Where is your mission field?

Her name is Anna.

That is the only “other” thing I know about her. It is kinda sad really. We literally spent days together.We laughed, she watched me cry, she saw me pray, she watched me walk out when I just couldn’t take it anymore. She was always–there.

When alarms would sound or questions arise, she was the voice of calm during a very unnerving time.  Anna had never met my family. She had no knowledge of our history or our story. She was simply the nurse assigned to care for my mom. She was more than a medical professional tending to the needs of the sick, Anna was amazing. She knew just what to do, and just what to say in those long days sitting, simply waiting. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the most lonely places in the world is in a hospital room.

She would encourage me, teach me, and lead me back again to hope. When  doubt would begin to creep in, she knew at that moment how to chase it away. She would stay right beside me when I told her I was scared or simply find a few moments to just sit with my mother. She would say, “ I won’t leave her, I promise.”

She was entertained by our family stories when she knew we needed to laugh. She would listen as we recounted God’s faithfulness because she knew WE needed to hear it again–out loud. Oh, and she melted my daddy’s heart. She would tolerate his banter, and his sometimes seemingly stubbornness, just to pull me aside and tell me what a rare love we were in the presence of.  I said “other” thing, because I know this one thing about Anna. She is  more than, “Just  a nurse.”  She is a minister. She exemplified being “the hands and feet of Jesus.”

                My family was the mission field that week, and she was the missionary.

I have heard it all my life. I have even done it with gusto! We commission missionaries, we go on mission trips, we plan for projects in the name of the Great Commission–and I support it.  But, I think there is more to it.  When I look at the life of Jesus, the daily accounts are when the ministry took place.  It was in the “ordinariness” of his divinity that HE touched people.  We don’t see him going farther than about 40 miles from home, but when HE went, he was on purpose, and changed everything with his presence.

A life on mission. A different way to view each day with purpose. To wake up and look around at the world God has placed me in and ask myself this question:

“How can I bless another in such a way that they want hear about the Jesus I have found?”

I think they call it “lifestyle evangelism.”  I just call it real life, with a real Savior, serving real needs in the real world.  Anna “the nurse” has figured it out.  She is a missionary every single day.  She faces death and life, joy and pain as a representative of the Savior she has found.

What is your ministry?  Where is your “mission field”?