I wrote, completed, and accidentally deleted this whole post not only once but twice so here we go for round 3! Third times the charm right?
I had asked you on Instagram a while ago if you guys wanted to know how I reacted and and took the fact that my husband and I were going to move to Mexico City and you voted yes so I am finally getting around to this post whilst my blog is getting a little revamp (you will know if you have been following along for a while that things look a little new around here.)
So if you do not know my story, you probably don't follow me on Instagram so make sure to do that so you can see all of the freshest content and for those of you who do/have been following through this process you will know that it has been anything but easy, but let me start from the beginning because how did this even happen? Okay, here we go!
THE BACK STORY
I started dating David in February of 2017 but before we made it "official" I had a huge dilemma to deal with, his calling to plant a church in Mexico City. When we wanted to start pursuing each other he told me that he was called to plant a church in Mexico City and my first thought and one of the first things I told him was "we really need to pray about a relationship with each other because I am not called to go to Mexico." You can see how that worked out for me, but on with the story.We took a month to pray and fast for each other and for the first week or two all I could pray was "Lord, are you calling me to Mexico?" I was getting so discouraged and turned upside down all because David was called to Mexico City and I had a very good friend tell me during this time to stop praying for Davids calling but pray for David because God will never call a person to someones calling but to the person and if God was calling me to David, He would take care of the rest. I took this advice very seriously and started to just ask the Lord if David was the one He had for me. After, I started praying this prayer, I just started to have so much peace about David, like undeniable peace! But the story doesn't end there.
Just because I now have peace about pursuing David and having confirmation that I would one day marry him didn't mean that I had peace about his calling, in fact, I did everything to put that fantasy of his out of my head. I told him I was okay with his calling but my heart was definitely not.
Now, skip ahead to when we are getting married and my heart is still not okay with this idea of moving to Mexico yet I knew it was the Lords Will for us one day but in my head that day wouldn't happen for a few years so I have plenty of time to get on board. There was one day shortly after we were married, about 2 months, that David and I were in LA for a little vacation that made a turn for the worst! On this trip David thought it was a good time to tell me that he and our pastor talked and they agreed that in a year from then we would be sent to Mexico City to plant the church. My nightmare that I thought I had plenty of time to cope with was here and was staring me down. When David told me this I broke.
This was THE worst trip we had ever had together but it was one of those much, much needed trips, the kind of trip where all of your insecurities come flooding out so that they are out on the table and you can now work on them.. fun right?!
Basically, when I found out that we were moving to another country in just one year, all of these emotions that I didn't even know I had came out and I realized how little I trusted the Lord. In the next couple of paragraphs I am going to be brutally honest because it is exactly how I felt.
MY RAW REACTION & FEELINGS ABOUT OUR CALLING
On this LA trip we fought, a lot. I was not okay with leaving this soon, I was told and I expected to be home in Las Vegas for a few years before this ever came true and even then I was praying and wishing it would never actually happen. I have said this on my Instagram but I will say it again, I always told myself and the Lord, "I am never going to be a missionary or a church planter." I wanted to stay in my cozy, familiar home where I felt comfortable.On this trip, I was faced with the reality that I would soon have to say goodbye to my family, to my friends, my church that I have been at since I was born... literally. I had to say goodbye to life as I knew it. I know this sounds dramatic like c'mon Sam, this is so cool that you get to do this, stop being so dramatic, but I am telling you guys I didn't want to move to a place where I was the odd person, where I wouldn't be able to understand or talk to anybody and at this time that all of this was presented to me, I had only been with David for a year and 2 months, I barely had a relationship with him and now I was supposed to just leave my life for him? At least that is how I viewed it.
Later that month as I was digesting this news, we got into another fight, the biggest one where I made David doubt his calling because of the most hurtful words I said. I basically told David that I never wanted to go to Mexico and this was his dream and not mine... whoops. The next day, I went over to my moms house and I could not keep it inside I just broke down and she gave me the most wise words. She told me that I was in sin for not trusting the Lord, she said that distrust in the Lord was disobedience and that I better hop on this train or I will be dragged by it. This woke me up!
I hadn't really looked at my distrust as disobedience but it so was! I went home that evening and told David that even though I didn't want to and my heart wasn't there yet, I wanted to hop on board and give my distrust over to the Lord and blindly follow where He was leading my husband and I.
It is a few months later and my heart is still having trouble with this but I am taking it one day at a time giving every day over to the Lord and I am home alone one night. It is during this night that I get real serious with the Lord and I am in my apartment alone, crying out to God. I am telling Him how scared I was to leave all of the closest people in my life to move to Mexico. I was scared because I kept hearing how dangerous Mexico City was and I was expressing how afraid I was to the Lord. During this time, in my daily devotionals I was in Acts and on this night I open my bible to the next chapter that I am supposed to read and it is Acts 18.
In this chapter, Paul arrives in Corinth and Corinth is a city similar to Mexico City. Corinth was known for its loose living and especially sexual immorality. It was a tough city and Paul knew that it needed a strong church. Verse 9 says:
“Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city’.”
Since this day it has been a rollercoaster of emotions. Even now being here in Mexico, I have days where I am asking myself "why me?" I have good days here but I also have days where all I want to do is lay in bed watching old videos of my life in Vegas. Honestly, we don't know how long we are here, it could be a year and it could be 10 years, right now I am trying to make the most of this season.
Mexico City is amazing! The area we live in is so cool and there is so much beauty and so much to do but it doesn't compare to my home. However, I don't want to look back on this season and regret that I spent this time wishing it away. God is doing an amazing work here and we are expectant of His continual work and miracles in this city.
I will keep having days where I just want to be home with my friends but I know I will also have days where I see just why we were called here.
I got a tattoo right before leaving to Mexico that says "doulos" and Doulos is the greek word for bondservant and in the bible, it makes mention of a bondservant as a servant who had the freedom to leave or stay with their master and if they chose to stay to serve their master they were called a bondservant and they became a part of the family. A modern bondservant is someone who denies their desires and wants to obey what the Lord wants for them and that is exactly what I am doing. Am I scared? yes! But, do I have an undeniable peace from the Lord? Yes! The Lords plans for you are always better than yours even if you don't see the results of that right away.
ENCOURAGEMENT
If you are in a similar season of denying yourself for the Lord just know the Lord blesses obedience. One of my pastors told me "It is always better to be in the Will of God than to be out of it" and I 100% agree!To be in a season where you have to deny yourself can feel lonely and honestly a little heartbreaking because it is almost like you have to get a divorce with your plans, your expectations, and your wants and that is never easy but wit God it is possible. That is how I have felt like I am missing out on what I wanted in life and that I had a better plan for my life but I know the truth that what I am doing is the best thing for me because it is what God, the creator of the universe wanted for me and I can trust Him, I can trust that plan because He has never failed me.
I just want to encourage you to take a leap of faith. If God is calling you to Him for the first time and you are scared of losing everything, take a leap of faith, He will not let you fall and He will outdo your expectations. He will bless your obedience to His calling and that goes for those of you who maybe feel called to move or to do something that you didn't necessarily want for your life. He is a good Father and He has a perfect plan for your life to use you for His glory. Isn't that cool? God, think about that, GOD wants to use you for HIs work. Why us? He could do it without us but He wants us because He loves us. He wants us to experience His goodness, He wants us to experience His love and that is the greatest honor there is.
So sweet, sweet sister trust Him. This is a daily walk, I am still having to actively tell myself to trust Him but it is the best place to be!
I hope this post was used to encourage even one person, you are worth it!
If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Feel free to message me on instagram or email me under the contact page. Follow along our journey over on Instagram (@samantha_rue) I would love to see your face over there!