-
when we’ve come undone
can i just be brutally, completely, in-your-face honest with you for a minute? this whole being a missionary thing is no joke. it is hard, you guys. really hard. and there are some days where i would rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but this. some days, i feel so totally, completely done. depleted. empty.
i’m having one of those days. only this day has gone on for the past three weeks. i’ve been struggling–a lot. i’m tired, more than tired, really. i’m lonely. i’m homesick. i’m over the heat, the sweating, the sleepless nights, the fatigue that follows me day in and day out. i don’t feel like myself. i worry i have nothing more in me to give. i know that i only have a few months left and yet, somehow, those few months seems like they’re years away.
i don’t tell you this to play some sort of sympathy card; i’m not looking for pats on the back or pity of any kind. i’m sharing this because i want to show the world that all of us, every single one of us, even (and perhaps especially) those of us in ministry–we have a bad day once in a while. or a bad week. maybe even a bad year. whatever; it happens. it doesn’t mean we are weak. it doesn’t mean we’re failures. it doesn’t mean we’re not spiritual enough, not depending on God enough, or that we don’t have enough faith. it means we’re human. it means we have hearts and souls, and they’re messy and sometimes maybe we come undone.
and it is there that i find myself, in that undone place, where i don’t have the answers and i don’t know how to get out of this and it hurts, but i keep hearing the whisper telling me to just hang in, hang on. and i try, and i fail, and i collapse in a puddle of tears and disappointment and somehow, i get back up again. i’m in that place where words fail me, where my language has become the deep groanings of the heart, and yet i know that even those are some sacred prayer, a holy utterance.
i have come undone, and instead of hiding away all the broken pieces, i’m letting you see them.
i have come undone, and instead of attempting to explain it all away, i’m sitting down in the aftermath.
i have come undone, and i’m talking about it.because perhaps you too know this feeling, know it well, and you wonder if anyone else in the world understands. perhaps no one has ever given you the permission to have a bad day. perhaps you’re stopping yourself from falling apart because you’re afraid that you’ll be too broken to ever be put back together.
i get it. i really do. but may i suggest that, though it may feel like it, you will not be undone forever? i know right now you may not be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and, to be honest, neither can i. but our limited vision doesn’t change the Light’s existence; that i can promise you.
be gentle with yourself, and remember: you are human. you are beautifully flawed, and that is the mystery of your heart and soul and flesh and bones. if you’re having a bad day, it’s okay. if you’re falling apart or breaking down, it’s okay. i promise you; it really is.
you, dear one, will not be undone forever. and neither will i.
because if there’s one thing i’ve learned about Jesus, it’s that he loves to stitch things back together. -
eat the mystery
a few weeks back, i found myself re-reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. Spirit-filled and poetic, her words were like water for my thirsty soul.
and recently, i find myself going back to a particular passage, one i have underlined in ink and even copied into the pages of my own journal::
“when we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna. for forty long years, God’s people daily eat manna–a substance whose name literally means ‘what is it?’ hungry, they choose to gather up that which is baffling. they fill on that which has no meaning. more than 14,600 days they take their daily nourishment from that which they don’t comprehend. they find soul-filling in the inexplicable. they eat the mystery…and it is ‘like wafers of honey’ on the lips.” (page 22)
they eat the mystery. they choose to trust even when they do not understand. they open their mouths and let Him fill them with what He sees fit.
oh, that my faith were as deep! i so often resent the mystery because it doesn’t fit into my neat little boxes. i strain to understand and, if i cannot, i push it aside, choosing to gobble up instead that which i can explain–even though i know it will not satisfy.
but what if i welcome the mystery? what if i stop asking why and how and when and instead let Him fill me?
i may not always understand that which God gives me. i may not be able to explain ache and the pain, the longing, the discontent. i may not have answers for the things i have seen and experienced and walked through.but if i trust that He is good, i can trust that what comes from His hand is as well. if i choose to see His goodness and His grace instead of the circumstance or feeling, i too could eat the mystery. and it shall taste sweet.
in the book of Ezekiel, God gives him the mystery, feeds him the manna::
then i looked, and i saw a hand stretched out to me. in it was a scroll, which he unrolled before me. on both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.
and he said to me, “son of man, eat what is before you…” (2:9 – 3:1)Ezekiel’s manna came in the form of a scroll. it took on the shape of lament and mourning and woe. and God still asked him to eat of it.
so i ate it, and it tasted sweet as honey in my mouth. (3:3)
Ezekiel trusted that God was good, and so he decided that what came from Him was good as well. even a scroll filled with sorrow.
Ezekiel chose to eat the mystery, digest what he did not understand.
and God made it good.so much of this life is mystery. we walk through days and circumstance and emotion, and some of it hurts, and we cry out “why, Lord, why?”
and though i believe He has compassion, and He understands our human hearts,
i also believe there are times when the only answer He gives is to hold out His hand, offering us the scroll, the manna, that which seems to make no sense.and if we listen closely, i believe we will hear Him saying, “eat the mystery, child. trust me. i make all things good.“
-
when there are no more words
as my time in Liberia comes to a close, i look back and reflect and remember. i know people back home are going to ask questions. they’re going to want stories, want to hear of my life for the past six months.
the problem is::
for the first time in a long time,
i don’t have words.maybe i haven’t fully processed all i’ve seen and heard and felt here yet. maybe once i do, the words will come.
or maybe some things are simply so full of raw…feeling that they exist outside of language.
i don’t have words to speak of grieving families who have lost loved ones too soon.
i don’t have words to speak of fear that grips in the middle of the night when you realize your neighbors are being robbed.
i don’t have words to speak of lifeless bodies in the aftermath of a car accident, bloody and broken on the road.
i don’t have words to speak of how guilty it feels to have a full stomach when so many around you go hungry.
i don’t have words to speak of children starved of affection, desperate for human contact.
i don’t have words to speak of a crippled man sleeping in the garbage and the dust, abandoned and left to die.
i don’t have words to speak of the vacant look in a child’s eye who is merely existing and doesn’t know how to thrive.
i don’t have words to speak of thirteen year old girls raped by men in their twenties.
i don’t have words for the silenced voices of so many children who have been told they’re worthless and that they don’t matter.
i don’t have words for the dozens of amputees wandering the streets, victims of a war that is over, and yet they still bear the scars.
i don’t have words for being sick in bed with malaria while at the same time realizing how many lives have been lost from the same illness–simply because they didn’t have access to the medicine.
i don’t have words to speak of children laid out on a table to be whipped or pushed up against a wall to be hit.
i don’t have words for little girls literally starving, for bony shoulders and skinny legs and how frail they feel when you hold them.
i don’t have words for an education system that has failed so many of its children, for fifteen year-olds in the fourth grade or a second grade student who can’t even write the alphabet.
i don’t have words.
i have a heart that bleeds
and tears that fall
and knots in my stomach
and hands that wring.but more than that,
i have hope.because while this place can be filled
with pain and poverty and sorrow,
i have also seen::
seen that Jesus lives here.i’ve seen Him in the prayers of a mother for her children.
i’ve seen Him in the grateful look in a dying man’s eyes.
i’ve seen Him in the healing of kids who were once frighteningly sick.
i’ve seen Him in the sheer joy of the Church praising Him.
i’ve seen Him in kind eyes and warm handshakes.
i’ve seen Him in a nation full of people looking forward to brighter tomorrows.
i’ve seen Him in students who realize they’ve been given a chance, who start dreaming for their futures.
i’ve seen Him in the whispered prayer of a teenage girl who has begun to recognize her value.
i’ve seen Him in blazing sunsets and soft sunrises, in blue sky meeting green tree meeting red earth.
i’ve seen Him in children who cling to the leg, rest heads on the shoulder, intertwine fingers with mine.
i’ve seen Him in the faces of little boys and girls who finally understand that they are loved.
i’ve seen Him in the dreams of those who want to grow up and transform their country.
i’ve seen Him in the innocence and excitement of children who, for once, are just allowed to be children.
i’ve seen Him in unity and brotherhood and acceptance.
i’ve seen Him.
i don’t have words::
but i have seen.and because of that,
i have a heart that hopes
and eyes that look up
and a growing faith
and a tongue to encourage.it is in the ugly that i have found the beautiful.
it is in despair that i have found strength.
it is in the hard places that i have found new life.i don’t have words,
but Jesus is here.and so i know that one day,
somehow,
(because of He and not i)
everything is going to be alright.