I'm having a hard time unpacking my purse.
Six months is a long time. Everything changes--that's what they tell you, that's what you mentally know, that's life. But there are artifacts--and for some reason, those are the worst to face.
The girl who held this purse before me, the one I left in America, didn't know what it meant not to be able to afford anything. She'd had a regular paycheck for a while and was used to buying chocolate just because she felt like it, or a new candle. She didn't know how much she would give away and use to travel the world. She didn't know what an empty bank account looked like and she didn't have to scrounge together money for gas.
The girl before DTS hadn't had other things emptied out too. She didn't know what it meant to really take someone into your heart and then have to be emptied again, seemingly immaturely. She didn't know about not having a chance to let those feelings bloom.
The girl who owned this purse wasn't sure of the future, but she enjoyed thinking about it. She didn't know what it would cost and she didn't even know how to give herself completely but she was willing to go where she was sent.
It's funny to walk out what is required of you. You don't know, going into a situation or relationship or new set of circumstances what it will mean for you, what it will ask you to give up. The word I hear and see for this trip, the one that sums up all that happened to me and all that we as a team experienced is "emptied". Maybe that seems like a weird choice or doesn't make sense: but if there's anything that happened in India, in Northern Ireland too, it was an emptying. I knew, more than I ever have before, what it means to give up everything for the Kingdom. I went absolutely broke for it--literally. My bank account, my heart, my broken camera, all my shame, my fear, my ability to protect myself, my body's ability to function--all were at one time or are permanently, poured out. Offered. No longer mine.
I hate looking at that purse, because it shows what I lost. And much of it was worth losing and I am immensely glad for the relief losing those things has brought...but many were good things (in my estimation) and the little girl in me cries over them. If I had known: but you never can.
I don't want that girl from six months ago to see me, to know me. My old self and who I am today: I don't know what they would say to each other. Honestly, I think they would be shocked. They're such different people--and so to even run into her belongings stirs up something in me--almost a longing...
Knowing what I know now--would I have gone?
Sadly, the answers is no.
But isn't that true of all of us? If you had known the pain, loss, frustration and grief that would come to you in each season, you wouldn't have gone. None of us would! No one willing subjects themselves to that which brings them pain.
I've been reading through the Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis since I started traveling home. He makes many good points, but the theme that keeps surfacing for me is the beauty pain, suffering, brings. Not that you willingly undergo suffering or choose that as your lot in life (that's the edge of something else that we will not get into here...) but that you have the ability to take hold of it...it is happening, there is no use denying that, but how you react--that speaks volumes and will either plunge you forward or hold you back--and you won't know the outcome of all of this until years later.
The thing is, though I have lost much, I have gained the Kingdom. With each giving up, relinquishment, another piece of Heaven was allowed to be part of me and my reality and how I operate. I traded my "self"--at times, a gruesome display, for I mistakenly believed that what my heart fell for was good for me--for the "me" that He has been willing, and always ready, to create in me.
Self will--it's what we all fight for, against and with: my desires pitted against the Lords. I die to live, that's the choice. I've been choosing it for years now.
India was easy: I love developing countries, their hustle and bustle, the beautiful ways that they do life. I am not afraid or overwhelmed by honking horns, being the only white face in a crowd, not understanding a language...not to say that there are not moments of weakness, but that it becomes a joy as I adjust to the new surroundings. Being in India was not the most difficult part of my trip--it will forever be my joy. There were other, deeper things going on in me that caused me my pain, what I am walking through now. That's why it hurts to go through the purse: I remember how lighthearted and happy that girl was, how excited she was to learn--and I, on the other side, know the beauty of being refined.
It's a costly beauty: but it's one I had been anticipating and knew was on its way, I just hadn't realized the avenue by which it would approach. I had some words from the Lord about me coming into abundant joy and beauty before I left, and these two have come, but in ways unexpected. Through pain.
I have relinquished my circumstance to God and asked Him to have His way in my heart and there: there is where the healing can and has begun. The desperate pieces in you, when offered to the Lord, become the places His glory shines through. He gave me the ability to survive this and not only survive, but thrive. He has a new day coming for me--and encountering and passing through deep pain with Him also ushers me into deeper heights of glory--full joy! I don't take other relationships for granted--interacting in a healthy way with anyone brings me such delight these days--because I know its not easy. It's not to be taken for granted.
In this season of letting go, I have been given much. Dreams and vision for the future: to be a force of light and life to Ireland, to come alongside a struggling base and see a city changed. I even dream further out, into Haiti, in a way I have not let myself for a while. This time of testing and refining--pain--is not and never will be wasted.
Nothing is wasted...
Back to that purse! I am not that girl anymore. I am something more: Christ lives in me.
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