What does it look like to have your heart broken time and time again?
What does it feel like to pursue the path you are called and still have pains along the way?
What does it mean to be both excited and saddened at the same time?
Have I been called to a life of goodbyes?
Hello, my name is Courtney Jackson and I haven’t posted a blog in a really long time. I am actually in the process of finishing up a blog series. This is part one. It will all make sense later.
Back to the story…
I often ask myself these questions on a daily basis since I started my journey of fully pursuing missions.
Over the last year and a half I have said goodbye to upwards of a few hundred people that I dearly love.
1- when I left for the World Race I said goodbye to my entire home community, support system and comforts.
2- every country I had to open my heart up, learn to love entirely, and then leave again.
3- team changes meant I had to leave my new comfort system and closest community to gain a new one.
4- leaving the race I had to say goodbye to the people I took a leap with, loved like family, and had opened up to with sameness.
5- coming to CGA I had to say goodbye to my home community all over again.
6- now preparing to leave CGA I am preparing my heart to leave my newest
community that I have grown to love and cherish deeply yet again.
My roommate Ky gave me some wisdom the other day when she said “Pain in goodbyes indicates those relationships had value to you”… and wow that hit me. Over the last year and a half I have learned what it looks like and feels like to love like Jesus even when you know the end will cut like a knife. If I were to withhold my whole heart to people out of fear of the pain I would eventually feel I would never actually know what it looks like to love and people would never get to see my authentic self.
As I continue to embark into missions more and more this reality will only begin to heighten. I will eventually move away or continue traveling and I will have to face this again … or again and again and again. It’s hard. It’s tough. It’s sad. It’s painful. It’s also really rewarding.
If I let my fear stop me I would never actually pursue the dreams the Lord has given me.
If everyone stopped pursuing their passions because of the pain involved in getting there, we would be a world filled with hopes and dreams never accomplished.
I miss my people back home. I miss my precious people in India, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Ecuador, and the Dominican. I will miss my people here in Georgia. I will probably continue to gain a list of people I miss. This is scary to me but I would rather love with everything in me and then miss people instead of never actually loving them at all.
I love getting to catch up with my people back home even though it’s different. I love getting to video chat and message my people all over the world and continue pouring into them even from a far. I love getting to see relationships change and grow over time even if proximities have changed. I have loved getting to see my heart grow and swell as the seasons have changed. I have loved getting to watch myself love whole heartedly even when it’s hard.
It’s hard learning how to love people you have said goodbye to in changing seasons. But it’s so important to continue to build those relationships, even in the heartache, because that’s where love that can span across borders is created.
So to answer the questions from above…
What does it look like to have your heart broken time and time again? My heart is not broken it is simply in the process of learning how to love people in a new season in a new way and that process is hard.
What does it feel like to pursue the path you are called and still have pains along the way? It feels like taking a leap of faith and hitting rocks along the way… but also having that deep hope inside you knowing that the end will be worth the journey.
What does it mean to be both excited and saddened at the same time? It means you are being real and you are human because humans were made to feel multiple emotions all at once.
Have I been called to a life of goodbyes? No… I have been called to a life of radical love that can and does span across borders.
My encouragement to whoever reads this is to love people without fear of the future. Love with your whole heart and as seasons change rapidly or change slowly love continually and love authentically.
Thank you for supporting me in this journey and continually rallying around me in my changing seasons as well! I love yall.
