The Lollipop Story

In July of 2012, I was on my first mission trip, a Cru Summer Project in Durban, South Africa. We spent the month doing the typical things you think of when you hear “Mission trip in Africa.” We had a soup kitchen, ran a VBS, picked up trash, did some door to door evangelizing, painted an AIDS hospice, and did some more evangelizing and discipleship on a college campus with fellow University students. Everything was great, and God was opening my eyes to some pretty great things. But my whole life changed when I met a girl eating a lollipop.

It was halfway through our trip when we visited a preschool in a township to play with some kids. After playing on the swings for a bit, I settled down on the side of a hill to watch some of the other kids play. A few three year olds fought over playing with my hair, while another little girl snuggled her way onto my lap while eating a red lollipop.

All of the other kids were jealous of her prize; she let them have a taste if they persisted long enough in trying to yank it out of her mouth. At one point, one of the other kids dropped it in the sand. No worries, saliva wiped the sand right off, and the crisis was averted as she put the lollypop back in her mouth.

A few seconds later, she turned around to look up at me. She took the lollipop out of her mouth and offered it to me. I shook my head no and smiled. I couldn’t help but laugh as she turned back around. Why would I want a dirt and spit covered lollipop? How gross!

“That’s what I think of your good works, Courtney.”

It was clear as day, that it stopped my laughing and I asked God to repeat it. As in, “I’m sorry God. I couldn’t hear you over my deafening pride.”

“That’s what I think of your good works, Courtney.”

My good works? As in my loving orphans in Africa? Or the way I read my Bible in my dorm room at night so you notice me? Or how I never let people know when they drive me crazy? Or how I obey you after arguing with you only a couple of times? How could that be as gross to you as a dirty lollipop is to me?

I looked back at the little girl cuddled in my lap. I snuggled her back as she kept enjoying her treat. She offered me the lollipop again and again, I smiled and said no.

“Those things you do, are for you, not for me.”

You see a little girl offering me her prized treat is a wonderful honor, but the second she things I would rather have her lollipop than her is when the honor turns to heart breaking. The second she believes that she has to earn the right for my lap is the second she stops accepting my love. And the moment she believes I want anything from her besides her presence, is the moment she loses understanding of the whole thing.

And that’s exactly what I do.

I spent 19 years believing that God wanted something from me besides me. I tried to earn his love, acceptance, and presence which meant I had actually been refusing it the whole time. God wants me to sit in his lap. Yes, he has things he wants for me, good works that he has prepared for me to do. But he wants me to do those things and enjoy doing those things with him, not to get to him. 

It took me 19 years, a trip to Africa, and a little girl with a lollipop for me to finally understand what Grace is. 

Fast forward to today. Today, I’m working with Adventures in Missions, the same organization that sent me around the world for 11 months to love God’s people and experience him in 11 different cultures. I’m a Mobilizer, which basically means I get to help equip, mentor, coach, and mobilize missionaries. The other thing about these missionaries, they are 18-22 year olds.

I love missions, but I love more what God does with a willing heart that says yes to whatever and wherever he calls. I believe that there is just something about being taken out of our normal life and the normal way we experience and think about God where God can show us things we’ve spent our entire lives missing. It was during that time I first understood Grace.

And now, I get to be part of sending the next generation of missionaries into the Nations. I’m so excited for what they are going to learn and the good they are going to do. It’s crazy to think how something that happen four years ago is the exact reason for what’s happening today.