Feeling unloved and rejected are my two worst fears. In the last two years I’ve struggled with this on a whole new level. While having some beach time with a new friend I’ve made, we were just talking about our faith and how much we have learned over the years. I think one of the most beautiful things about this place is finding those girls that just are so personable and real. They truly want to know about you and everyone kinda has the understanding that we are all failures and yet we are still loved by our Heavenly Father. Being transparent with them has come so easy. During our conversation we talked about how we have found ourselves looking to others to make us feel included and loved. It’s so easy for me to get that reassurance through another person. I have been praying for a term or something that the Lord really wants me to get during this experience, then she said it - validation. It was weird, I got chills and just felt the Holy Spirit say to me “that is what I want you to understand.” At times I go through spells where it is so easy for me to determine thoughts coming from The Lord or and those coming from the world. Other times I truly believe the negative whispers-weather it’s the way someone has made me feel or something that they said.
VALIDATION
God, what do you mean?
This week I’ve felt He means that His love is validation enough. That I don’t have to find another person to make me feel loved but that He can renew my spirit and His love is worth it all. Validation that even though I didn’t think this is where I would be in this season of life, He has me right where He wants me. If my life would had been the way I was hoping I probably wouldn’t have answered the call to come serve in Africa.
Single, gosh that term just hurts me to say sometimes. But God is using this time of singleness to build me into the wife He truly wants me to be and this life isn’t about being married and having children despite what my home culture in the south can easy try to make me think it is. He is giving me validation that I can do this job even though this week I’ve felt like that is nearly impossible. At home I struggle with believing I can even do that job. I constantly find myself hoping someone will be give me that validation that I am smart enough to do it. But after receiving an evaluation that was the opposite of how I thought people felt about me and how handled my job.. I lost it. It really upset me..and that was just before leaving for here. Then I get here and I find myself thinking, “well crap, can I even be a nurse at all?!” I am questioning everything. But then that word hits me - Validation. That my worth does not come from what others say about me but what The Lord says. I am partially right, I alone can not do PICU here or at home; but God can and He has given me the knowledge I need to get through and let Him do it through me. The very moment I rely on myself or others, it doesn’t work. I fail or leave feeling less-than every single time, but when I focus on what God can do through me, I have a completely different outlook on life. Validation that someone on this ship will be my friend and that I can make connections with new and different people. Honestly that’s been hard. Yes everyone is really sweet and kind but most have been here for a while and with me coming in the middle of a field service, it can be hard to make those deeper relationships with those who seem to already have found them. But I as I just reflect on that term and what the Lord means by it, I feel reassured that it will happen. It’s just not in my timing. Nothing ever is. One of the hardest things I deal with is just releasing that control of my plans and fears and let go and say “okay God, I trust your timing. Your will not my own.”
Praise God for the validation that he has given me to know that here in Senegal, West Africa with Mercy Ships is right where I am suppose to be.
“This is where my hope lies, this is where I find my rest. You can not change; yet you change everything.” - Rest In You by All Sons & Daughters
Written by Lauren Craig
2020 Global Health Collaboration Missions Scholarship Recipient
Working with Mercy Ships
Dakar, Senegal- Africa