Refiner’s Fire: Searching

Hi all,

I am interrupting the historical theme for a minute. I thought that it would be sort of neat to try to share the lessons that God has been teaching me for the past 3 years. Welcome to my little Refiner’s Fire series. I hope you enjoy these posts as I share my journey with you all through the spirit of the land, not just the history. I’m not promising anything amazing, but I want to share what has been done in my heart and what has been made new and shaped by the Creator. This first “chapter” is about my first steps towards the life I am now living, sharing a bit of my struggles and anxieties as I seriously leaned into God. Thanks for reading.

Closed Doors

I didn’t truly know what I was stepping into, or out of, when I accepted the call towards discipleship. I have had a heart for missions and ministry for all of my teen years, but I didn’t have a church or the opportunities to do it. In 2019, after attending a church for about 4 years, there was an opportunity to go to Nairobi, Kenya, for 6 weeks, to plant a church in a small village there. As much as I wanted to go, I didn’t have peace with it. And I was confused - why did I have this calling if I wasn’t meant to do anything with it?

My passport in 2020, after I had finally bought a cover.

Now, I have a cousin that when I was about 11-12, volunteered in Israel for two years. And in the summer of 2019, after I had decided that I wasn’t supposed to go to Kenya after all, I reached out to the organization I am now with long term. I asked if there were any short term positions open that I could help fill over the summer. After all, I had a brand new passport, and the pressure on my heart to do something different with my life was so strong.

Unfortunately, they were at full capacity. But there were long term positions open! And they had a young adult program, and a tour. Sadly, I had just missed the cutoff for the 2 week tour of Israel they offer. I was, at the time, in a serious relationship. So if there were no open positions for a short term volunteer, that was that. I couldn’t commit to the other options. I closed the book on searching for options. It just wasn’t going to work out.

As 2019 came to an end, in November, I was at my Monday night Bible study, comprised of my group of friends and siblings. There had been such a weight on me, and when we broke up into small prayer groups, I lost it. I sobbed. I shared that I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff. Like something huge was about to happen, I know I was going to get pushed over into a freefall, and I was terrified. A little bit excited, but completely terrified. Nothing was working out the way I wanted it to. Everything was hard. Every door had closed on me. So why did I still have this strong feeling of something big happening?

The small group of people prayed with me and for me, that I’d embrace what came next, that I’d find peace and rest in Jesus.

Just a few weeks later, in December, my relationship came to an end. And it wasn’t something that I thought was going to happen. I was devastated. Everything I thought was my future crumbled.

Within that first week of trying to navigate my grief, my brother, who doesn’t say too much said to me, “Maybe this was the big thing you felt was going to happen. Just fall. You’ve already been pushed off of the cliff.”

I didn’t know he had heard me that evening at Bible Study. Not only that, but he had heard me, and remembered what I had said. I hadn’t even put those two circumstances together.

Half way through January of 2020, I received an email. It was from Bridges for Peace, asking if I was still interested in their upcoming Call to Zion Tour, and mentioned that their applications were now open for the Zealous Israel Project, their young adult Discipleship program. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t take time to pray about it. All I thought of was that I had absolutely nothing to lose. I responded immediately.

“I want to apply for both. God just opened up my future in a big way, and I'd like to at least do the Zion Tour, but I'm also trying for the discipleship program. I'm just trying to figure out where God wants to put me.”

Chosen

Photo I took during that 4 day weekend in March of 2020.

I had two weeks to get the paperwork done, and complete all of the required checkups and everything. I don’t think I even told my family that I applied. But all I had to do after submitting the forms was wait. I had to wait until the end of April of 2020 to see if I had been accepted into this program. In those 4 months, I completely convinced myself that there was no way they were going to accept me into the program. Absolutely no way. Why would they? I hadn’t been a very good Christian. And I hadn’t been chosen for anything. I had been dumped, no jobs I applied for or interviewed for ever called me back, and there are other situations I won’t mention just now. It had just been an ugly season of rejection. So what are the chances that this amazing opportunity actually work out for me? There was no way.

I was anxious all February. So anxious that I scheduled myself a 4 day weekend away the second of weekend in March. I just needed to run away for a little while.

It was 2020, remember? Guess what happened by the time my weekend was up? The Olympic Peninsula shut down.

By the time I started to head back home on the 14th of March, everything was closed. The next day I didn’t even get to work my scheduled shift, I could only go in that morning to get the things I needed. And so for two months, March through April, I worked from home as much as I could, in the first throws of COVID-19.

Those months dragged on. During this time as well, I had been watching the show The Chosen, listening to more Christian music than I had in many years, and I struggled to believe the words of John 15:14-17.

“You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.”

I was living in so much anticipation and anxiety. I just wanted to know that I had been rejected already so I could figure out what else to do with my life.

Finally, to my utter shock, and after months of emotionally exhausting myself in the waiting, I learned that I was accepted. I was in. I was going. And I was so excited. I couldn’t believe it. They picked me. I was going to Israel. I told my family and they were all excited for me. And I got to start preparing for my travels. But it was still 2020, and after months of pushing the trip back, there just ended up being no way that I could get into Israel. So I was thrown back into devastation, despair, anxiety. Rejection. I was ready to go. I made up backup plans if I didn’t get to go to Israel long term, that I’d still do the tour and I’d backpack around Ireland or Scotland for several weeks, but the entire world was shut down. I didn’t know where I would be the next year, how could I commit to waiting another 10 months?

I started doing Bible studies with small groups, and one on one with a woman I looked up to as my mentor. I remember there being a moment where I told her that I just so badly wanted to feel chosen for something. And I told her that if I was still able to make it to the Discipleship program, if my struggles had all been leading up to that point, preparing me for this huge adventure, I would feel like it was all worth it. I just wanted to feel chosen. I’d so much rather be chewed up and spat out by my small town then left in the ruins of every dream I had.

I decided to commit still. If there was any other doors that opened, I would reevaluate. But there was nothing. I kept myself from hoping too much - travel restrictions were still heavy, and there were no promises we’d make it into the country.

And I knew what I had said earlier was true. If it worked out, everything I had gone through would all worth it. And it has been. God has used everything for my time in Zealous.

There’s another lesson in the middle of this - but let’s just close it out with this:

Today, I am in Israel, bearing fruit that will last. As earlier verses of John 15 talk about, I have been grafted in as a branch into the tree. And it’s a beautiful place to be. I was reminded that He chooses me even when I don’t choose Him. He calls me His friend. If you seek Him, you will find Him. And faith? Faith can be a freefall.

He wants me in Israel for a reason. And I am nothing but blessed to be chosen for this.

Mads

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” John 15:15-16