He speaks…

Posted by: Tsholo on: June 22, 2009

In: being Christ-like | my life
1 Comment

This is part 1 of 3 in my series on Lesson Learned at NamRock

———————

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

We are on our way to NamRock and as we pass through Mulmesberry (sp?) I think “oh hey, this is where Marc and Wil and Ernst and Kevin are from…hmmm…no work today…oh shoot, I forgot to check in my work…oh crap, they are supposed to test that stuff, how are they going to get to it…oh crap…I’m gonna be so fired when I get back next week…” and from there the seed is planted. Thoughts like these crept into my head, get settled there and make a comfortable home for themselves. Seriously I dwelled on these thoughts until I started to crash… Lunchtime we stopped at Springbok…I already had a headache and my body was tense from the stress and I was freak’n hungry…seriously hungry…and everyone was taking soooo long to buy food for the next two days…and I was getting ready to scream…or kill someone…or something. Anyway, eventually we end up going to lunch and I ate and I was full and I felt better…but the worrying and stressing was still there…and the crash came.

I just told everyone that I was going to try and sleep, so I put my headphones on and shut the world out. I put the song “My God is Amazing” by Surrender Band on repeat and tried to listen to it…but nothing was going in. I was freaking out. I had let the stress and worry go on too long and now I couldn’t snap out of it. I lay there for a while…just lay there…and tried not to think – impossible task.

The thing is, I’m sure that none of the people in the car with me that day would even guess that I was stressing, not even Lindri knew I was stressing until I told her about it a couple of days later. I stress on the inside…I don’t let it show…I go on with life pretending it’s not happening. Which, I think, makes it worse cos I let it fester without an outside influence to put it into perspective.

Anyway, at some point the car starts slowing down and I think we are coming to another rest-stop, but as I lift my head I realize that we are in the middle of nowhere. I take my headphones off just in time to hear someone say “Are you slowing down, or is it slowing down on it’s own?” and Stephen answers “I’m not doing anything”. I ask what’s happening and find out we are out of petrol. Great…one more thing…just what we need! The guys say we should push the car to Karasburg, I disagree…seriously? push? to Karasburg? yea we see the town’s lights, but we don’t really know how far we are. I’d rather just walk there and walk back. Lindri’s suggestion: Let’s pray. So we do…or they do…and I just assume that God will provide a way anyway, he already knows our needs so why pray…and I immediately get convicted about the way I take God’s provision for granted. I just assume he will provide (which he does) and I don’t ask…but he tells us to ask, not because he doesn’t already know, but because he wants us to talk to him, to go to him with our needs. So inwardly I just say “Daddy, obviously you didn’t bring us to Namibia to leave us out in the middle of nowhere…and as you know, I’m a girl so I’m not going to push the car to Karasburg…so please make another way. Amen” and as I open my eyes I see lights approaching.

The lights turned out to be an ambulance, who though they were on their way to take someone to the hospital, stopped for us and gave Stephen and Lind a lift into town to buy petrol and brought them back. While they were gone I managed to get some unwinding in…I stopped trying not to stress, and instead let Him clear my head of all those negative thoughts… and that is how I managed to stop stressing (thanks also to the musical stylings of Mr Durant).

When the other two came back, we spent a few minutes outside looking up at the stars in awe at just how AWESOMELY AMAZING He is. And I thought “he *is* BIG enough to handle my work stuff when I get back”. So yea, I think that was part of the plan. He wanted to make sure I don’t go into NamRock with all that worry and all that stress…and had we not run out of petrol we would not have stopped there and just sat in amazement at his display…

He really does care!

————————-

Monday, June 15, 2009

I decided long before NamRock that I was going to take the plunge…as in get baptised…I even asked Lindri to be the baptist/baptiser/i-don’t-know-what-they-are-called, but as the days crept closer I started having doubts. The decision to get baptised was not made lightly. I researched, I asked people, I thought and pondered and prayed before I made that decision…which should have been a relatively easy decision to make I think solely because Joshua Davidson commands baptism and that should be enough for it to happen but it took me a loooong time to decide to do it, and after making the decision it took about a year for it to actually happen. For some reason it scared me…couldn’t tell you why. Throughout the camp I kept telling Lindri that I’m thinking of backing out.

Baptism is symbolic right? So to do the act without the inner-something is really just putting on a show. And I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to just go there and get baptised just to say I’m baptised, I wanted to make sure that my heart was in-line with my actions. That when I took that dip it was reflective of where my heart is.

Anyway, so the day finally dawns and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna back out. Then we go on a little hike ‘up the valley’ and do some free worship which was so awesome. And at some point I go a few feet away from everyone else and decide to just do some praying and so I tell God that I’m thinking of backing out because I don’t know where my heart is…and I’m all “if you really want this to happen today, then tell me so”…I wait…and nothing! So I walk back to join everyone. As I get there the singing stops and a couple of people come up to share testimony-type-stuff and then Pieter comes up and says “if anyone is interested in being baptised today, please speak to Jancie…” and I’m all ok, cool I’ll do it.

So I got baptised…because He said so. And I did some soul/heart searching before taking the plunge just to make sure I was really doing it for the right reasons. And no, there were no doves or audible voices, but I’m sure God was pleased. So the decision is made, and now the walk begins/continues…and this time I’ve got witnesses to keep me accountable.

Oh and just before I actually got baptised, Kev (I think) says “are you sure you really want to do this? you do know what this means right?” and i’m all “what?” and he says “i don’t know” and Val (I think) says “it means you are giving up your will for his, so if it’s his will for you to be single for life you have to do it” and we all laughed…but yea, that’s what it meant for me…giving up my plans, laying down my wants, for the beautiful plan he has…even if it means being single for life (but hopefully it’s not).

And thanks to Natalie for the talk that evening…was a blessing and a huge encouragement…