Why am I here?

There are 52 people from Riverview on a missions trip right now to Tijuana, MX. I debated for a long time if I should go on the missions trip or not. Our whole family went last year, and it was great doing that with JR and the kids. For some reason, I just didn't feel like I could do it again this year. But now, I wonder why? Was I just not ready to go through that again? It's not like the trip was horrible, by any means. It was just emotionally exhausting. When we began talking about Mexico again, it made me cringe. I just couldn't do that again. At the time, I couldn't put into words why I just couldn't get excited about going again. I have had a lot of time this week to think about the real reason I didn't want to go.

I think I have this fear of something happening to me. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Why don't I trust God to take care of me? He did last year. Why would now be any different. As I sat home this week, I had a lot of time to think about how God did watch out for me last year. This time last year I was having HORRIBLE problems with migraines. I was getting a couple a week. When I got one, I would get sick and end up in bed for the better part of a day. The amazing thing is I started to get one the first night we were in Mexico last year. I prayed and God immediately took it away. That has never happened before. God was watching out for me. I felt like that was almost His was of saying, "see, I've got your back." The rest of the trip was great. It was awesome seeing the kids playing with the Mexican kids that didn't even speak English. It didn't matter - they didn't need to talk to each other to play and have fun together.

As I watched the group pull out of the Riverview parking lot last week, I cried like a baby. I cried because it was hard to see my husband pull away and us not be with him. It was hard because my 20 year old neices were also on that bus. I realized I had been selfish in saying I didn't want to go on the trip this year. I have had a lot of talks with God this week about that. I feel like I missed out on a lot because I was being selfish.

The funny thing is when we talked about going last year, I totally didn't want to go. I wasn't looking forward to it at all. In fact, I was dreading it. I was dreading the unknown. We weren't going to have running water or electricity. We were going to be in a very hot place. I hate being hot. I was just afraid. I had never been on a real missions trip before. It just seemed totally out of my comfort zone and I was not ok with that. But, JR really wanted us to go. I realized it would be a good experience for all of us, so I said ok. Even the night before we left I was scared to death. We sat in the airport and I really couldn't believe I was on my way to Mexico. I was so scared.

But, not going this year forced me to think through a lot of the feeling and emotions I never dealth with last year. I think that's why I wasn't ready to go this year. To be honest, I didn't know I even had any of this to deal with. I sat last night talking with a friend about the trip. I sat there and got so excited about going next year. That was honestly the first time that I was excited about the thought of going back to Mexico. I almost feel like I had to miss out on this year's trip to really deal with the issues I had. It's cool now to see the result. I just wish I would have dealt with this a few months earlier so I could be on that trip right now. Although I don't know if there would have been any other way for me to really deal with any of this.