And just like that, my time here in Zambia is halfway over. At the risk of fulfilling every cliché there is for SMs by saying so… it really does go SO FAST. All I can say is I am incredibly grateful that I chose to go for two semesters rather than just one. I feel like it wasn’t until only a few weeks ago that I started feeling comfortable here and began to appreciate it. If I were to have had to leave right now I would’ve felt sorely incomplete, and as a result pretty depressed.
I’ve been a ghost these past few months for a couple reasons. Firstly, I’ve been evaluating myself, and I’ve learned a lot by doing so. I’ve decided I spend entirely too much time on my phone and on social media. Recently it’s really started to bug me that I waste so much of my day on my phone. I feel like I’m missing a huge chunk of life because I’m staring at my phone. Not to mention, 9 times out of 10 it is the reason why I spend less time with God.
Secondly, I’ve gone through A LOT of ups and downs in my spiritual journey. One day I feel like I’m on top of the world, and the next it’s like I have made absolutely no progress in the four months I’ve been here. It’s been incredibly discouraging at times; mostly because I thought that eventually there would be a plateau period but the longer I keep at it I’m starting to wonder if that’s just life??? A cycle of ups and downs and you have to simply roll with the punches. God never promised it would be easy. Because of these fluctuations I simply haven’t had the desire to put my thoughts into text because I felt my scatterbrained thoughts weren’t worth documenting.
I’ve been getting annoyed with myself lately because, in my low times, I start to daydream about going back to the US because it makes me feel temporarily better. I don’t think it is explicitly a bad thing but what I’ve discovered is it’s causing me to be less present and less content in Zambia which I do think is a bad thing. My biggest struggle, which I think I’ve mentioned before is being content in every situation/stage of life, and of course that struggle has followed me here. Piggy backing off my previous paragraph, social media is also a huge contributor to this issue as well. The comparison game is real and real toxic.
God has also been placing me in situations of great lessons. Through them, he has reminded me that one of the most valuable assets you can bring to the table is your integrity. It cannot be faked or fabricated, it is not formed overnight, and it is the thing that forms your reputation for years to come. This has become blaringly obvious and imperative to me these past few months, and I pray for personal improvement every day. It has become a huge desire of mine to incorporate a strong sense of integrity in every aspect of my life because I do not think my integrity is where is should be.
Through all of this it has also come to my attention just how desperately I need Christ in every aspect of my life because I am truly such a crappy human being. I repeatedly fail miserably at things that I’ve been praying about for months because, when it comes down to it, I forget to ask God to be a part of it.
At this point it looks like “Messy Missionary” is going stick pretty well! Haha
Thanks for reading :)
