The Friendship That Changed My Life

"There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends."
John 15:13

Essentially the thing that is on my mind is the thing that is always on my mind. Kenya. Except it seems so much closer, so much more real. This is probably because I'm booking my plane tickets and I got a sizable donation from my church.

Oh yeah, and the trip is 63 days away.

I am just over two months away from living in Kenya all summer. I cannot even begin to wrap my brain around that, it just doesn't feel real. And just like with everything else God has given me in my life, I feel like I don't deserve it.

In my deliriousness last night, I just had to talk to some of my friends that live in Kenya. I wrote on their walls and sent them messages. Of course they all responded immediately with invitations to visit them and take care of me while I am there. Then it hit me, like really really hit me, I have friends in Kenya. I have friends that are thousands of miles of way that love me and want to see me. And then I realize, Jesus gave them all to me. Jesus loved me SO MUCH that He gave me them.

I'm in shock. I don't understand. I spent a very limited amount of time with these people last summer but Jesus completely sparked a connection within all of our hearts for one another because He knew. He knew I'd be back and He knew it would be for a long time.

I love the American friends that I've had for years. The friends that know my secrets, the friends that get my humor, the friends that choose to laugh at me when I don't make sense (which is often) instead of pointing out my faults, the friends that have wiped away my tears and the friends that have been there for all the moments in between.

I love my Kenyan friends. I've known them for a significantly shorter amount of time than most of my other friends but they are so Christ-centered and so FULL OF LOVE that I can't help but be incredibly thankful for every single one of them, all the time. They are absolutely some of the best people that I have ever met, in fact I get a glimpse of Jesus' love in the way that they love me. Being around them FILLS me with JOY and I soak it in. I can't help but think about their lives and their jobs and their schoolwork and wish that I was there with them because I would just love to hear their voices and see their faces again.

Luckily for me, I will in 63 days :)

But through all these wonderful friendships, whether in America or Kenya or somewhere else in the world, I realize that they all point to the greatest friend of all, the bestfriend that I could truly ever have. Jesus. Human friendships are beautiful and messy and imperfect and hilarious but friendship with Jesus is perfect. I have never had a friend who has never let me down, who has given me wise counsel on what truly would be best for my life in EVERY situation and I have never had a friend who has died a scandalously gruesome death so I might have the life that they wanted me to have.

Can you think of your best friend in the entire world? The person who has truly been there every single time you needed them and the friendship that no fight could ever end?
Got it? Okay, me too.

Now I want you to imagine that friendship being 10,000 times better. More transparency, more love, more truth, more wisdom, more laughs, more late night talks, more inside jokes, more [insert the thing you love most about your friendship here].

Well that's what friendship with Jesus is like.
He is truly the best friend that you could ever have.

How cheesy does that sound? Well I don't care, it's true. He is not concerned with saying the right thing to always make me happy or lying to not hurt my feelings. He also always has my absolute best in mind and He would never dream of hurting me.

Even though I hurt him in a daily basis.
I am the worst friend in the world.

No matter how horribly in sin I find myself, I always come back to this place where I can actually feel Jesus pursuing me. He wants me back. He misses me. HOW could He miss me? I daily fail Him in the most basic aspects of friendship. This is what makes our friendship even more precious.

I don't have to always do the right thing for Jesus to love me. I don't have to always say the right thing to make Jesus pleased with me. I don't have to always be happy with Jesus for Him to rejoice over me. And I definitely don't have to always be a good friend for Jesus to be an unconditional friend to me. But the aspects of His friendship towards me make me want to be those towards Him. He draws me in by never leaving me.

His presence makes it impossible for me to leave.

His friendship changed my life. He chose to be my friend. He chose to love me. And everyday He chooses to keep believing in my and pushing me to be more. The things that He has given me in this life, well I could not have imagined them for myself, ever. He knows my heart so intimately and has consistently shaped my life in the most amazing way. Best. Friend. Ever.

If you haven't experience real intimacy and relationship with Jesus, do it. He will never judge you, condemn you or laugh at you [He will only laugh with you:)]. He loves every single inch of you more than you could ever think or imagine. All you have to do is let Him love you.

Crissy

I'm a missionary? My testimony of how I got here.

So a weird thing happened today. We were supposed to have bible study tonight and I was supposed to give my testimony. I drove 3/12 hours from home and for a lot of the time I was praying about what I should say but I felt like no one would show up, but I wanted to make sure I was ready no matter what.

And then no one showed up.

It was like one of those..."oh that must have been God telling me that" moments. And then a couple minutes ago I felt the urgency to share some of my testimony on here in hopes to encourage and empower. If I'm being honest, I feel like my testimony is not that great. I haven't overcome some ridiculous obstacles and I haven't risen up from the depths of some addiction. But what makes a great testimony? Think of testimonies that have inspired you to change or empowered you to overcome?

Some of them might include overcoming addictions or rising up against overwhelming adversity but ALL of them include running wildly after Jesus and loving Him and His people with every inch of your heart.

So here I am, broken, sinful, humbled and redeemed at the feet of my Father. Because the Bible is NOT about me, my redemption even is NOT about me, my testimony is about Jesus. So being insecure about how "great" my testimony is downplays Jesus and uplifts me. That is the opposite of what we're supposed to do. So I have decided to make His name great and trust that HE is good (which He is).

Here we go. It's long but bear with me.

I grew up in christian home and I lived a pretty "Christian" life. The first time I ventured beyond my own backyard was in 2005 to Montego Bay, Jamaica. I loved everything about new cultures and new places. This trip set the stage for my life today.

Blossom Gardens Orphanage, Montego Bay, Jamaica - 2005

We then went on another trip the following year to Matamoros, Mexico. There was a guy on the trip who spoke Spanish and knew enough english to get by with me at least, who knew a little spanish. We had met a couple that day that explained to him why they weren't dating, because the girl loved Jesus and the guy didn't. The Mexican guy later told me the story in Spanish and English and we somehow figured it out.

I had such joy from this situation because it felt like for the first time, I was using something I had learned. Then my friend Amber said something that I will remember for the rest of my life.

"Maybe you're called to Mexico"

The power of that statement still resonates within my heart today. That statement gave a little bit of my spirit away to missions for Jesus for the first time ever. When I thought about Mexico from then on, I thought that I would spend some time every year going on a trip and being a translator for mission teams. We went to Mexico again a year later and it was just as amazing as the first time. I loved the way my heart felt with those people.

Matamoros, Mexico - 2007

It would be awhile before I left the country to serve Jesus again but it finally came after my sophomore year of college. One of my best friends at the time asked me to come with her to Kenya and Uganda for two weeks of my summer. Obviously I said yes immediately (sorry mom and dad).

Honestly, I didn't think that God could teach me anything in Africa.

Haha. I'll be honest when I say that I was an idiot. I thought that I was called to Mexico and that Africa would just be another notch on my mission trip belt. Ps...If you want notches on your mission trip belt, don't go somewhere that's 24 hours away.

God literally SHATTERED my heart on that trip in 2010. I have never in my entire life seen the kind of poverty that I saw there. I fell in love with every single child that I hugged and I have never felt the Spirit of God so thick...not even in Mexico. I started to become concerned. Then once again, a woman of God named Whitney Hill (at the time-now Koonce) said...

"God didn't give me heart for a certain place, but for a certain type of people"

Like my Savior loves me so much. So I came back from that trip in awe of how big my Daddy was, in love with a whole new group of people and confused at what God had for my life.

Nairobi, Kenya - 2010

But nonetheless I began planning my trip back to Africa for the following year. My junior year consisted of valleys and mountains, where I served God wholeheartedly and where I completely abandoned what it means to be a Christian.

Then at Passion Fort Worth 2011, I finally made the decision to serve God as a missionary full time, one day. I cried my eyes out and accepted that one day my life will probably be living in a hut with no internet access and a weekly bath.

I went back to Kenya in the summer of 2011 so anticipatory of a trip that I had been planning for literally a year. I was so excited to have my senses remember Kenya again. The sights, the sounds, the smells...it all came back so fluidly. I felt at home again. The second the plane landed, my exhaustion could not overcome my JOY of being where I knew God had me. This was easily the most intimate trip of my entire life and this trip made it very real for me of what life would be like if I lived here one day.

Nairobi, Kenya - 2011

So let's fast forward to December 2011. 6 months later. I'm sitting at my desk at Reynolds & Reynolds where I'm listening to a podcast and hearing about people around the world and then it hits me like a ton of bricks. God says very loudly and very clearly,

"I did not call you to be a missionary one day, I called you to be a missionary NOW. Prepare your heart to move to Africa as soon as you graduate"

In case you were wondering...I did start crying in my cubicle. Not a sad cry but a joyful cry, like a cry when you've been waiting to find out if your baby is a boy or a girl and you finally know and you're so excited that you cry! Or when you want to know if you got the job or not and you get the job and you cry! See I knew that God had something different for my life than the life that He had for a lot of people I knew, but I had no idea what.

So fast forward to now. I am finally in the place in my life where I can say that I will be a missionary.

Woah.

All my statements have turned from "will be" to "get to be". I GET to live on another continent? I GET to tell people about Jesus? I GET to know all types of cultures and peoples? I GET to experience poverty and find joy in it? AH. I can't believe that God loves me so much that He chose this life for me. This life that brings me more joy than I could have ever imagined for myself.

Your story may not have the exact same plot as mine but it has the exact same point. To bring Jesus' name glory. He ADORES you. He LOVES you. He has the BEST plans in the world for you if you just listen to His timing.

Hebrews 6:19 says that Hope is the ANCHOR of the soul. Hope is what gets you through the rough patches, Hope is what makes you cling and Hope is faith in ACTION. Hope acts.

In awe of His love tonight,
Crissy