I’m following in my father’s footsteps and I love it.
That is a sentence that I never thought I would write and one that doesn’t fail to bring a smile to my face. As I start the journey of serving abroad I am filled with the joy of knowing what I am called to do regardless of terminology.
Growing up my father's work was everything, it was my family overseas, it was my parents’ profession, it was ever-present, it was something I didn’t understand and it was something that I never wanted to be. When I was little I would say I wanted to be an archeologist like Indiana Johns, traveling the world and exploring cultures both alive and dead. I think at other times I wanted to be an actor or a business man, I honestly can’t recall what I wanted to be as easily as I recall what I didn’t want to be, a worker like my father.
The reason I was so sure of this one thing was that I didn’t understand my parents’ work. I didn’t understand till I finished college, a little under a year ago. I knew growing up that my parents were good people, I knew that they did good things but, didn’t everybody? For the longest time I thought that everybody did good things but it took traveling and leaving the safety of my parents’ house to see that it is not so. Yes, people for the most part try to do good things, they are moral, they show kindness but as I traveled I started to notice more and more that this wasn't enough. All these people that I was meeting were still missing something that I had known at one time, something my parents had.
Oh, the frustration of the missing piece. It drove my crazy! I knew what my parents said the difference was. The difference between them and the people that I was meeting, but I refused, it didn’t make sense, no, no, No!
Hahaha, what did it take for me to give in to at least say maybe and give it a try? I had to see it all. I had to see that there was nothing more. I had to see that even these good things, friendship, love, kindness, hope were empty without God.
Without God I found death.
I cry for joy. The story doesn’t end there. If without God there is death, with God there is life that I am without skill to express in words.
I begin to understand. My parents’ work was to love others. I can't wait to see what life God wants to show me as I am taught to love as I was loved.