Random Thoughts of a Missionary Girl

So I've talked about my life in missions quite a bit, I've talked about the preparation, the excitement, the passion... but I haven't talked about the everyday life. The moments when you wonder if you even have a clue what you are doing. I'll let you into my life a little...

I don't simply go on mission trips. It's not just two weeks here, a month there and the rest of the time I live a normal life. (What is normal anyway?) The thing is when you give that part of your heart to God, to His service, something changes. From the day I asked Jesus to come into my life and be my Savior, He has been turning my life upside down, He has eradicated things from my life, sin, selfish desires, friends, family, lifestyle, wants, idols, complacency... honestly He hasn't left much, if anything the same. In the short twenty one years of my life I have been through more than most would have any clue by seeing my smiling face. Thing is I have come to realize that through the trials, through the fire, through dumping my life upside down He has been purifying me, setting me apart from the world for His purpose. And the day that I said "Yes I will go" my life changed. My heart changed. My desires and my world changed. Because suddenly my little world just got a whole lot bigger. I saw all these places around the world I never knew existed. Instead of numbers and statistics I saw faces. Instead of strangers, I saw somebody's little girl. I saw the slavery, sex trafficking, child labor, starvation, disease, poverty, desperation. I saw people in need and had a driving passion inside that said I needed to do something about it.

That was just about a year and a half ago. I had no clue what I was getting into, I'm not sure I even know now. I wouldn't trade my life of service to God for anything in this world but I'd be lying if I tried to pretend that sometimes I don't look at people my age living "normal lives" going to college, working steady jobs, having friends, doing what they want, having relationships, affording places to live, buying new cars, getting married and having babies... and a little part inside me wonder what that would be like. Some days I just want to go out and have fun, I want to have friends to hang out with and just be society's standard of normal. I want to have a relationship and hear him say I'm beautiful. When people ask where I'm going to school I want to be able to give them the name of some college. I want to watch the news and see the desperation, the lostness and be able to separate myself from it. I want to see my future as a "normal girl" get married, have kids and raise them here in my hometown. I want to serve myself. I want to make myself happy. That's the human side of me.  I so often feel like I'm this girl wandering around in a place where she doesn't belong, where she's surrounded by people who don't have a clue, who don't care, who don't want to understand and who think she's just a little on the crazy side.

Then there is that ever constant thought in the back of my mind. What if God wants me full time in another country? or even half-time? What would that look like? Could I completely give up my dreams and desires in exchange for Him? I know if He calls me I have no choice to go. But will I go willingly, or will I kick and scream until I realize once again that His plan, His purpose, no matter how hard is the most fulfilling thing I will ever do. Sometimes I lose sight of that in all the judgement and opinions of others about my life. Quite often I feel like I'm on the outside looking in on my life and wondering how I went from a little girl playing on the swing set to where I am now. 

One of the things that often leads me to lose focus is all the opinions of other people. I never realized that when I made the choice to follow God wherever He led that it would cause me to lose friends (almost all of them), that people would hate me for following Him, that the people closest to me would make me choose between them and God, I didn't realize I would lose everything that I thought held value. I never saw the "persecution" so to speak that would try to tear me away from my walk with God. I didn't realize how hard the powers of darkness would fight to stop me in my tracks.

Sometimes it all overwhelms me and again my fleshly desire just wants to stop. But I find myself once again grounded in God's word. Paul tells us in Corinthians..

"Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 

"We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed."


"He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised"

"I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

And Philippians and Timothy... He goes on to tell us when we step out in faith to follow God we will be persecuted. So I am encouraged once again. Though the world tells me that I'm throwing my life away, though most of the time I don't really feel like I belong... I remember to Whom I belong, to Whom I'm pouring out my life for and I know that though I have a long ways to go I am doing something right. I also know that as I learn to follow God with radical faith and life out for Him, no matter how far He takes me I will always have a family that supports me, loves me, and pushes me on. And I'm pretty sure I'll cry every time Daddy says he's proud of me because I know that no matter who hates me for living my life for Christ that he is there smiling and rejoicing as I live my life in service to our great God, pouring out my heart and living the life that he has taught me by example of his faith. He's one of the most important guys in my life, and I will never take his love for granted because he didn't have to love me, but he chose to anyway.

So there are some random thoughts totally out of order but that's kinda how my mind runs. It flows down all these paths of where life could lead and then I end up just living moment to moment with faith that God will get me through, that somehow no matter what He calls me to do that He is going to give me the strength and desire to do so. May all the glory be His and His forever and ever.

~Kriss Beckman