hidden

      My name is Aaron Lawson, born on Sep. the 2nd, 1984 as the 4th child of a family who would eventually grow to 8 children (5 ladies, 3 guys).

      My parents were young in their faith in Jesus but passionate to serve Him. Dad was the principle of a christian school, while Mom took care of the bustling house. We lived out in the country on a 40 acre farm near Warrensburg, Mo.

      I grew up in and around church, as my dad ministered both in a local church as pastor and then later as a traveling preacher. Mom was always a quiet reminder of the peace that is found in surrender to Jesus. We all grew up listening to stories, hearing testimonies, being preached to, watching God move in / on other people. We even participated on different occasions. Having been the preacher’s kid, it was expected that I would do something great for God, and I had always voiced the idea of one day becoming a missionary to Africa.

       I  entered my teens on a mission trip. We had gone to Ciudad Juarez, MX to encourage some of the ministries just over the border. My older sister (Faith) had a real heart for the Latin American people so Dad took her and me along for that trip. It would be my first but not last taste of the foreign fields. I turned 13 the second day over the border.

      Most of you know how sometimes a person just wants to be different than the rest, recognized for their own individuality. I was no exception to that rule and since Faith wanted to be a missionary to south/central America I never even contemplated spending any real time there! 

      As time rolled on and we went to more and more places, people were always asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up (I think that is the most irritating question that can be posed to someone at a time of life when they don’t even know who they are let alone what they want to become!) so I always told them I would be a missionary. It sounded real good, made people think nice

things about me and kept them from asking too many questions about my life. I’ve always been reserved about revealing too much of myself to just anyone (so much for that now) so telling folks I was going to go do mighty things and making it appear that I had it together, I knew where I was going in life, I had purpose… it was a real handy facade I had constructed that kept who I really was hidden. I didn’t want people to think less of my dad or family just because I had doubts about the Lord, or that I wasn’t sure He was even something I wanted as a part of who I was.

     At 16 I took my GED and put high school behind me. I was working part time with my dad doing odd jobs in commercial construction and then I began to branch out on my own with residential construction. I helped my brother start his upholstery business in our bedroom in mom and dad’s basement. Life was busy and I was finding out that growing up was a lot more difficult than I cared for it to be.

     Having been exposed to many different cultures and people growing up, it was fairly easy to see myself in a foreign land… and what better way of getting away from everything than to skip country? I went with a group of my dad’s friends to Bulgaria for 10 days when I was 17. I decided on the plane ride home that my time had been a complete waste of hard earned money and that to show everyone how it was really done I would go back for a year by myself. So I worked hard and scraped together some money, getting ready to move on with my life free of everyone who knew me and all the expectations I had built in them of myself.  Then my dad whom I loved more than anyone else fell and broke his hip, his femur, and his knee. He was the sole bread winner of our family and he was completely unable to function without assistance. For 6 weeks I helped him in and out of a hospital bed I put in his room, back and forth to the restroom, from one position to another more comfortable position. I heard his screams of agony, saw him sweat from pain, but never did I see him question his God. It was his confidence in Jesus through extreme circumstances that impacted me more than all the other things including miracles I had witnessed growing up.

      Bulgaria received a totally different young man the second time I went. I had been humbled by the past months of living in such close proximity with the faith of my parents in the face of trouble as I struggled to maintain some level of normalcy for my siblings. 

      I spent the first 3 months in Bulgaria before the Lord asking him to make himself real to me. I didn’t want to serve a God I didn’t really know, or one I didn’t know for myself. I did not want to be another person aimlessly sucking air. I wanted true purpose. I wanted my relationship with God to be my own and built on my own interactions with Him.

      One night I stood looking into a mirror at who I was and searching my heart. I felt like such a hypocrite. Nothing I had preached to other people as the Gospel was making any real changes in my own soul. I vowed right then and there that I would never preach or teach or pray for anyone, I would not try to be a christian any longer. I wanted nothing more of this Jesus who couldn’t even make me feel alive when I was out doing all these great and wonderful things for him. As I stood there empty and broken, the presence of Jesus came into my room. My eyes clouded over as all the things I had kept hidden from everyone I had ever known were brought front and center and then I felt Him forgive me. Really forgive me.

     Fast forwarding through the next several months found me and my sister Faith deep in the heart of Mexico coming alongside a man I barely knew who had said he wanted to start a church in his Rancho. Faith was my translator for the 6 weeks she was able to accompany me, after that I was on my own. 7 months of headaches were mine before mastering the language… then my life got turned upside down yet again…. The Lord blessed me with the woman of my dreams. We were married in 2004 and spent the next 2 1/2 years pastoring a mission church in south / central Mexico.

      I could share for hours and type page after page of testimonies that we have witnessed God’s hand accomplish, yet at the end of our time in Mx, I had again begun to falter. The strain of responsibility and the stress of living in the unknown constantly had gotten to me. I had taken on myself the responsibility of leading those around me to Christ and my shortcomings in that area left me empty and exasperated.

      The Lord in His mercy sat me down and began to teach me, slowly at first then more aggressively, of who He is. I had spent years trying to impress people and God with my good works, integrity, and a whole gamut of other worthless ideals in my flesh, but my greatest fear was that God might really use me and I would screw up making a fool out of the gospel like I had seen so many others do before.

      Jesus has brought me into a place of desire for His Presence. Of hunger for His words. Of need for His guidance. And I am no longer afraid of being used by Him.

 

                                As I stand in the shadow of Jesus, no one will see me.

                                                       I am hidden.

 

     So I no longer have to deceive people into thinking I am something I am not as i did in my teens. I don’t have to worry about screwing up, or saying the wrong thing. I am free to be who He wants me to be without shame or contention within myself. I was able to put my own ambitions and dreams aside to fulfill my true destiny.

 

 Funny thing is, I am going to Africa as a missionary!