Even as a very young girl, I can remember being chased by fear.
The kind of fear that lurks in the dark… laughing and longing to steal joy and peace.
I’m not particularly certain why I have always been so prone to fear…
It’s just been an unfortunate constant in my life.
Let’s just say, I know what it’s like to live afraid.
For most of my life I just thought fear was a “normal” part of life…
Something to get used to.
I know now… I was wrong.
Honestly, I have had plenty of reasons to be afraid.
While not as hard as many… I would not say my life has been easy.
My heart has been broken more times than I can count, and
Deep fear has been wearing.
As I type this…
It is Eli’s 9th birthday today.
My 40th is tomorrow.
40.
I’m not sad about being forty.
I am, however, sad about being 40 and afraid.
It’s not that I let fear win all the time…
I push through…
I don’t let it determine the course of my life.
Since marriage we have had 4 different jobs…
Lived in 3 different states…
I’ve had 7 different babies in my womb…
I have held my precious, stillborn son in my arms only to lose his brother just a few days later…
I’ve watched my one pound daughter be miraculously healed of a near-deadly stomach infection only for her to have major heart surgery just days later.
I’ve endured over 5 exhaustingly grueling months of NICU visits… waiting to bring a baby home.
By choice, my feet have explored many places all over the U.S…
As well as Haiti, Mexico and Africa.
I’ve gotten rid of almost all my earthly belongings…
I’ve said “good-bye” to my most precious possessions, my family and friends.
I’ve moved to a third world country…
My eyes have beheld poverty like never before…
Relocated my heart to a land I had never once visited… to a people I had never met… to a home I had never seen.
I have continued to enter into intimate spaces with people where there was no common language…
And extended my heart to those I could barely communicate with…
And, to this day… in the face of all the fears that continue to scream attempting to debilitate me…
I push through.
Sometimes I do it blindly… sometimes I do it with a thimble full of courage… other times it’s incredibly painful, ungraceful and only through the help of Jesus.
I have spent a great deal of time dialoging with God about my issues with fear.
My heart knows the truth…
That HE is indeed my Deliverer…
It’s my head that struggles.
A couple weeks back I knew I needed to receive prayer.
I wanted to place my fears at the altar… to humble myself, cry out…
To invite my Tico family deeper into the sacred spaces of my heart…
What happened was something that marked my heart.
Our Pastora took me by the hand… led me to the altar… held me…
Had me surrounded by my church family… they prayed over me as she wiped my tears, and Our Pastor gently but powerfully sang over me.
Even now I am able to feel the weight of that moment.
I wasn’t instantly released from all fear patterns… BUT…
I know something changed in me.
I write all this to share with others that are perhaps battling something…
I write this for my children to read, for them to know and remember their mom needs Jesus for every breath.
40… it’s a milestone!
There is nothing fancy about my life…
It’s hardly noteworthy.
I’m still the same simple, little girl…
Just in an older body.
I’m still the same daughter longing to tell the world about her Good Daddy…
The little girl that continually wants to be swooped up and reminded that there’s never a time I’m out of His reach.
I’m still Kelly… the one that needs to remember to breathe…
To breathe in Him… to breathe in grace.
I’ve literally spent most of my life holding my breath for something to begin or something to end.
If there’s one thing I should know by now… it’s the value of knowing how to breathe.
So… perhaps on this monumental day in my life…
As my face and body reveal the life that I have walked through…
Perhaps you could pray for me… and I could pray for you?
I want this to be a year a jubilee…
A year of release…
A year of reclamation of what has been stolen…
A year of joy and laughter of the deepest kind…
A year of love and the greatest freedom…
A year of restoration… of healing…
A year of knowing that our struggles do not define us nor our futures.
A year of dancing in the waves and waters…
A year of the most profound breathing.
Yes and amen!
Thank you for continuing to pray and support our family.
This adventure continues to provoke much learning, and we count it a sweet miracle to have you beside us.
All my love,
From your 40 year old Gringa in Costa Rica and her TRUSTY sidekick…
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