentions with my heart when the rough waters of life hit? The answer to all of those questions? Experience. I knew in my head that God loved me, but the relationship wasn’t there. These people, my family, they have shown up for me and supported me and protected me time and time again and proved to my heart that they were for me, they were worthy of its trust, something I had never allowed God to do. I neglected him, and doubted him, and hid from him in times of pain. Yet here he was twenty-two years later, still choosing me, still fiercely chasing after my heart. How overwhelming, how reckless, how BIG of a love that must be.

That day, almost exactly a year ago, on a road surrounded by cornfields somewhere between Emmetsburg and KC, with my windows rolled down and the sweet summer breeze combing through my hair, I made a vow with Him. I vowwed that if He would never leave me, I would never again leave Him. I told Him I was tired of hiding and living and empty life. I didn’t want to just go to church on Sundays and leave the same broken women, I wanted Him to change me. I wanted to know His heart, and I wanted Him to know mine. I wanted to know what He had in store for me, I wanted purpose, I wanted to know what it was like to walk through all my days knowing that the King of the Universe was at my side, paving my way. This time I was serious. And in turn He whispered, “For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told” (Habakkuk 1:5).

And you guys, I can’t even put into words how true that has been. So far, just in this last year alone, He has taken me to the tops of mountains in Colorado to woo my heart and show me the beauty He sees in me, He has brought complete strangers onto my path in the middle of nowhere rest stops to pray with me and show me that I don’t have to have all the answers or all the right words just a love for His people and a trust in His heart, He has showered me in love and an abundance of people who cherish me overflow my heart, He has healed wounds from my past I didn’t think could ever be touched. In this last year, I have laughed with a deeper joy than I’ve ever known, I cried harder tears than I even knew existed, I have found adventures that I still can’t even believe I got to experience, I have fallen and failed Him a million times, and I felt a love bigger, and deeper, and wider than I ever could’ve imagined. For the first time in my life, this year I didn’t just survive, I LIVED. And it has been hardest, and most beautifully fulfilling thing I have ever experienced in my life.

I tell you all of this, friends, because over these next few months as you pray over what God is laying on your heart to give to this mission, I want you to know WHY I am here. I want you to know WHY I am laying down a “normal” twenty-three-year-old life and leaving all of my family and friends to pick up a backpack that will hold everything I will live off of for almost an entire year and travel all over the world. While this is absolutely a dream come true, it’s not a vacation. It’s a mission of love. Because my God found me on a lake in Middle of Nowhere, USA and saved my life, and I want to scream it from the rooftops. I want to reach every heart in every corner of every field we’re sent to to show them how beautiful this love is that has rocked my whole world. I want every person my life touches, to know that, for them too, a redemption and love like they’ve never known is waiting for them. And to get there, I’m willing to risk it all.