Spring Break 2012 - Part 1: Downhill

Back in the fall, Jason felt like God wanted us to lead a small group (8 others) of students from Frontier to Missoula for a Spring Break Mission Trip. There would be Jason and I, plus 4 guys and 4 girls. The guys stayed at Jason's house in Florence and the girls stayed at my house in Missoula. Our team left Friday March 16 for mission trip that did not go at all how I would have planned or expected... Arriving in Missoula Saturday evening, our first project was scheduled for Sunday. Sunday was the start of things going downhill. I started struggling spiritually in a way I never had before. I knew I couldn't stop believing in God, so it wasn't that I doubted God that week, it was just that the spiritual "light" in me was really really dim. I felt spiritually numb. I couldn't really do a devo or pray, except to pray things like, "God what's going on? If there is any sin/barrier/etc please show me..." Sunday was the first day Jason and I struggled. There were a lot of new experiences for our marriage this week - staying at separate houses for 9 nights, only seeing each other around at least 8 other people, and having to lead something together for the first time. Sunday was when we started having needless conflict about...I don't even know! And usually we are pretty "careful" in our conflict, and try not to have conflict over nothing. But I found myself saying rude and hurtful things, even though I knew they wouldn't help. I found myself telling him, "I don't care anymore!" What?? Where did this come from?? We don't treat each other like that! But those couple days...we did! Sunday was also the day we showed up for our first project...and they didn't even know we were coming and already had something going on. Sunday was the start of a downhill week. I felt like a failure. I felt like I couldn't be a leader or the wife I should be or the "Christian" I should be. Inside my head all I could hear was lies about who I was and it felt like a war going on in my heart....

{to be continued...}