This Is Your Mission . . . Should You Choose To Accept It

As co-founder of our non-profit organization – Mi Esperanza – The Women of My Hope – in Honduras that provides free education to women of poverty, the calendar has rolled around once again, and it is time for our annual board meeting.

It is always an exciting time for me. We learn the details of the year past:  how many students have graduated; how many visitors came to our store; how many mission teams heard our presentation about what we do and why we do it; specific details of our class enrollments and where they are being held; donations received; financial reports;  budgets; and on it goes.

And then we move into planning for the coming year – this is where it gets really exciting!

This year it has been on my heart to review our Mission Statement.

“To provide educational, spiritual and financial tools to assist women living in extreme poverty in the villages surrounding Tegucigalpa, Honduras in Central America.”

I’m always amazed that even though we wrote this thirteen years ago – it still applies today.

All this got me to thinking – if I were to have a personal mission statement written down – what would it say? I guess this has been an undercurrent in my thoughts lately because a few mornings ago in the wee hours I found myself awake – wide awake.

Praying for things on my heart, I realized a thought was forming and taking shape and I needed to write it down. I fully use the note app on my phone and have learned to take notes – even in the middle of the night.

No matter how excited I get about something, and I am fully convinced there is no way I could ever forget it – all I remember when I wake up in the morning is there is something really important I was supposed to remember.

Anyone out there relate?

Still not remembering what I had written down, I pulled it up on my phone. I read it several times, and I truly believe this is my personal mission statement. Before, had anyone asked me to write it in the next five minutes, I know this is not the one that would have landed on the page.

So – this is my mission.  Today my challenge is to open those deep places enough to let God’s love seep in. Whew – my heart has chambers that resemble dungeons.  I can’t imagine letting anyone in – the locked up parts that keep the sadness at bay – the words I keep behind those doors because they escape every so often. I hear them repeating their message of lies and worthlessness and the anger and meanness that have been hurled at me like arrows and spears over my lifetime. They hurt – bad.

But this I know:  God is big enough to change all that – as I am courageous and cautiously let Him take those powerful words – I am no longer a prisoner in those dungeons. The freedom Jesus talks about when He tells us to give Him our burdens is real.

So, as I learn to live my mission statement, I am also learning that God’s love brings with it grace, forgiveness, repentance, freedom and His peace. That is the greatest peace beyond anything we can imagine. His love is alive and flows in filling me up and like the receding tide, carries the bad and the ugly out. I become free to live my life in worship to Him full of His love.

The beautiful thing about mission statements is they are not permanent.  Even though ours for Mi Esperanza still applies to our organization, we did revise it.

Mi Esperanza works to break the cycle of poverty and create generational change by empowering Honduran women through educational, financial and spiritual development.

I love this and that the opportunity to revise and update applies to our personal mission statements as well.

“Lord, Please let each of us have the courage to ask You for our specific mission statements. Let us look to You – You have designed us with particular gifts and we know we are all different – that is the beauty of being such a glorious part of Your creation. Courage – to seek Your peace Lord. Take away the caution (and fear) that keeps You at arms length Lord. And, Lord, please take those arrows and spears I have hurled at others and remove them from their hearts. Forgive me for the hurt I have inflicted on others. Break open the doors to the dungeons deep inside me – release all I have imprisoned there – clean house in me Lord. Take even the cobwebs in the darkest corners. In Jesus’ precious name I pray – Amen.”