I'm Not That Girl

 “No one changes until the desire to change is greater than the desire to remain the same.”
 
For those of you who know me, you know I tend to do some pretty interesting things, like recording my roommate and my friend for 17 minutes without them ever realizing. I found myself reminiscing the “good old days” last night as I watched videos my roommate and I had made and looked at pictures from college. When I got to that 17-minute video I’m sure my roommate thought I deleted, I watched, giggling at first because of the silliness and missing those special nights with my friends. However, the giggling soon stopped and my heart became quite heavy. As I watched myself interact with my roommate and friend, I was disgusted with my behavior. Numerous times I said a negative comment or something absolutely rude that I’m sure I dismissed in my mind as “just joking.” I shared parts of this recording with Laura, then shared with her how revolted I was at the way I treated my friends.
 
You see, one thing our team has striven to do is speak life over each other. We are constantly encouraging our teammates and building them up. There are some things we have completely eliminated from our vocabulary, “shut up”, “I hate you”, and “freak” being just a few of them. We don’t call each other names, we do our best not to hurt with words, and we have become so aware of just how powerful our words are.
 
Watching that video made me realize just how much I really have changed since I came to Kenya. The funny thing is? When I got here, I didn’t want to change at all. I was so scared of the change that might come with this trip, and did my best to hold on to everything that I believed defined me as... me. Eventually, my desire to change and to become the woman God has intended for me to be, outweighed my desire to stay the same. I’m still Kendra. I’m just a Kendra learning to be more like Christ every day. I never want to return to the person I was in that video. I want my words to bring life and encouragement and ooze out God’s love. 

This blog post was first posted on Adventures In Missions blog forum. It was written in November of 2013, when I was nearing the end of a semester-long mission trip to Kenya, Africa.