This is the beginning of the end of this part of our journey.
We have almost completed our time here in Northern Ireland: half our school leaves tomorrow for India and the rest leave this coming Wednesday. We're dealing with the loss in our various ways and trying to spend as much time together as possible, which means that this girl has seen a lot of nights end at 2AM--not my norm. But for the love of those I leave, I stay up, throwing socks at one another or playing ping pong and always talking.
I think that's what I love most about DTS and crave to have as always a huge part of my life: these really deep talks about anything or nothing. We're such a funny group, especially the four girls I have grown closest too: we're either super serious or absolutely ridiculous, with no in-between. We four went on a walk up the mountain today and one moment we were discussing our separation and the fact that we would be in India soon and the next moment we were hitting each other with pine branches, then dancing around and singing. It was a wild wooly, wonderful walk through the whispering pines...
Ireland is winter is an ever changing thing. This morning I woke up to bright California-esque sunshine--so bright and clear that it hurt. This is in direct contrast to the normal foggy landscape. I once had someone describe marriage--or at least seeing your spouse--in these terms: you find someone who, when you see them clearly, you know you want to invest in and move them toward all that God has made them to be: the mountain they're made for. You keep this clear picture in your mind, even on the days when it is shrouded in fog and you can't see at all who they were called to be: it's full of noise and disconnection and diapers and all the things that must be done and you can't help yelling at one another...to pull back and remember that this is not all that they are, but only who they are showing forth that day.
I was reminded of this today, as fog began rolling in in the afternoon and it almost seemed, as you stared through a wall of fog at a mountain now only visible as an outline, that sunshine never was. That all you saw was only an illusion and that the reality is that fog is, has been and always will be the reality. It is so easy to get depressed when you let this 'reality' sink in and forget what you were made for.
But so many people make this choice: their lives get filled up with the mundane glories and they begin to think that this is all that ever was or could be or could be made of their lives.
I want to live my life defying that.
I want to remember, not just who my spouse (whoever that may be) is and will become, but more importantly, who Christ is and what He will do in the middle of my life. When prophecy is clear and I am speaking truth over myself and have people around me who build into me and see clearly the potential in my life, it's like beautiful, bright California sunshine on me. I can see who I am and what I am made for and where I fit in the midst of all these shifting cogs. But life is not always like this: life is not a DTS, where almost everyone is in hot-footed pursuit of the Lord and Jesus becomes the word we speak most and all we are centered on. Sometimes you are in the middle of ick and pain and begrudging chores and you have to remember and set your gaze again, over and over.
That's what we're doing, in going on this next phase of our DTS. We are spending our time and money and lives believing what Jesus said and choosing to copy Him as we preach good news to the poor, set the oppressed free and release those who are prisoners. We will be walking out what we have been talking about as we bind up the brokenhearted, as we stop for one person and ask them who they are and how they are doing and whether they have ever heard of the man who gave everything for them.
Life is funny and weird and doesn't make sense: and if you get lost in the ocean fog's roll and lose your way, it can seem impossible for a time to get back on track. I have had my days where all hope was lost and I needed an anchor--the mountain which reminded me of who I was and why God would want me and who he was in relation to me was nothing more than a mere shadow, easy to ignore. But then: He kept showing Himself faithful. He, the one who truly did love me and gave Himself for me, spoke directly into my life, gave me strength which sustained me through difficult growing seasons and did not allow my little boat to capsize. Then he called me out onto the water...all the way to Northern Ireland...and clear sunshine has been my joy for the last few months.
I am so excited for this next part, a new beginning, where we learn how to be life and community to one another and search out Christ's face on another continent. His face may be shrouded at times for us there as we go through difficulty, but never for long. And then...
May we never lose the wonder.
DTS will end--and life will go on. But...just as every day when I look outside and see where God has put me--finally a green, growing place where the garden of my soul can come to life again--so Christ is also truly and fully alive in me, a mountain of hope and promise that will never end. I am caught up always in the wonder of a God who saw me through the foggy difficulties and never let go of me--even brought me forth into the beauty of His holiness, a place where I commune with Him face to face. I am consumed, hopeful, joyous in the radiance of this God for who nothing is impossible and who will see me all the way through my journey, until death comes to life.
Death comes to life...
So, for now, as our Lecture Phase ends and we move forward into the dark world that can be India, we know fully this truth, this song we always sing from Galatians 4:4-7: We're no longer slaves to fear, we are the children of God.
Children of God, shine forth! as stars in the universe...or India! Haha
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