Or as Sam would say, “That’s crazy!”
Hello Special Hope blog readers! My name is Beth Bailey and I am an appointed missionary with SHN, and currently serving as Director of Operations Africa. I am so excited to share with you bits and pieces of my story (or should I say God’s story in and through me)! I’ll spare you a lot of the background details, and jump right into how I came to be a part of this ministry.
At the start of this fall, something began to stir in me. What I thought was a simple case of transitioning-out-of-college blues proved to be something deeper- a profound sense of restlessness. It wasn’t that I didn’t love all that I was doing, for I really did and still do. I simply started to feel like the life I was living wasn’t actually the one I was “meant” to live. And so I began asking the questions that people my age sometimes ask themselves- what am I doing with my life, what am I passionate about, how am I to accomplish my dreams, etc. I had no idea that as I began to ask these questions, I would come across an answer that would compel everything to change…
In order to answer these questions, I turned to the worn pages of my Bible. What I found in these pages was not what I was expecting. I suppose I expected to be advised to consider my gifts, my talents, and my passions in order to pursue what God had planned for my life. Surely God’s plan for me would be based on the specific gifts, talents, and passions He gave me, right? While I do think God gave me these things for a purpose, I came to realize that I was looking at this situation from the wrong vantage point. I was looking at my life and asking what I wanted to do, what I was passionate about , how I was to accomplish my dreams, when I found the Bible compelling me to consider what God wants, what He is passionate about, and how He would accomplish through me His plans of redemption on the earth.
I became deeply convicted that I had been living my life according to my own selfish desires and longings for comfort and ease, and therefore began to pray that God would change my heart and mind. I found myself coming again and again to the verse Galatians 2:20, and wondering what it really meant-
“For I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Although I had identified myself as a follower of Jesus for several years, I came to find this verse very un-descriptive of my life. As a Christian, I am called to surrender and sacrifice everything so that Jesus Christ, Himself can live through me. And as I came to understand this, it brought up a whole new set of questions: what does it look like for me to surrender, what does it mean for Jesus to live through me, how would my life be transformed if this were so?
Again, I turned to those worn pages to seek answers, and was once again surprised by what I found. As I read, a specific theme was highlighted to me over and over again, and is summed up well in James 1:27-
“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
In this verse, I believe that James explains the basic tenets of what it means to be a Christian: to love those who have no hope, and to seek holiness. The list of verses that agree and comply with this one is extensive and clear, and so the answer to all three of my questions seemed to come in one swiftly transformative blow: If Jesus is going to live through me, I must surrender my life to loving and caring for the hopeless.
And so, here I am- a newly appointed missionary on the brink of moving to Africa to care for orphans with intellectual disability. I can hear Sam Nelson saying, “That’s crazy, Miss Beff!” Sounds a little crazy to me too, and by that, I mean the good kind of crazy; the kind that necessitates Jesus Christ to be smack-dab in the center of it.
