Yes, I Recognize My Weirdness

 

You can treasure the weirdness that is Cara or you can think "crazy woman!" and run away, but I am self-aware enough to know the truth of my strangeness.  In many ways.  This unconventionality is partially manifested by the fact that I have a desire to go to places most would not.  The dark, repulsive, forgotten places on this earth tug at and call out to my heart.  For some time now I been praying about going to a tumultuous country like Syria or Afghanistan because they are so very desperately needing medical personnel and people who will love them hard. It's easy to love people who love you, but loving those that are harder to love is simply a delight.


"Watch out, here I come from a corn field to love you, dear people!"

Many tell me this is odd.  "Stay where it's safe," they say. "Stay where you can make money and be close to your friends and family," they chime.  But a "safe and easy" life is not what God has drawn me to.  Normality I can never claim.

Talking with workers in the aforementioned countries, I discovered that going to one of them as an American woman might just cause more problems than help, what with needing 24-hour bodyguards and whatnot.  Thus I began praying about how I could be of help to those who have been ravaged by these terrible wars.  Working with refugees in a surrounding country was an idea God nearly instantly brought to my mind.  Three days later, a doctor friend who works with an NGO wrote me asking if I would consider coming to northern Jordan to work with Syrian refugees!

"Consider it?" I thought, "By jove, God's already got me loving the idea!" 


An idea I didn't completely love?  Eating caterpillars and locusts in Zambia.   Ate one but not the other.  You can guess which one. ;)

Well, now the tickets are bought and I'm heading that way!  I'll be working with a hospital near a Syrian refugee camp for a couple months and yes, would most definitely appreciate your prayers!  I am excited to see what God is going to do both in me and through the medical work and relationship building over there.  I have a feeling I have a lot to learn. :)

 
An unconventional relationship-building time in Mada - switched places with a pousse-pousse driver for a day.  Weirded him and all his buddies out, but they loved it!  I'm sure while thinking "Crazy American girls..."

Another reason I want to go to these places is because Jesus Christ has changed my heart.  By His grace He has instilled such a love for the people of the world within me.  It's not a "normal" love, not one I could ever conjure up by "being a good person."  No, there is no good inside me but for that which God by His mercy and grace has bestowed for the glory of His name.

Look at what the love of God can do in Matthew 5:43-48!  Look at it's nearly unbelievable description in I Corinthians 13!  Look at what it led Christ to do for us unworthy, sinful people!

As a Hindu noted in The Life of Pi,

"Humiliation?  Death?  I couldn't imagine Lord Krishna consenting to be stripped naked, whipped, mocked, dragged through the streets and, to top it all off, crucified - and at the hands of mere humans, to boot.  I'd never heard of a Hindu god dying. ... Why would God wish that upon Himself?  Why not leave death to mere mortals?  Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect?"

  "Love."

 So why am I going to this "dangerous" place?  Why do I even care?  Why do I love?  Because Christ first loved me, and that, that has made all the difference in the world.  I John 4:19.