This post is long overdue. But I find myself in that place (again) trying to
figure out what I’m doing and where I’m going and funny enough....the answer
isn’t coming...and if you KNOW me well...you KNOW I don’t sit still well...in
the place of not knowing; without definition or purpose or meaning. I’m a
processor and rationalizer and I’m processing and rationalizing and I’m
continually coming up short. And if you know me well, you also know I don’t
make a next move till I’m sure....doesn’t mean it has to make sense....I just
have to be sure. And since I’ve been back home, it’s just been that. One tiny
step after another, trusting, and believing, and knowing that God has some crazy
plan cooking up, but not having any clue what that big picture looks like. I
just know, I’m in this weird waiting/preparation stage and I’m not getting
answers and thus, I’m stuck sitting. In the worst place....where you’re right
where you are supposed to be but it’s not really what’s next, and you don’t
really have a passion for where you are in the now, but you know God’s doing
something and you are here in this season for something and you can’t really go
backwards or forwards and so you just kinda sit there. helpless. Which, also,
if you know me, does NOT jive well. But it’s exactly where God wants and needs
me to be for the moment. (probably cause I, ummm, don’t listen so well, when I
can help myself...read blogs from last summer for more
explanation). Anyway, I’ve started this blog a thousand times in my head, but I
have no clue where it’s going to land, so I keep pressing the delete button.
But after this week, and this morning, and tonight, I figured I should. So I’ll
back up.....
Ever since coming home I always hear some of the same questions when people
find out I lived in Africa. And sometimes I can answer them...and sometimes, I
have no clue where to start and so I probably give the simple diluted answer
which suffices them enough, but is nowhere near the whole truth. One of these
questions is....how do you come back to this after seeing that/how has it
changed you? I hate this question. It’s usually asked in passing as if you can
answer...well, I used to love rice till I ate a bazillion bowels of it and now,
sometimes, can’t stand the sight of it...and then be done answering the
question. Riiiiight....and when people ask questions in passing, I always get
slightly irritated cause I’d rather them not ask at all. I know, it’s kinda
like the knee-jerk reaction people have after they hear you got in a wreck or
something...you have to ask something right or you’d be rude. So then I always
stand their taking a mental inventory on whether or not they are actually
asking cause they want to know or are they just being Southernly polite (which
btw annoys the heck out of me-read I hate the fake politeness just cause it’s
manners, but you could really care less attitude....I crave authenticity and
that just goes against it. completely....soap box over). Anyway...I’m sure
there was a point in there probably somewhere around somehow I’ve changed.
Outwardly, inwardly, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and well, as
someone said today....”you just can’t un-see that” One of the most (noticeable
to me) things is that I find it harder to connect to people than I ever did
before. Not my friends I’ve had before.....although, the more acquaintance
level ones are the first to fall away. It’s kinda funny too cause missions is
all about building relationships, but still, I find it harder than I ever did
before. I think it’s cause, to get to know someone (new) involves a fair amount
of simple chit chatting about nothing. And while I can do that with the best of
them....it’s the topics that I can’t always muster up enough excitement or words
to fill the space. Mainly in the arena of the latest trends, technology, the
over importance of having or doing or being most anything which I usually find
quite silly, or fashion, or celebrities, or even TV (not that I don’t watch, I
just don’t actually CARE what happens...cause you know-or maybe you’ve
forgotten-they aren’t REAL people). I don’t have a problem with you getting all
excited about it....I’m just NOT. And so, I find myself, saying no to certain
invites, or seeking out quiet corners, or just simply sitting there dreaming
about something else while the conversation goes on around me. I think it’s
cause my head and heart is filled with matters which, I’m pretty sure my God
would agree with me, are just slightly more pressing, more important, more
eternal. And I have this deep desire to do something about it and with urgency,
but well....did you read the beginning of this post? sigh.
Anyway, for the
first time in a long time, I found myself challenged at work. I attended a
delivery of a baby boy with a birth defect that is incompatible with life which
simply means, he’s safe and sound while he’s inside his momma, was born alive,
but the problem cannot be corrected, and he would die, soonish, because he can’t
survive on his own. I hate those...I feel helpless. The parents knew
beforehand, but you still can’t prepare for that and there’s not much we
(medically) can do so you’re just there...helpless to say or do anything that
can fix it. cause it can’t be fixed. Then I went back to helping a nurse all
night (cause this little dude required just that much attention) with a brand
new patient that would become my patient the following night. A sweet TINY
(read 1 lb except that was mostly the weight of the fluid his body couldn’t
get rid of) little boy that was also fighting for his life. And everything we
did made no difference. There was no winning in those shifts. Not us, not him,
not his parents. He was in pain and struggling. We could do nothing, and his
parents weren’t ready to accept the final outcome. And no amount of
anything helped anyone those nights. Which is when I stand there, outside those
dang plastic boxes, surrounded by tons of machinery and knowledge, and supplies
and medicine, and know the only thing that makes a bit of difference is the
prayer I’m offering up while I’m letting this tiny human wrap his entire hand
around half of my pinky (cause it’s too small to completely encircle it). My
head and heart turn to the eternalness of it all and honestly, I just try not to
cry (at least in those moments). Flash forward to this morning at church...the
worship leaders had lived in Africa for 6 months and returned about a
year before I left and were reflecting on processing everything when they
returned and figuring out how to somehow conjoin those lives. They shared a
verse God gave them during that time ("Stand
at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way
is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." from Jeremiah 6:16)
that melded so well with the scriptures we were corporately chewing over in Luke
about counting the cost to be His disciple; about being salt. But also meld
with exactly where I am...sitting at the crossroads with NO firm direction on
which path to take.
While working the other night, those two heart breaking nights, I had the
privilege of meeting an amazing young lady who I’ve heard a lot about in the
last almost 2 years, since I work with her aunt. I’ve been told we’re a lot
alike. And after reading THIS www.thedamascusroad.blogspot.com
(her blog) I recognized myself in her and it had me absolutely homesick. Not
for Africa...ok, well, a little...but I know that’s not the WHERE that I’m meant
to be right now....no, it had me heartsick for the eternal. The home that’s set
in my heart, the one I long to see a bit of on this earth through the hands and
feet of Christians following their hearts and serving Him in the place He’s put
them; men and women that have counted the cost and are following Him anyway.
The eternal, which is the only way to make sense of the injustice and hurt in
this temporary place some of us have settled for as our permanent heart
home.
In just 3 weeks, I’ll have been back here in the States for 2 years. I
pray I never grow complacent, for a heart that remains pliable and continues to
break at the sights that I see daily on my way into and out of my neighborhood,
or that I never become okay with being safe and comfortable with the familiar,
the routine, or stuck in this box where everything makes sense and is ordered
and easy. I pray my soul will not grow weary of doing good, of striving in
often fruitless times. That all this will continue to drive my passions and
stir my heart and move me to....well, move. Cause, I know it’s not what we were
created for. We were created to live outside ourselves, in a way that cannot
actually work apart from Him, but always to be stretched, and growing, and
pressing in to Him. To serve. I think I’m afraid I’m going to somehow forget as
the memories grow a bit fuzzier. That somehow this will all seem completely
normal again....worse? That there’s nothing to be done to make a difference.
So.....that’s where I’ve been these past months. Sitting. Waiting. Praying.
And trying to process in the quiet and the still. Which, I’m quite certain, is
just what I need....Oh how my Heavenly Father knows me. Praise God for
that!
This song pretty much sums it up..... http://youtu.be/shMpobVFTiU
