Journey to Joy

I feel pretty bubbly and happy these days.  I love my job, I love the people I work and rub shoulders with, and I just. love. being here.

 

...And it hasn't even been two months.  No other move or transition in my life has ever felt this way.  Ever.  I've been trying to process what's made the difference.

 

From the outside looking in, I could see people going, "Well, of course you're happy.  This is a much easier place to be then Africa."  Or, "Maybe that just wasn't a good fit for you.  Now that you've found where you belong, you're happy.”

 

I've thought about that a lot.

 

Was I outside of God's will before?  Is it just easier to be happy when things feel more comfortable?

 

Honestly, I think the difference has to do less with the situations themselves and more with what God has done in my life over the last couple years.

 

He's shown me the importance of having a thankful heart.  I wouldn't have necessarily considered myself an unthankful or complaining person, but when life in West Africa (or anywhere else) was difficult, my default response was not necessarily thankfulness.  I was challenged to take "The Joy Dare" and daily list three things I wanted to thank the Lord for.  Sometimes it was easy.  Sometimes it felt hard, even hypocritical, and my journal sat untouched for weeks at a time.  But...I kept coming back to it.  And a slow, almost imperceptible difference began to grow.  The discipline of giving thanks was the tool that God used to change my heart and fill it with more joy.

 

Also, with each life experience, I've been able to see His faithfulness more and more clearly.  He's shown me how good He is, how much He loves me, how He never makes mistakes, how He always keeps His promises.  Do I still struggle to trust Him sometimes?  Absolutely.  But there is less fear of the future, of the unknown, than there used to be.  More contentment to simply be where He has me in the moment.  He's used difficulties and things I don't understand to help me grow time and time again.  That gives me confidence to face the future, knowing He's going to do the same no matter where this path takes me.

 

So yes, I do feel happy to be here.  The warm, bubbly feelings may come and go; I realize that.  But my prayer is that I'll remember the lessons He's taught me so far and that He'll keep helping me grow in thankfulness, trust, and joy.

To Unlikely Friendship

A friend of my grandma's in high school...who lives in a state I've never been to...whom my grandpa "randomly" suggested I send my newsletter to a couple years ago.

Seems an unlikely friendship, doesn't it?

But it's been the coolest thing.

We talk about family and books and following Jesus.  She prays with me.  She's a listening ear when I need to talk something through.  She points me to truth every. single. time.

I never imagined this randomly-started relationship would prove to be such an encouragement or important shaping factor in my life and journey over the last couple years.  But God did.

Nor has this been the only time.  Like the new girl I was assigned to clean with at MTC, who quickly became one of my closest friends of all time.  She's seen my good, bad, and ugly.  She talks sense into me when I freak out and forget Who this is all about.  She understands me better, I think, than probably anyone outside my mom.  And it all started with scrubbing toilets and showers together. :)

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Here's to unexpected friendships and all the other blessings God surprises us with!

The One Who Matters

This song has been playing a lot lately and it's really made me pause and look at my heart.  Is Jesus truly the only One who matters to me?  Is it really only His favor I'm interested in?  His approval I live for?

Oh, I'll pay lip service to all that, but I know in my heart that I have a lot of growing to do in that area.

Sometimes I obey the Lord but worry about how it will look to other people.  I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to explain things so they know I am really seeking the Lord about fill-in-the-blank.  I get easily overwhelmed by others' expectations of me...or what I think are others' expectations.  It's both stressful and foolish.

How much better would it be if I talked to the Lord about it all instead of trying to manage others' opinions of me?  How much simpler if I focused squarely on Him and not my reputation?  My identity is in Christ alone.  I have God's favor entirely because I am His child.  Nothing else.  I want to live like that's true.

Pray with me about that, would you?

Setting the Solitary

It's one of those cool little promises tucked into an obscure verse in Psalms.

"He sets the solitary in families..." (Psalm 68:6)

So perhaps solitary sounds a bit melodramatic.  I may be single, but I wouldn't ever describe myself as solitary.  Some versions use the word lonely, and I don't know that I can really own that word either.  But the idea is people who aren't attached to a family.  And that, at least, I can relate to.

I think about all the places I've lived away from my parents' home, and you know what?  In each place there was a family (or families) who more or less adopted me.  It's great to have friends...but there's just something really special about being part of someone's family.  Being in their home regularly.  Being part of their family celebrations - especially holidays (it's always a hard time to be away from home).  Being auntie to their kids.  Not feeling like a guest or an interruption, but a normal part of life.

When I was in E2, for example, I had an absolutely incredible host family.  Julien and Angèle welcomed me in and treated me in every way as if I were part of their family.  As a member of their family, I had a sense of security, of belonging, an identity from which to relate to the rest of the community.  I had a home, a place to go and crash after a long day. I had people who knew me, accepted me, and loved me, people I could be real with and who would be real with me.  It's all such a gift.

...And I could say similar things about the other places I've been.  Whenever I have been away from my blood-relatives, God has placed me in a family.

It just makes my heart so happy and so thankful for how He keeps His promises.

The Unmaking of a Linguist

The French tapes played and I sat at my desk, pen poised and ready.  I wasn't interested in learning French back then - I was just fascinated by language and wanted to try my hand (and my ears) at creating an alphabet.  Phonemic analysis just for fun?  That's right.  A linguist in the making, clearly.

It was a long-held dream of mine: to be the linguist on a team in an unreached people group.  I went into training with the idea that one day, I'd be doing just that.  Our first semester we took a test to gauge our linguistic aptitude and help us decide whether to stay for a semester of extra linguistic training after graduation.

That test was so. much. fun.  Everything clicked and I breezed through in half the time allotted.

When I got the test back graded, I'd made only one mistake.  One mistake.  Literally the smallest mistake possible.  Like glanced-one-column-to-the-right-and-wrote-a-single-letter-wrong.

So close to perfect.

No one could deny this was how my brain was wired, that this was my calling.

At least it seemed that way.

The summer after graduation, I came back to take that semester of linguistics.  It wasn't too long into the class that I started feeling like I was in completely over my head.  My intuition didn't seem to be carrying me as far as I thought it should based on the test or previous exposure to the material.  The homework took so much out of me, both mentally and emotionally.  It was the unmaking of a linguist.

As I floundered around, I asked over and over, God, why in the world did You let me do so well on that test if the class would turn out to be such a struggle?  I don't understand.  None of this comes as a surprise to You.  I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but You did.  If You knew I would have such a hard time with this, why didn't You close the door to even come back?  Why did I have such an interest in this in the first place - wasn't it from You?  Why do You want me to go through this?

To this day, I don't fully understand what happened.  I've realized a couple things that caused me to struggle with the homework, but the story as a whole still mystifies me some times.

Perhaps God wanted to remove my pride and self-confidence in that area.  Perhaps He wanted me to get a good sense of how much I needed Him.  Or perhaps He simply wanted me to be at the MTC that extra semester so other things could happen - like the start of my connection to West Africa, or the healing of a relationship, or some further challenges to areas of legalism I was still holding onto.

It's probably all those things and more.  I doubt I'll ever fully understand this side of heaven, and that's okay.  I do know who my God is, that He is good and faithful and has a purpose for the things I don't understand.  So I leave my story with all its seeming loose ends in His hands.

For Freedom

Suppose you were trapped somewhere and had no way of getting out.  Suppose you spent ages in a dark, dank prison cell with chains that chafed you night and day.  Then one day, someone comes and unlocks the door, unchains your hands and feet, and tells you you're free.

You go, "Thanks, I appreciate it, but I think I'll just stay here.  I can really do without this freedom stuff."  ...And then proceed to put the chains back on and sit there.

Ridiculous, I know.

Except I've kind of done that with God.  Since I was a kid I've known salvation was about us being set free.  But I somehow got it in my mind that it would be wrong to live in freedom, as if it was somehow taking that freedom for granted.

So I sat down in my little cell and proceeded to chain myself back up with rules and more rules.  And then some more rules, just for good measure.

"Thanks, God, I know you said I was set free from the law, but I can really do without that freedom stuff."

Until one day Galatians 5:1 jumped out at me.  "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."  I realized I wasn't getting brownie points for staying in a straitjacket when I could be running through a field with my arms stretched out in the wind.  I was set free to. be. free.

Wouldn't it be insulting to Jesus, who paid such a high price to set me free from the law, if I turned around and kept living under the law?  He didn't just tell me I could be free; He deeply wanted me to be free.  My heart, all in a tremble, said that if that's what He wanted, then perhaps that's what I wanted too.

And that's where the glorious adventure began.

On Choosing a Church

Or "On Choosing a Local Church and Staying There Even When You Realize It's Not Perfect or Even Ideal".

Or simply "Lesson Number 157 I Learned While in West Africa".

We were assigned host churches while we were in E2.  There were a variety of churches we partnered with, and since we E2ers came from a variety of different backgrounds, our experiences in those host churches ran quite the gamut.

It was a struggle for me, especially in the beginning, and to tell the truth, if I'd had the choice I probably would have looked for another church.  I didn't necessarily have the choice, so I stayed, and was encouraged by various people along the way to pray for God's perspective of the Church.

The experience taught me something valuable: we don't get to pick what parts of the Body of Christ we're going to love or be connected to.  Every single believer, every local group of true believers is part of that Body.  And Jesus loves His Church, all of it.  He calls us His bride.

If Jesus looks at that imperfect group of believers, that group I'm tempted to criticize, and sees them with such a great and amazing love, how could I consider them not worth my time?  Too much trouble to bother with?

Perhaps our society had influenced me more than I realized.  Society tells us if something doesn't work the way we want it to, we should find an alternative.  Society tells us that we need to look for things that fit us, that makes us feel comfortable and good.

I don't think we find that in the Word of God.  Take Paul's letters, for example.  He wrote to churches with immorality (think Corinthians), faulty teaching (think Galatians), confusion on certain doctrines (think Thessalonians), and even personal divisions (Corinthians again).  In addressing the various issues, I find it interesting that he never says something like, "Yeah, there are a lot of problems here, so you who are really sold-out for Jesus need to go somewhere else.  Somewhere there aren't so many problems."

Isn't that the advice we hear - and give - so often when people are struggling with issues in their local churches?  To find somewhere else to go?  (Now, to clarify, I'm not talking about essential doctrinal issues, like God's character, the authority of Scripture, the basis of salvation, and things of that nature.)  Except God doesn't seem to be encouraging such a course of action.  It's incongruous with the reality of who the Church is.

I was convicted that my attitude towards the Church - Jesus' Church - was both self-serving and ugly.

(Another clarifier: I'm not saying that everyone who leaves one church for another is necessarily sinning.  God can and does lead us to different places at different times.  But I believe we should be wary of leaving a local church simply because it doesn't meet our expectations or our perceived needs, or because we find issues with it.)

Fast forward to now.  I moved to a new place.  I needed a church.  In the past, I would have spent a fair amount of time and effort to find one I was comfortable with.  Something that met my personal expectations.  Except now I realize the point isn't to feel comfortable.  I'm asking the Lord to help me release my ideals, to love His Church, and to embrace the fellowship of people who are no more imperfect than I am.

There will be challenges of one kind or another, I'm sure.  There will be things we disagree on, personal preferences that differ, and toes that may get stepped on.  But this little group is part of His Church, and that, I think, is what matters in the end.

Grace, Personality, and Daily Trust

Hi, I'm Rachel.

Among other things I have been a hopeless perfectionist and a dreadful over-analyzer.  I say have been because as I've learned about grace, God has brought about a lot of changes in my life.

Grace has toned down that perfectionism in many ways, though I'll admit it still crops up more than I'd like it to.

Over-analyzing, on the other hand?  Well...let's just say that if it were a spiritual gift, it'd be mine.  I mean, thinking is good.  Analyzing situations before making decisions is good.  To a point.  I'm afraid I very easily cross over the line to ridiculous (e.g. spending hours trying to figure out the right kitchen towels to get) or even sinful (e.g. lack of trust, anxiety, or fear).

So here's the thing.  I'm seeing God work in my life in two ways, and I'm thankful for both.  He can change aspects of our personalities, removing certain tendencies as we grow closer to Christ.  I'm seeing that slowly (emphasis on slowly) happen with my perfectionism.  Sometimes, however, the work He does is in not removing those tendencies.  I still over-analyze nearly everything, and probably always will.  The other day He showed me that I can see it as a chance to grow.  For example, when a decision comes up at work, I can sit there and spin my mental wheels for half an hour, or I have the opportunity to take my mountain of questions and dump them on His lap, trusting Him to help me sort through what I need to.  And when the next decision comes up an hour later, I can do it again.  And again the next time.

I would love for Him to take away my constant need to analyze everything, like He's doing with my perfectionism.  But He hasn't, and instead - through it - gives me a reminder of my constant need to rely on Him.  Which is pretty cool.

When You Become Them

It used to provoke me to no end to hear some people talk about ministry in the States as if it was a second-class option to ministry overseas.  Good grief, some of my best, mostly Godly friends were serving God in the States, and then there were all the wonderful staff at MTC that invested so much in my spiritual growth (what would my experience have been like if they hadn't been serving in the US?).  I mean, how could people dare to say that Stateside missionaries were less-than?  Less deserving of support, less important, less spiritual?  Unthinkable!  There was no difference; we were ALL on the same team!  (Forgive my soap box.)

Then I moved to West Africa.

In spite of myself, I noticed a shift in my thinking.  Us vs. Them.  I didn't think "they" were less spiritual than "us", but there was so much about our respective experiences that differed.  They sat in climate-controlled offices drinking pumpkin spice lattes while we spent mind-numbing hours in language study, sweat literally dripping off us.  They got to live and work and fellowship with people of the same language and culture.  We were surrounded by people whom we did not understand and who did not understand us.  It was difficult not to imagine that our lives were just, well, so much harder.  Ugly as it is to admit this, I suppose in my earth-bound mind, the differences were enough to categorize - no, divide - us into two camps.

Sure, we were all serving God, but...

And then I bought a one-way ticket to the States, packed up everything, and flew "back home" with the idea that I'd likely be living there for a while.  Maybe forever.

Now I am "them".

It's a weird feeling.  I never planned that my life would turn out this way.  I mean, I'd wanted to serve God overseas since I was a pony-tailed little girl.  But that's not what He has for me, at least not at this point.  It's like I built a fence and suddenly find myself sitting on the wrong side of it.

I'll be honest, when I hear from people I knew in training or people I was on the field with talking about how they've finished language study and are moving into a village or such-and-such a ministry, I struggle.  I do not question that God has brought me here; I'm confident of that and I am truly grateful to be here.  But there is a sense of loss.  I'm no longer a part of all that, not in the way I had expected to be, at any rate.  My world doesn't look the same anymore and I'm not always sure how to relate to the different people in it.

So I'm praying for perspective.  To see us all as the team God intended.  To see Him as the center, the motivation, the common ground we have.  To see all believers as us.