We Called These [RAW THOUGHTS]

Oh my gosh how’s San Francisco?!?!?!

Have you ever been hanging out with friends, everything is fine, most everyone is pretty calm…and boom! In walks the cute girl with the bubbly personality who comes right in for a big hug smiling cheek to cheek asking, “Hey girl! Oh my gosh how are you?! ..la la la la..”

So to be honest, that’s how my heart has been feeling 90% of the time when someone has asked me about being in SF. And let me clarify it has nothing to do with my loving and caring friends and family, but everything to do with me.  

It's not you, it's me. (but really.)

If you’ve followed my blogs or we’ve talked recently then you may know that I finished the World Race with the goal in mind to move to San Francisco to work for an organization called Because Justice Matters. An organization that works with women, many of them being transgender, and children in the most impoverished neighborhood in SF—the Tenderloin.

Fresh off of the mission field, with wide-eyes and big dreams of changing the world for Jesus in SF, I landed myself in the city five weeks ago; and since landing here it has been almost the literal exact opposite of how I thought things would be.

I moved in with my friend Kayla whom I have grown in love and respect for as every day goes on. Kayla has loved me, served me, drank wine with me, watched youtube videos with me, danced with me, gone on Taco Bell runs with me, and listened to me cry more times than most of my friends have ever seen.  If it wasn’t for God placing me with her then I don’t know how I could have handled all the transition I’ve walked in during the past five weeks.

Like I said, I came here in high hopes of joining an amazing team of women as they minister to women in the streets of SF.  The obstacle there though has been that in order to work with them full time as I desired, I would need to raise financial support. To make a complicated story short—I can’t raise support directly to BJM.  Without a hub for support, my only means of raising support  (that I can think of) would have to be through paypal, gofundme, or another site that isn’t going to give my supporters any sort of tax relief.  While some people may be okay with no tax credit, my ideal support would hover at $1,500-$2,000 a month (~$24,000 for the year) and I don’t have peace about asking for such a large sum of money without a tax relief to offer.

Through this obstacle of not being able to raise funds, it left the staff of BJM and myself wondering if this is the right thing right now. Is it right for BJM and is it right for me?  As they prayed for discernment the suggestion was presented to me that perhaps looking for some part-time work may not be a bad idea in the meantime while things are being sorted out.

I look for work.

And that leads us to today. I now currently work 9-5 in an office doing temp work (which I literally have no clue about) just to scrape by. On top of getting lost more than five times while walking to the building, I have also managed to scan super important documents at a 60-degree angle, incorrectly labeled about 20 different folders, failed to find the “hold” button on the phone so I just left it sitting on the desk, and more.  I have never envisioned myself in this sort of environment, and absolutely never desired it, but for the time being, it is what it is.

 

And if I didn’t have Jesus then this is where I would begin to complain or ask questions like,

What am I doing here?

Was this really the right decision for me?

Home?

But Praise God
                          and for the first time in awhile I actually mean it,
                                that there is so much more to life than what we can see right in front of us. 

Through the last five weeks I have learned some horrible things about my heart and despite the sin that has been so evident within me, to know that God still loves me right now just as He loved me when I was praying for children in Africa, is such a mind-blowing fact to me.

But that is just it—that is the simplicity of the gospel and the core of who Jesus is:

Jesus’ unconditional love for you and me is not based anything we have done right or done wrong.  To believe anything contrary makes us rule-following Pharisees who are enslaved to our performance and are desperate for love because we think we have to earn it instead of receive it.

That is just one of the things God has brought to the surface in me. Being honest with myself that in my heart I’m definitely believing the lie that because I’m not out doing the things I did last year, that I’m not loved the same by God.

In addition, other convictions that have been brought to the surface are:

Realizing I am enslaved to money—always doubting that I will have enough. Even though God has ALWAYS, ALWAYS, come through. It's incredible how much time I spend thinking about money compared to how much time I spend thinking about Jesus.

Not only am I enslaved to money but also filled with fear that God isn’t going to take care of me, thus acting out of an orphan mentality rather than acting as a beloved daughter of the king.

And I told a friend on the phone tonight that ever since I moved to San Francisco, because things haven’t gone my way I have subtly replaced the “will of God” for the “will of Kristy” making me the idol of my life and looking at God to be the genie to all my wishes. So when every plan and expectation has “fallen through” then I have turned to coffee, beer, friends, music, and many other false intimacies to keep me happy (hence the overwhelming emotion of disappointment and sadness when the false high wears off).

To sum up this word vomit of "how is San Francisco", I just want to say the following; and not to tie a bow on things or to make me sound better (seriously I could go on for another hour about my crap), but it’s just as true to me and real to me as the sin I listed above is..

I moved to San Francisco for what I thought was going to be
                the best job ever,
                             in the best city ever,
                                     with the best people ever.

But honestly moving here has been hard. I've felt lonely. I've felt lost. I've become extremely self-centered and self-dependent. And right now I'm in a season of figuring things out, so that means no BJM for me anytime soon. Not because God doesn’t want a broken person like me, but thanks to revelation from God, his Word, and His people- He has helped me come to the conclusion that I’m really in the midst of a lot of thick stuff and the season I’m in is about slowing down, resting, seeking healing, and becoming restored for whatever is in my future. A good friend posted this article recently, which further reminded me of how there is a season for everything and while my heart may be as hard as the toughest soil, God is a really great gardener and He's digging out all this crap so that maybe in the next season I can be something beautiful for Him.

We'll see.