Dancing with Jesus

I've written about singleness a few times (here and here), all of them being while I was Stateside. And, while it is a big struggle for me there, it pales in comparison to what I face when I live overseas! I get asked countless times how old I am, why I am not married, or get hit on by creepy men. I'm normally surrounded by cultures where it's unheard of to be this age and single... not to mention childless! But the real difficulty is found in my own heart: alone-ness is amplified, the desire to be fully known, listened to, and have someone to just share life with increases as I feel overwhelmed, and every night I collapse into bed simply desiring to be held. Lots of tears have been shed through the years, as I've laid my head alone on countless pillows in various countries!

I don't know that words can fully depict how hard this trip has been emotionally. A small evidence of this is that it normally takes a lot for me to cry- it's like a damn breaking oftentimes. This past month I've been crying multiple times a day! So, as you can imagine, correspondingly, the desire for a lifelong friend and partner has revved up.

Yesterday, as tears cascaded down my cheeks yet again, I poured out my heart to God about this pain. As I closed my eyes, this small scene from the movie Gladiator played out in my mind:

Granted, it wasn't fully like this, because I wasn't dying, but it was Jesus waiting for me down the path, beckoning me to run to Him. I was in a white dress, my hair flowing freely in the breeze, and laughter flowing off my lips. It was as if, in this moment, all my needs that had felt neglected for so long were satisfied. And all day long, as I saw pictures of relatives who'd been blown apart by bombs or tried to communicate love without the use of a language, whenever I closed my eyes, there He was. Eager to hold me, to remind me of Truth, to run with me... I can't explain it, but it was the essence of joy and peace in the midst of pain and chaos!

This morning I turned to Zephaniah 3 and read the sweetest thing of all: "The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst... The LORD your God is in your midst..." What beauty! And it doesn't stop there: "He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing..." I don't know or understand why He delights in doing any of those things- I know the ugliness of me. But I'm so grateful He does! And, in light of the people I'm seeking to serve right now, it brings such sweet joy to continue on reading and see: "And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth." He doesn't just invite me to the abundant life of being with Him, He's drawing others to do the same through them seeing my life and story!

God, help us to be a people who use even the worst suffering and unmet desires to draw others to Your Name!

Deep Pain

Many of my blogs are written riding on the curtails of my raw emotions. Sorrow, anger, joy, angst, etc. But the truth is as I sit here tonight, I don't know fully what to say, how to express the well of feelings raging inside me right now. To sit next to multiple people in a day's time and have them show you pictures of their family members who've been blown apart by bombs. To listen as they tell you the story of how yet another person close to them was killed violently. To see how their homes have gone from beauty to indescribable destruction. To feel such immense sympathy and massive inadequacy at the same time that no words can be formed that seem relevant to be uttered. To know story after story of hopelessness, but fighting to still enter in and feel each thing they describe, because it's their life and indeed all they have left in this world. 

The people I encounter day after day have been thrust from a world of often comfort and even luxury to a horrific world of day-to-day survival. Sometimes our visiting them is the only thing that allows them to surface back to a bit of normalcy. Serving their guests tea, sharing stories, laughter, and tears with another who cares, and knowing that they will be back in a few days- not abandoning them like everyone else has (willingly or unwillingly). 

Today, as I was leaving one of our families, she held my hand and tried to describe in broken English how special it was that I visit and that when I leave her to go back to The States, she's going to be heartbroken. I know I am to, but it doesn't compare to her. She bears deep pain in her eyes that, though I've suffered some in my lifetime, I can't even slightly comprehend. I have less than two more months here, and truth be told, I don't know how I'm going to leave... So tonight I just sit here and weep, trying my best to enter into their pain, but knowing it can't compare. This post has no tidy ending- just raw pain that needs to be expressed!

Walking In Their Shoes- Part Two

A continuation of the story I've written attempting to depict the life of someone thrust into the status of 'refugee' in such a way that others around the world can relate. Read the beginning here.

The sweltering, stagnant air inside the tent seemed to seep into the pores of your skin and slowly strangle the life out of your heart as you lay silently on the ground next to your family. Trying to keep still as what felt like a million thoughts assaulted your mind, knowing that even the slightest movement could awaken your exhausted child who'd just spent an hour crying himself to sleep. Tired wasn't the right word to describe your current state. Tired was bypassed months ago. No, soul crushing weariness had taken over your being as you attempted the impossible task of simply keeping your family alive in the various refugee camps you'd been rotated through. Hours filled with the merciless sun beating down, days filled with endless growling stomachs, weeks filled with unknown illnesses due to improper nutrition and hygiene, and months filled with no answers, movement forward, or even a slight glimmer of hope. Despair floated from your being in the form of a long sigh as you closed your eyes against the blackness surrounding your tent and life.

The 4:00AM dawning of the day came all too soon as light boldly crept into all corners of the tent. Soon various needs were expressed from all the children, mostly unvoiced, as they'd learned there was nothing you possessed to help. Tears, unconscious scratching, hacking coughs, and rumbly stomach noises filled the quiet. A short distance away, in another privacy-less dwelling place another family began their day with fighting and strong words. Surveying your comparatively peaceful family, a small amount of gratitude flickered in you. Suddenly the indescribable ache rose up once again inside, almost suffocating you this time: "They are good kids! They have amazing potential. They deserve better! What hope do they have? How can I rescue them from this? I've failed them..." Jerking your eyes closed in an effort to silence those thoughts before they rendered you paralyzed to be what they were needing you to be today, you tiredly ran a hand through your hair and remembered what was on the agenda for today. The only thing on the agenda for today: finding a way to wash everyone's hair. In what felt like a lifetime ago, this would've been a simple evening chore that was quickly finished. Now, with no running water access nearby and mobs of people always surrounding the water truck, it was nearly impossible to clean anything more than your hands. You'd always prided yourself in being a kind, good person, but now, in order to help your family survive, you had to push and fight for merely the right to be human. If it was just you, it wouldn't be worth it, but one look at the state of your children, and your heart mustered enough strength to get dressed.

Once you arrived back at the tent, trying to block out the person you just had to be to simply get this small bucket of water, you began the long process of creating a wall of privacy for everyone. This meant blocking the small amount of wind circulating, which felt tortuous, but what else could be done? One by one everyone sponged off and dipped their hair into the small bucket that was slowly looking less and less like water and more and more like mud. Your oldest child unfairly had to go last, for fear of spreading the horrific, unknown, never-going-away rash to another. Though a far cry from being sanitary, it did feel good to be cleaner than you all were before. Quickly the rigged up privacy barrier was removed and life returned back to the incessant project of trying to capture the most air movement inside the tent. With nothing to do but sit and stare at one another, even silly things like this became all-day-consuming undertakings. In between moving one flap and shifting everyone around, your mind flashed back to when life had more meaning. Your existence had more meaning. There was work, there was school, there was cooking, there were holidays and family, there was travel, and there was even paying the bills. Things that seemed to validate your humanity. Now there was this: absolute nothingness. It was what filled your day yesterday, it was filling up today, and you could count on it being there to meet you tomorrow. The only consistent thing to be done was sending someone to go meet the food truck that came sometime every morning, afternoon, and evening. It was called food, but honestly you'd never seen or tasted stuff such as these items in all your years. Nonetheless, it was all you had, so what choice was there but to consume it and hope it kept you all alive until you could leave this life-sucking place.

Part Three shall be coming soon :)

Walking In Their Shoes- Part One

I'd like to take you on a trip, you know the sort that your elementary school teacher would invite you along on as you closed your eyes and practiced imagining things. Let's imagine together!

It's late one evening, you find yourself collapsed upon the couch, exhausted from a long day. Your family surrounds you, playing, talking, eating, and just enjoying being together. All the sudden a horrific sound splits open the sky and pulses the ground beneath you. Screams fill the room and outdoors, as your family rushes to grab hold of one another. Huddling together on the floor, the children begin weeping as the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun cascades down through the open windows. All too quickly there is a sharp beating upon the door, followed by loud commands. Slowly you rise up to gingerly peek through the cracked door. What follows next becomes a blur in your memory during the next months. All you can recall is being hurled across the room as the door is slammed into being fully opened. Strong words, commands you can't believe, and slowly watching everything you have ever known as yours being burned from your sight and life. Forced to flee for your lives, you find yourselves on your brother's doorstep in another city. Fear fills his face as you see him quickly steal a glance around the curtain next to the door. Relief floods through his features as he sees who it is. The horrific news cannot be refrained as he opens the door and utters the words that continue to haunt your heart. The bombs that constantly fall day and night in your country are not merciful or just. The strength he's had to masquerade behind for days crumbles and sobs break the silence. His family, save his littlest daughter, is all gone. Your own flesh and blood gone, in a flash of light and sound. The only visible remnant of the event is borne upon your niece's body, as shrapnel mangled her flesh, and in her vacant eyes as she trembles silently in the corner, oblivious to all around her. What hope is left for your family? For your people? For this land? Three different armies are rumored to be marching toward this place. What else is to be done but empty your bank account and steal away in the night?

Quietly and quickly your family tries to cross over into the neighboring country in the stillness of night a few days later. The ever watching border patrol is not kind or even humane, often taking the lives of those who sought to do what you are about to attempt. Through some random luck, a call comes through the radio, beckoning all hands on deck for a crisis in another part of the area. Silently you grab every hand you can hold and make a break for the distant lights of a village that represents freedom. Tired, thirsty, and beyond hungry, you noiselessly plod along the rural roads, unsure of where you even are anymore. Days merge into weeks as mere survival becomes the lens through which life is encountered. Finally you all are able to locate a eclectic gathering of people speaking your language and fleeing the same war. Talk spreads quickly in such circumstances, and it doesn't take long to hear of what seems like your only shot at hope: being smuggled far away from here. The cost is your entire life savings, but what choice do you have as you look from face to face of your weary family?

After a few days of rest, you start the long journey to the other side, where good conditions and satisfaction have been promised and even guaranteed. Night after night, you sink to the ground, masking your growling stomach, bleeding feet, bloodshot eyes, and aching body with a smile, softly singing your heavy-ladened children to sleep. Small sobs unconsciously ripple from your smallest's body as she collapses in exhaustion. Will you all ever arrive there alive?

After nearly a month of traveling, you finally make it to the coast where your smuggler has promised the embodiment of hope in a raft that will safely carry you all the way to freedom. But what you find awaiting on the shore isn't any of the agreed upon things. Instead of 40 people to ride along with you, there are a staggering number of 70 waiting along the shoreline for the raft to come. Children wail in unspoken fear, while the adults express inabilities to swim, the life vests that are filled with rubbish instead of foam, and what could lay ahead. After everyone is forcibly shoved onto the boat, the smuggler then announces that he will not be traveling along to navigate, but suddenly designates the nearest man as the captain of the vessel. With no time for anyone to digest this information, he shoves the raft filled with panic-stricken people into the cold waters. Silently he turns and walks off, without a look behind to the people who just made him $60,000 for doing nearly nothing. Knowing that this boat will sink without everyone working together, you try to help the fear-filled captain with seeing around the mass of people. The crashing waves seem endless as the wind picks up on what was once a clear night when you set out. Fear erupts through the entire boat as you are all nearly capsized. As people shift and squirm, you quickly pull out a small baby that has lost its mother and is nearly trampled beneath the mass of humanity above it. Holding on for dear life to this child and your own children, you begin to pray that nothing is lurking out in the dark, unable to be seen as the moon's light vanishes behind yet another cloud. Minutes stretch on into hours, as suddenly a loud sound fills the air as wave upon wave finds another object to crash against. Though you've never been out on the sea, dread fills your heart as you instinctively know this is the sound of water pounding against rocks. Without an act of God, this group would all drown!

Breaking through screams and splashes, a welcome voice is heard nearby shouting in a strange language that they are there to help. In an instant the boat collides into a massive rock and begins to lose its buoyancy quickly. Strong hands start pulling the baby from your arms. Under normal circumstances you would never let go of her, but knowing your own helplessness in this moment, you attempt to shove your own children towards more waiting hands. Land, a dry blanket, food, and warm smiles greet you all as you make it ashore. The relief is short lived as news passes around of how borders have just been closed yesterday, and decisions have been made that will force your family into a holding pattern. The fear that filled your heart as you watched your family being tossed about on the sea returns tenfold into the pit of your stomach. The culmination of all the stress of the last month boils over as hot tears fill your eyes. What now? Where can you go? Caught in the middle of war and rejection, what options could possibly lay before you now?

This is part one of what I hope is a glimpse into the very real pain and struggle thousands of displaced people in this world are currently facing. It is no one's story; rather a compilation of the various pictures I've had painted for me these past months. I hope you can put yourself into their shoes. The passport you own isn't deserved by you anymore than they deserve to be victims of a horrific war. Enter into their story, because, but for an act of mercy from God, it could be yours.