There are two schools of thought on Bucket Lists. The first says that they’re unnecessary, that you live your life and you do the things you want to do. The second says that it’s good to have an idea of what you want to do while you’re still alive. This blog post is not an attempt to persuade anyone. It is, rather, an admission: I am in the second group.
It’s not that I feel I need a list, rather, it’s knowing myself well enough to realize that I’m the type of person who’ll put something off until it’s too late unless I remind myself that it’s important to me.
Last week, I told you that I did something more “me” than I’ve done in a long time. I’m not ready to tell you what it was, but I can tell you this much: It was something on my Bucket List.
Oddly, without any intention, now that I’ve crossed this item off my List, I find it has been quickly replaced with something far more…uhm…important.
I told you last week, also, that I had made the decision to sponsor a second child through Compassion International (if you’re not a sponsor, I would encourage you to browse the site and pray about whether you can afford the blessing of becoming a sponsor). I committed myself to a week of prayer, as I felt God was leading me to another child from Burkina Faso. I didn’t want to make a hasty decision. I didn’t want to set parameters for what God wanted to do in and through me.
However, during that week of prayer, I felt God impress some things on my heart that I did not expect. Things about myself. Things about my first child. Things about poverty. I was not expecting it. At all. What I came away with was a firm understanding that God was rooting Burkina Faso in my heart in a way that was undeniable.
Understand me, folks. I am not a missionary. I’ve never desired to be a missionary. I was right there in the back row with my brother, humming along to “please don’t send me to Africa.” My heart is in a million other things.
But lately, my heart is in Burkina Faso, with Joe and Moise and all the other children there who live in some of the poorest conditions known to man. Perhaps my heart has been there far longer than I’ve allowed myself to recognize.
All I can tell you for sure…is that I’ve added it to my Bucket List: I want to go to Burkina Faso.
In fact, I think I’ve wanted to go for years, I just didn’t understand it. I still don’t…but I think I’m starting to.
And anyway…the other side of the world is not so far away…
barefooted semmie 