State of the Union

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The rasping caw of a crow woke me up. Repeated. Insistent. It drowned out or drove away the occasional calls of other birds until it was the only voice to be heard. I opened my eyes to sunlight streaming in through slats in the blinds. I couldn’t remember why my stomach was in knots. The continued cawing grated on my ears. The first word to form itself in my sleepy mind was harbinger. Crows in legends and folklore are often harbingers: they announce death, war, storm, judgment. I have a funny mind. Who else’s first word of the day is harbinger? I sat up and shook my funny head to clear it. I laughed at myself. It was just a crow. But he did remind my why my stomach was in knots, why I lay awake last night with pictures of refugees flashing through my mind in hijabs, in rubble, with hunger in their eyes.

I fell asleep heartbroken, considering the damage our new President can do with a few strokes of a pen. I fell asleep mulling over the lives he can change, for good or for bad, and hoping his lack of demonstrated compassion in the past would not set the course for the future. I had seen articles and headlines all day by sensationalist media outlets confirming liberals’ worst fears and oozing smugness from conservatives. I had believed those articles to be exaggerations, until I read about the executive orders President Trump was projected to sign, including ones that could disrupt families, take land from Native Americans to whom it belongs, and deny war-torn Arabs asylum in our country. I fell asleep thinking on these things. It was the refugees who captured most of my thoughts, and my last coherent reflection before sleep was of Joseph and a pregnant Mary, Middle Easterners turned away at the doors of inns, given no safe place for a birth, and then driven away by a murderous government with no qualms against killing infants. I fell asleep seeing those characters in the streets of modern day Aleppo, wondering what country they could escape to. Our welcoming statue of liberty may soon no longer be the beacon of hope and welcome it once was to people such as them.

For better or for worse, our country has elected a new president. I don’t mean to divide us any further than we already are. Check your hearts and get rid of any ‘I told you so’ or ‘serves them right.’ Don’t look at those caricatured in the media with disgust or superiority. Christian, whether you lean right or you lean left, there is no place for us now to sit on our blessed assurance and do nothing. We elected this man. 81% of us evangelicals voted for him, breaking records even back to Bush campaigns. This is on our shoulders. As of my writing, you can view the orders the president has signed here, and here’s a look at what he plans for refugees. They will change lives.

Like it or not, the President’s actions and signatures will change the lives of the vulnerable first—those who have no home, those who are in poverty, those who have barely learned English, those who are barely born or barely alive, those who have different-colored skin. Those people were the heart and soul of Jesus’ ministry, the people he modeled that his followers should care for first, last, longest, and hardest. Whether you’re comfortable calling those people the oppressed, or the least of these, or some other title, Jesus was on their side. He defended them when no one else would. He experienced their world, born as that refugee baby who had to flee the country for his live before he could even talk. Read the gospels. Let Jesus’ love for such people come alive and burn in your heart. Read the Old Testament, and the prophets. See how God was a father and provider to those who had no one to hear their case.

After the crow woke me up, I did just that. I read Psalm 115, and it soothed my roiling soul. You should read it too, and soak in its words. The psalm teaches that people ask where our God is, because they cannot see him. It teaches that in His place some worship mute, blind, deaf, powerless idols they have made. They worship these things they have made, and they become like them. But the people who fear the Lord will be blessed by him; he will cause them to flourish. Perhaps our evangelicalism wants to flourish more than it wants to fear the Lord. So we fashion a God with our own hands who gives us cultural power and lets us feel politically secure. We fashion him and we worship him in our search for shalom, and as we strive to flourish, we no longer fear the true Lord, the Lord who crushes nations who neglect the powerless and poor and hungry. Perhaps we become more like this false god we have created, so when his prophet preaches peace for evangelicals and economic comfort, we vote him the leader of our nation, all the while forgetting that our help should come from the Lord, not from the white house.

I mean to be gentle with you, brothers and sisters, but I also mean to speak truth. And I don’t point a finger without recognizing my own faults. This post was originally meant to be a sort of ‘state of the union’ after spending a year back in my home country. I meant to examine how I had adjusted back home. But I realized when that crow woke me up that an actual state of the union, about the state of those united in Christ in our country, would be more appropriate. I’ve realized in this year back that I’m still in a foreign country. I was away when our new president first announced his campaign, and when news reached me I laughed because it could not be true. While I was away, I learned deeply of the sin in my own heart, and how pervasive, invisible, and abhorrent it could be. I came back home to the States to find myself in a foreign country, but I realized it felt so different because I am what’s foreign now. Just as I had learned to see more sin in myself, my distance had given me eyes to see it in my people and, like Nehemiah, to cry out for the sins of my people as my own.

My freshly foreign eyes have helped me to see the division and fear that pervade our country. We’re afraid of marches, we’re afraid of our President, we’re afraid for our safety, and we’re afraid of our neighbors. But Christian, it is in times like these when our light shines the brightest, because we follow and serve the light of the world, the light of all mankind that darkness cannot overcome. The only thing capable of replacing this paralyzing fear is faith. And that may be the only thing we have to give our nation right now. Our faith redeems us as well as others, and it leads to a love like Jesus’. There is no fear in that love because perfect love drives out fear.

Ultimately, if we do fear the Lord as he is rather than cherish the cultural Christianity we created, our weapon is not the government, but faith which blooms to love and drives out fear. We are to love our neighbor, and that includes the ones who marched on Washington. That includes the neighbors who are starving or illegal or want abortion rights or don’t fit our ideas of sexual orientation. If you don’t know any of these people, they’re your neighbors, and they’re afraid. Get to know them. Do something. Peer into their eyes and acknowledge you are just as broken and fearful and sinful as they. Ask them why they feel the way they do. Listen, don’t just hear.

In an excellent speech, which you should also read, here, Richard John Neuhaus explains what loving our neighbor and valuing their dignity looks like. As this presidency carries on, we should live by his words; they embody the ethic Jesus himself lived, which seems in very short supply these days.

“We contend relentlessly for the dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God, destined from eternity for eternity—every human person, no matter how weak or how strong, no matter how young or how old, no matter how productive or how burdensome, no matter how welcome or inconvenient. Nobody is a nobody; nobody is unwanted. All are wanted by God, and therefore to be respected, protected, and cherished by us.”

Neuhaus’ repeated refrain is, “we shall not weary, we shall not rest,” not until every life created in the image of God is valued every step of the way from womb to tomb. If we think a life well-lived is healthy, stable, surrounded by family, economically secure, and filled with a productive career, and if we think any less of people who do not have those things, we are not pro-life. We do not value the dignity of a life so-lived. Not really.

If we do not value just as highly the lives of those we disagree with most strongly, we do not value the image of God. We do not value the image of God if we do not look for it in the faces of the women who marched on Washington for all their various reasons. We do not value the image of God if we do not look for it covered in skin of all different shades. We do not value the image of God if we do not look for it at all economic levels and among people whose convictions vary widely from ours. Each human who ever lived eternally carries this image of God. Christian, serve them. Meet their needs. Listen to them when you don’t understand or you think their views are extreme. Get to know their lives and why they believe the things they do. Point each human to Christ. Love each human. Each. Human. Make that your crusade, and I’ll march along with you. Value the lives our governments and churches don’t. Let us treat those lives with dignity and with our own hands make up for the hurt caused by a pen wielded by a man in a suit. In that pursuit of liberty and justice for all, we shall not weary, and we shall not rest.

Show Love: Be Kind, Be Caring, Be Courageous

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I had a panic attack yesterday, and you need to know why. To begin with, this post isn’t about me. It isn’t about the election. It relates to both those things, but the story itself is bigger.

I stayed up the night of the election until it was pretty clear who would win the electorate. I fell asleep before it was made official and speeches were given, but I knew for the most part who I’d wake up to see in the headlines.

So yesterday morning when I woke up and saw the headlines, I wasn’t surprised. But I took to scripture to sort through the emotions flooding through me, and to help me sort through the expressions of pain, hatred, exultation, and confusion I’ve seen in the past few days across various social media platforms. I came to Psalm 94, and what a beauty it was. Its words were perfect balm for my soul because they reminded me of a God who is bigger than our election, and who is unquestionably good and caring, especially when we’re not.

As the day carried on, I spoke with my family. We shared a few choice gifs, laughed, and shared that, though we were frustrated, we knew God would work good out of the situation. We agreed that whatever the outcome, the new president would have taken some getting-used-to. We discussed the positives, but I said that I would struggle getting used to a sexual molester in office.

Now, take a breather and don’t be offended by what I just said. I fully acknowledge that all the candidates had skeletons in the closet—and most of those skeletons were either illegal, immoral, or both. I will respect our new president and pray for him, but I will not ignore his character. I would have done the same if the election turned out differently.

I didn’t vote for Trump because he has shown on multiple occasions that he frequently fails to value the personhood and dignity of people different from himself. Minorities. Immigrants. Women. Refugees. Poor. Ultimately, I didn’t trust him to be at the helm of a nation made up of these people. And I woke up this morning to cries of anger, frustration, and hurt, and to people who did not feel safe anymore. Before you call those expressions of feelings ‘overreactions,’ hear me out.

People don’t choose their feelings. They perhaps have some power to shape them, but if you’re struck by a wave of fear, chances are, you didn’t choose to feel it. If past experiences have taught you to be afraid, to question your safety, to guard yourself, those conditioned responses come from how people have treated you in the past. So if my black friends, or my foreign friends, or my women friends felt fear at the election, we all have a duty to show them more Christian love. We owe them the simple kindness to hear their fears out, and to help them work toward a solution.

No matter who you voted for, listen to the people around you. Don’t belittle them. Don’t call them names. Don’t label them as entitled millenials, uneducated racists, hysterical women, reverse racists, or immigrants who don’t contribute to society. Their fear is real. And you should listen to it.

I’ve been sexually molested. Take a moment to let the bile rise up in your throat, and viscerally feel my statement as your sister. It’s my story, and it’s real. No one can deny my feelings and my fears. It doesn’t matter when, or who’s to blame, and that’s not the point. I wasn’t raped, and there are so many people worse off than me. This story isn’t about me anyway. I don’t want your pity, but I might accept your hugs. 😉 This story is about valuing other people’s stories. Because this election may mean more for them than it does for you. It may mean different things for them. And in some cases, whether their responses are rational or not, they may not be able to control them.

I had a panic attack today. And you need to know why. As I explained to my family that Trump was accused of doing the same thing someone had done to me, and even worse, by brother responded with confusion. He hadn’t heard that. He didn’t hear the infamous ‘pussy’ tapes, and he doesn’t know about the hanging legal accusations. He asked why no one could prove it. He expressed outrage (in the form of multiple emojis). I had to explain to him about rape culture. I explained that it’s more or less pointless to take someone to court who could destroy your life and still win because of his money. And as I explained to my trusting little brother what the man who will be our president was accused of, I had a panic attack. I wasn’t in control of my response, but the innocent outrage from my little brother was a fresh experience of the injustice not just toward me, but toward innumerable others. I lost it.

I’m better now, and I’m relating this story to help you understand what it may be like for other people to hear the news of the election. Show them love, especially if you don’t agree with them. Be kind, especially if you don’t think they deserve it. Be caring, and listen to their stories. Be courageous, and show the bravery to recognize that their story is different from yours, and they experience the world in a different, and perhaps even more difficult way.

Here’s a little something to make you smile after that rough topic.

Go watch Kid President explain how to disagree kindly. ❤

Why I’m a Christian

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What Christianity Means to Me

I was raised by parents who taught me the Bible and took me to church. I could see the difference their faith made in their lives. When they were kind, it was because of their faith. When they cared for and helped other people, it was because of their faith. When they struggled in life or made hard decisions, their faith helped guide them.

Of course I wanted to be like them and have faith like them. But Christianity’s biggest draw for me was the stories I heard from the Bible. They felt real and alive and applicable to me. So one day I prayed to God and asked him to forgive me for my sins—the wrong things I did all them time when I was selfish or lied or disobeyed—and to live in me and help me to be a better person. I felt changed after that; not perfect, but changed for the better. Of course I learned more about what I believed as I grew older, but from that point on, faith wasn’t just ‘faith’ to me. It was trust in a living God I could interact with through prayer and his words in the Bible. My reliance on that God made me a kinder, better person because I had a model to pattern my life after. I became a Jesus-follower.

My faith became more my own as I grew. I read the Bible for myself. I prayed more myself. I learned lessons about my Christianity from books, sermons, teachers, and my parents. But the lessons that stuck with me most were the ones I gleaned myself from reading the Bible on my own time. I learned what real love is from the stories of Jesus’ life. I learned about kindness, justice, mercy, and forgiveness from colorful stories in the Old Testament part of the Bible. The stories of faith came alive to me as I learned about its great history and my forefathers and mothers who participated in its founding epic.

Those stories wouldn’t let me sit still in a church pew. They moved me. They moved me out into the world where people were hurting and living and laughing. They moved me to learn what I could about and from the people of the world; and just like any other favorite book or cause or passion, they set a fire in me. Those stories enriched my life and helped me to live well. I couldn’t keep them to myself.

I learned that I love hearing and telling stories. The stories people tell explain their lives, their passions, and their spirituality. I live my life gleaning as many stories as I can. You tell me your favorite stories, and I’ll tell you mine. Our stories shape us and connect us—and whether they’re about Jedi, WWII soldiers, Middle Earth, or superheroes, the narratives we tell spin the threads of our belief. I learned that I am a keeper and teller of stories. I listen. I observe. And I tell the stories I hear. As a Christian, I see that our stories fit into a vast narrative that gives them meaning and purpose.

I could write books about why I’m a Christian, if anyone would read them. But there’s a better book I’d prefer you to read. It’s the book Christ-followers have been reading for centuries. It connects me to poor paupers, social activists, benevolent kings, historical figures, and great movers and shakers of the world who have all read the same book. Intelligent and powerful men and women for 2000 years have been reading this book, and it has shaped their lives. If they’ve read it carefully, it’s shaped their lives for the better.

The Bible 

The Bible has its rough edges. It can be hard to understand sometimes, just like any old literature. But it’s at once both gritty and real and soaringly beautiful and poetic. It tells about the building blocks of every day life, like families, governments, poverty, and celebration. It has elements of the fantastic, the mundane, the extraordinary, and eternal truth. It holds stories about rape, incest, coups, insanity, bravery, bribery, prostitutes, child kings, the rise and fall of nations, the cuss words, the graphic scenes, the victory songs, the nighttime weeping, crazy parties, and the simple contentment of dawn. In short, this ancient book relates to every aspect of life, both modern and ancient. It’s an anthology of music and poetry, philosophy, ethics, and epics and short stories. But it also traces the meta-narrative of history that gives our lives meaning beyond their narrow scope. Have you personally ever read the Bible’s engaging books? John, Genesis, or Acts? The Bible’s stories have real answers for real questions that have changed my life.

Lots of people today think the Bible is old or outdated. And in some sense, I suppose it is. We don’t ride around in chariots today, and our neighboring nations don’t sacrifice their children to statues of gods. The Roman Empire is long gone, as are the days when we raised our own livestock and grew our own produce. But family relationships aren’t all that different nowadays. People are oppressed today just like they were when it was written. And humans still ask themselves the same questions: why am I here; does this life matter; why would a good God let bad things happen; is it worth it to try to be a good person? In its own words, the Bible says, “What has been will be again, / What has been done will be done again; / There is nothing new under the sun.” In many ways, history repeats itself, so we have a lot to learn from the past. And if Shakespeare managed to tell stories that still move us 400 years later, perhaps a book that’s stood the test of time for 2000 years might be more relatable than we think.

Quite a few people think the Bible isn’t reliable, and that it has changed a lot since it was first put to paper. And those people have a valid point; can I base my entire belief system on some collection of stories that’s been warped from its original in the intervening years? First I’ll tell you that we never think about the reliability of our copies of Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. We don’t care much how accurate our Aeneid is to Virgil’s first manuscript. Those books read as if they were whole stories. They move us, teach us, and intrigue us, so we give them credit for their worth. But the Bible is the most historically unchanged ancient book around. It has more fragments through history than any other book to attest to its integrity. Our copies today, in their various translations, are more accurate to the originals than our copies of the Iliad or the Odyssey.

Maybe we tend to judge the book by its cover. And maybe the cracked leather and fading gilt letters Holy Bible seem a little powerless or stuffy in an age of brightly colored news feeds, pixels, and immediate digital updates. But the Bible’s words pack just as much punch today as they did thousands of years ago when they were first spoken or written. Its harshest words are toward the prideful, the arrogant, and the self-righteous oppressors. Its kindest and most soothing words are to the poor, forgotten, repentant, and voiceless. It seems to me our world could use more of those words today. Just this morning I read in it that Jesus came to unite people near and far, to be our peace, and to destroy the barriers of hostility that divide us (that’s in the book of Ephesians, if you want to read more of it). As a citizen of a country ripped and bleeding by the divisions between race and gender and economics, those words are powerful to me. And when you come down to it, either they deliver on their promise or they don’t. That question lies with the most disputed, most intriguing figure of the entire Bible.

Jesus

Jesus is a character you can’t make up. He yelled and whipped people who charged others to come to the temple to worship. He stopped his busy schedule for children to listen to his stories. He wasn’t pompous or arrogant. He was kind and peaceful. He shared what he had and gave his time to everyone. He was a man who wept freely, but refused to speak a word in his defense when false accused of a crime. His love for his band of friends was self-sacrificial. He washed their dirty desert feet like a servant, spent every waking hour with them, and didn’t betray them when he was on trial. If anyone could unite people across nation, race, gender, and wage, it would be him.

He knew that the only way for generations to be able to personally know a God who hates sin but loves the people he created was to pay for their sin personally—to take our just punishment of death himself. Do you know anyone else who literally died for you? God came to earth himself as Jesus to deal with all the ugliness and limitations of our human existence so we could know him. And how could you not want to know him? He is so intriguing. He cared personally for women, children, sick, outcasts, thieves, educated, simple, shunned, oppressed, and foreigners no one liked. He himself was a refugee, most people assumed he was a bastard child, and he performed miracles you’d have to be crazy to believe.

I admire quite a few historical figures, but if you ask me which one I’d want to be like, hands down it’s Jesus. Many people admire Jesus as a historical figure, but they don’t believe everything he said. You may not have to believe everything a person says to admire them—I adore Tolkien, but I don’t agree with him on any and every topic—but if somebody claims to be God, and to be God’s savior for mankind, that colors everything else he says. You either believe him, you don’t, or you think he’s crazy. You can’t ride the fence with Jesus. You can’t say he was a good man and dismiss his claim of divinity as a little white lie or a moment of insanity. You have to take the whole package or leave it.

Jesus is the founder of my faith, and the founder of Christianity. He claimed to be the Christ, which means ‘the messiah,’ or God’s chosen deliverance for his people. Jesus came to deliver people from their bondage to sin. And if we think we can free ourselves from our own human nature, which prompts us to lie, to cheat, to be unfaithful, or to lack character, we’re wrong. It’s impossible to always do the right thing. Sin is a monumental slavery to break, and it requires a supernatural power who is unfailingly good. It required Jesus. That’s why Christians name themselves after him.

How Can Christians Bear the Name Today

So, to answer the questions I started with, how can I be a Christian when there’s so much hate today and in history connected to that name? When Trump, a man who spews hate the likes of which I’ve never seen in my life, calls himself the same name? When people who claim to be Christians value themselves and their fears too much to want refugees to find a safe haven in their county? When people claim the title who ignore the cries of the poor or oppressed?

Simple.

It’s a matter of definition. Being a Christian means you should look and act like Christ. I want to be like Jesus—to love like him, to speak truth like him, to tell life-giving stories like him. But if I never act like him, I’m not a Christian. If I tell you I’m an astronaut, or an oak tree, or a purple baboon that lives in a zoo, I’m lying. I don’t look or act like those things I claim to be, so I’m not. Anyone who doesn’t act like Christ, but claims to be a Christian, they’re pulling your leg. We all make mistakes and we aren’t perfect on our own. But real Christians will tell you that God’s Spirit lives in them. And if he does, they’ll act with that same inexplicable love and compassion Jesus showed, that same fury at the self-righteous and self-assured. I’m a Christian because I want to act like Christ. Not I, nor anyone else, have a right to bear that name we don’t live by it.

I hope that you all have the chance to read about Jesus in the Bible. And I hope he rocks the world you’re standing on like he did mine. I hope that, as a Jesus-follower, I look recognizably like him to you. And if I don’t, you have every right as my friends to say something to me. If I do look like him, and that intrigues you, let’s sit down and talk.

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An ember sunset sweeps for miles

inking Oklahoma orange

seeping into rough red dirt.

 

I know no greater glitter

than the sun sparkles in tassels

of a field full of corn.

 

A wide West sky blushes,

blooms flame, flinging phoenix fire

across the dome of the dying day.

 

Dusk descends with dewy exhale.

Evening velvets into vagaries

of lingering liminal light.

 

Speckled stars scintillate

in the winking windows of heaven

shuddering disbelief at their distant beauty.

 

The sickle-sharp moon

soothes the sea of grasses

into blue oblivion.

 

Wind washes the world awake

and signals the sparrow to sing

the first-light fanfare

of phoenix flight to life.

 

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My Acorn

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Repatriation sounds like a dirty word. And it is. A lot of emotional and mental mess comes with moving from a foreign place you called home back to the place you originally called home. A lot of that mess comes from expecting to be able to fall right back in with how things were before you left—the same friendships, the same habits, the same communities, the same you. But those things aren’t the same as when you left, and the most different of them all is you.

In the year and a half I was away, my siblings grew up. My church family is made up almost entirely of a new group of people. People got married, had kids, moved away. And in my own year and a half, I learned a new language, made new friends, changed my habits, and learned more or less how to be at home in a completely different culture.

Bringing all of those experiences back with me wasn’t as simple as just packing up my suitcases for the plane ride, which I’ll assure was no easy task in and of itself. And sharing those experiences wasn’t as easy as unpacking my suitcase and showing off my Bulgarian pottery or books or tablecloths.

Even though I’ve been back over four months, I still have no context for many of my overseas experiences and stories. Many people don’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I explain my favorite Bulgarian foods. Most people don’t understand when I explain my yearning for at least one chance to walk to the grocery store, or chat up the lady at the fruit stand before I buy half a kilo of cherries she picked that morning.

In my head I know that this is the same experience in reverse of when I would try to explain living by the river to my Bulgarian friends, or fireflies and starry skies to kids who had only ever lived in the confines of a Bulgarian city. But my heart doesn’t understand the similarities of the two experiences. It only feels yearning—for both places.

And that’s where the mess of repatriation comes in. Is it wrong to miss my new country when I have the blessing to be back in my native one? Is it wrong to take my native country for granted and forget the foreign country that showed me hospitality and kindness and grace? Sometimes I feel guilt that I can enjoy bluebell ice cream or a quick drive to the grocery store when I know my Bulgarian friends never will. And sometimes I’m confused when I have to make a schedule to meet a friend, or when I take for granted that I can hop in my car and drive anywhere I need to.

But those feelings are comparable to times in Bulgaria when I would feel guilty about the far places of the world I got to see that none of my American friends had experienced, or when I would feel confusion at the beautiful parks full of snow, or the fresh produce markets I took for granted because they filled my every day.

The guilt and confusion come in deciding, what should I like more? I love my native country. But I also love the country that became home to me in the past two years. They have both nurtured and grown me in ways the other couldn’t. Now that I’m back in my ‘home’ country, my native country, I realize that BOTH Bulgaria AND the United States are my homes now, in different ways. It’s not wrong to miss and love both of them. My experience as an expat grew me and shaped me, and the most gracious and grateful thing I can do with that experience is to acknowledge its place in my life.

I can love both Bulgaria’s yellow sunflower fields as far as the eye can see and the lazy mayfly haze that hovers above the tall grasses shimmering in the Oklahoma sunset. I can appreciate the chilling beauty of Bulgaria’s snowy mountain vistas just as much as Oklahoma’s mile-long sunset shadows across the flat fields and the golden sunlight that seeps in through your skin. I can remember the grey ghetto dirt just as fondly as the Oklahoma red that sifts through my socks. I can long for the taste of fresh strawberries and yoghurt just as much as I enjoy homemade ice cream sweetened by good company. And it’s alright for my heart to race through the peaks at memories of rushing mountain streams just as quickly as it races when the lazy Oklahoma rivers trip along their banks and stir my childhood awake in me.

Repatriation, I’m learning, is largely a personal thing. I am the one most changed by it. I carry the change with me, and if I let it, it will continue to grow in me and stretch my heart wide enough to carry two loves for two very different countries.

You all know by now that Tolkien’s deep, earthy Middle Earth stories are some of my favorites. And it should come as no surprise to you that the picture I think best encompasses my repatriation comes from them. In the film version of The Hobbit, the main character Bilbo was just an ordinary, armchair variety person until he was called off into the wide world for an adventure. Near the end of his adventure as he sits musing on it, he pulls an acorn from his pocket—one he picked up along the journey.

The leader of his traveling companions asks him, “You’ve carried it all this way?”

Bilbo answers, “I’m going to plant it in my garden, in Bag End.”

The leader of the amazing adventure, a king himself, surrounded by a royal hall filled with treasures, remarks, “It’s a poor prize to take back to the Shire.”

But Bilbo answers thoughtfully, “One day it’ll grow. And every time I look at it, I’ll remember. Remember everything that happened: the good, the bad … and how lucky I am that I made it home.”

My experience overseas feels in many ways like a small acorn I carry with me, unsure of what to do with it. As I’ve continued to examine and sort through my last two years of adventures overseas, I’ve noticed it growing. Planted in my native soil, my kernel of experience has already sprouted and become a sapling. As I remember my experiences, good and bad, I remember what they’ve taught me. And that tiny tree has already stretched my heart big enough to love my two countries as my two homes.

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Foolishness Roads

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I told a dear friend in an email recently that lately I’ve noticed I keep pulling into myself—becoming more private, seeking more alone-time, avoiding connection over phone or internet, and trying to keep to the smallest circles of people possible. I recently observed to my mom that I seem to have regressed three years backwards into the painful introversion and social awkwardness I had hoped I’d outgrown. Those self-assessments germinated and grew into what, unfortunately, may be my first contact with you, dear readers, in over three months. So with a squirming in my stomach that feels an awful lot like guilt at avoiding you, I’m writing my jumbled thoughts for the first time in a while.

Coming back to the States has been an adventure to say the least. There have been healing days and beautiful moments and times when I’ve almost noticed some of the personal growth I’ve experienced. There’ve also been heart-sore days and frustrating moments and times when I’ve wondered about the worth of my time in Bulgaria.

All of the mental and emotional see-sawing has led me to retreat as far back as possible into a safe space. I avoid Wal-mart like the plague. I’m hesitant to connect with people I know I can trust—people who are walking the same roads or have been down them before. I spend what time I can surrounded by family and relishing in daily tasks that give my life a rhythm, like baking, cleaning, reading, or manual labor on our small farm.

The one thing I’ve enjoyed that keeps me connected to my time in Bulgaria (even though it’s made me feel like a nervous wreck sometimes) has been speaking at churches. Speaking and sharing stories feels comfortable and useful and important on a deeply personal level I can’t quite describe. They’re things I can do that give me a sense of continuity and constancy in who I am and what the Lord has called me to do. And they feel like one of the few lifelines that help me connect the fractured pieces of life here, life there, and life here again.

So it was that I found myself last week spending time in Texas with family there, sharing at their churches and telling the stories that help me stitch back together my fractured sense of self. I began the trip withdrawn. I unknowingly carried a burden of isolation I had packed and slung across my shoulders myself. I guess I assumed that because my own tangled thought life was burdensome to me, I would be a broken, burdensome houseguest. Better just to do what I came to do, keep quiet, and smile when the occasion called for it. None of this thought process was intentional, of course. I would never consciously expect family to feel that burdened by me, let alone treat me like a stranger who just happened to be staying at their house before speaking at their churches. I only realized my mindset when things began happening to expose it.

They unquestioningly embraced me as family in everything: from feeding me, to letting me help with chores, to hammering out who takes the longest showers and what our morning shower schedule should be. I got to be a part of my cousins’ weekend activities and watch with pride as they performed, quizzed, and coached. But I wasn’t just someone along for the ride. I was the lap chosen to sit in. I was the coveted companion for dog-walking and roller-blading. I was the resident dessert cook, confidant, and errand runner.

And when talk in Sunday school turned toward persecution, and my mind and heart were stretched so far towards foreign friends and foreign countries that they began to break, my cousin unquestioningly held my shaking hand until it stilled. When I couldn’t navigate the Dallas streets I should have known from experience, my cousins gave me directions from the front seat without so much as a judgmental glance or a word of question. When we had time alone together, it was the most natural thing in the world for my Aunt to probe gently into my tangled mess of repatriation thoughts and feelings and half-conceived understandings.

They cared about me. Deeply. I was not a burden for them to bear, like I so often feel myself to be in these days of limbo. I was not even a wounded missionary they felt compassion for out of the goodness of their hearts. Because of their hospitality and loving-kindness, I didn’t feel myself to be a burden, but a blessing. They enjoyed my company just as I enjoyed theirs.

As I began to process these thoughts, my fractured sense of self seemed to be on the mend and I was joyful to be a blessing again to someone. I was beginning to understand that my idea of needing to be ‘whole’ to be able to truly bless and benefit other people was hogwash. It’s in my weakness that Christ is strong. And I was forced to think about grace more deeply than I had in a while because family gave me precious gifts of time and comfort and laughter that I didn’t deserve. And those weren’t the only undeserved gifts of grace that week.

These ideas of grace and wholeness and blessing hadn’t yet coalesced into words in my mind by the time I left Texas to return home. In the driveway my aunt quoted words I had said just minutes before to her class about missionaries traveling without a money bag or an extra cloak, and nothing much besides the dust on their clothes, expecting others to provide for them—expecting God to provide. She slipped money into my hand as I tried to deny her, and then to find the right words to express thanks. And when I failed to back my manual transmission car up the steep slope of the driveway without first rolling into my aunt’s car, they laughed unconcernedly and the whole family pushed my car back up into the street.

I fought back tears for the next hour and a half’s worth of driving. They weren’t tears of embarrassment or shame or self-pity. They sprang from confusion and grief at leaving, and the same unresolved paradox of blessing through brokenness. I couldn’t understand it. And I struggled to accept the grace I had been extended by my heavenly father and my earthly family. By the time I stopped for supper I felt numb. And when the cashier only charged me for half of my order with a knowing wink, I knew I had to pull over for some time to reflect and pray.

Sitting in a deserted parking lot, I asked God through brimming tears, “Why won’t people quit being so nice to me?!” I felt broken and unworthy of the grace. I felt confused about my brokenness and wondered for the umpteenth time whether my time in Bulgaria had been worth it. I wondered why reentry into the States was so hard. I wondered why I kept ending up in situations as bizarre as being parked in a strange parking lot crying over why my mac-n-cheese was too cheap, fighting the urge to vomit brought on my medicine and hormones and overflowing emotions.

And then it all just stopped. I was enveloped in the embrace of my heavenly Father’s presence that I so desperately craved. I felt His words as clearly as if he’d whispered them into my heart, “Child, I bless you out of my lavish, extravagant love because I can. I can show you grace whenever I want. And when you don’t understand, know that I feel your pain, and you cannot fathom the love with which I respond.”

I felt prompted to turn on a song from an album I had recently bought and not really listened to yet. And as I listed to the words, a smile, and then a giggle broke through my tears:

…The dawn, it shot out through the night

And day is coming soon

The kingdom of the morning star

Can pierce a cold and stony heart

Its grace went through me like a sword

And came out like a song

Now I’m just waiting for the day

In the shadows of the dawn

But I won’t wait, resting my bones

I’ll take these foolishness roads of grace

And run toward the dawn

And when I rise and dawn turns to day

I’ll shine as bright as the sun

And these roads that I’ve run, will be wise

(Shadows of the Dawn, by The Gray Havens—do yourself a favor and check out their music!)

These beautiful words were a reminder that sometimes grace takes us down winding roads to which we can’t see the end. And the journey may look like foolishness until we reach the goal. It certainly looked foolish to plenty of people for me to move overseas for 2 years. And it felt foolish enough moving back when the time came. But all that matters is that I follow in obedience because my Guide knows the way and He knows the wisdom in the path.

Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians chapters 1 and 3 promises that God’s wisdom looks like foolishness at times, but that what looks like wisdom may not be as it seems. And the gleaming promise of vindication from Psalm 37 says that if we commit our way to the Lord, he will make our righteousness shine like the dawn, and the justice of our cause like the noonday sun. We’ll see it all clearly in the end, and sometimes for now we have to keep trudging along even though we aren’t shining very brightly, and even though we can only see dimly.

The reason I’ve used to justify these extended ramblings is that maybe some of you readers are in a season of life that doesn’t make much sense either. Or maybe you know me or others like me returning from the field in a jumbled confusion. Show them what grace you can, and encourage them to accept grace themselves. Remind them that if this season of life looks foolish, it’s not necessarily wrong. And if you’re the one in my shoes, I encourage you to accept your portion of grace, even when it’s uncomfortable, and keep walking your foolishness roads. Know that one day, the roads that we’ve run will be wise.

Coming back: This does not compute

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I landed back on American soil exactly 16 days ago: a little over two weeks. I expected the disorientation normal for a return back ‘home’ after two years away, reverse culture shock, but I didn’t realize it would still be an ever-present part of my life two weeks after I was back. I expected to be well on my way to mentally processing through the change, journaling things I had learned little by little, writing blog posts about Frodo picking up the threads of his old life after he returned from his quest through Middle earth. But I haven’t done any of that.
I haven’t journaled or blogged one word. To be honest, the connectivity of our digital age has kind of overwhelmed me. There are so many people to talk to and catch up with, but I don’t even know what I would say. And if I use Tolkien’s analogy of the tapestry, picking up the threads of an old life to begin weaving them again, it would be more accurate to say I feel like someone picked up my life-tapestry, ran it through an airplane propeller, and handed it back to me to try to stop the threads from unravelling. Everything feels tangled, knotted, confused, and maybe a little broken.
Since I’ve been back, the range of my emotions and thoughts has been astounding. I race through the gamut quicker than I can even identify what I’m feeling or thinking. These emotions come from separation from a place and people I was constantly with for the last two years. They come from the fact that all the cultural habits I developed over the past two years have no context where I am now. They come from a changed schedule, home, way-of-life, and language. And they’re from being reunited with family and friends and places I’ve missed for 2 years.
In just a normal day here, I feel and think all sorts of things that my brain and my heart just can’t handle all at once. And living by myself for the past year with limited opportunity to speak English means I’ve gotten out of the habit of expressing thoughts or emotions like I used to, even IF I could remember the English words I need all the time, and even IF I knew well enough what I was thinking to express it. The overabundance of emotions just won’t compute, so they feel more like flashes in peripheral vision—too fleeting and too undefined to have meaning or form.

I am getting better at slowing things down and trying to experience emotions and think thought one at a time. But in a normal day, all of these emotions are frequent visitors:

grief
joy
pain
elation
confusion
frustration
guilt
belonging
strangeness
remembering
forgetting
apathy
empathy
overwhelmingness
inarticulateness
anxiety
distraction
comfort
meaninglessness
meaningfulness
separation
connectivity
longing
contentedness
sadness
happiness
differentness
sameness
changeful
unchanged
helpful
burdensome
accepted
loved
broken
unravelling
healing
And the list goes on.

image

Originally posted by alwaysbecheeky

It’s a lot, and sometimes I do feel like I’m going to explode, but I’ve been surrounded by loving friends and family who have helped and encouraged me enormously. And there’s been lots of prayer. LOTS of prayer. 😉 It also helps that I’m in the South. People in the grocery store are kind enough to offer me help when I’m standing dumbstruck in the middle of the aisle for minutes at a time. The lady at the post office pretends there’s nothing wrong to save my pride when I get so confused at paying for a package that I almost cry. I take nighttime walks with my Dad, and he never gets impatient when I break off mid-sentence because I’m staring in wonder at the stars I’ve missed. My mom helps me pick deodorant and shampoo when I’m overwhelmed at all the options. And my whole family is helping me with encouragement, prayers, extra hugs, and noticing when I get that look in my eyes that tells them I’m not there at the moment.
So I guess my purpose for this post is to explain to you why I may not be as communicative as when I left, or why I act different, or trail off mid-sentence. And also, I want you to know what others are likely going through as they return home as well. If you know someone coming home from the mission field—if they’ve been there for one year or 50—this is a little glimpse of what’s more than likely going on inside their heads. So give them extra hugs. Sit with them in silence while they think extra hard to come up with words to say. Hold their hand or help them make choices when they get that faraway look in their eyes. Believe them when they say they don’t know why they’re crying. Distract them when they need to be distracted, and listen to them when things need to tumble out of their hearts all jumbled and in pieces. It’ll do their heart good, and they’ll never forget the gift you’re giving them.

This Body

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This body, it was made just perfect.

These arms and this heart,

they were strengthened to carry heavy burdens.

 

This middle, it’s the perfect size

to be squeezed between two small arms.

 

These hips, they’ve been shaped

to make a seat for smaller ones.

 

And they easily find the perfect bend

 

to bring these eyes on level

with other pairs, set in beautiful, small faces.

 

These hands, they are small, but toughened

by cooking, carrying, patting, and playing.

They hold suffering

like a familiar thing.

 

These ears, they have heard

many voices in many languages.

 

But this mouth, it was made to say in all of them:

He loves you.

 

Because

 

His Body, it was made just perfect.

 

His mouth, it taught me

how to live.

 

His ears, they listened

to pleas, misery, joy, long before mine did.

 

His hands, they healed

and broke bread in example for me.

They too held suffering

And bade me do the same.

 

His eyes, they see the depth of my sin

But still flash Love enough to cover all.

 

His middle, it took the lashes

mine deserved.

 

And His arms, they carried

a burden I could not:

the weight of my sin and the world’s.

 

This body, it was made perfect

Because His Body, it was made perfect.

 

And its death

gives life

to mine.

Face-planting into Grace

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At training, all of us read through Acts in our daily time with Father to plunge ourselves deep into an understanding of what it looks like to spread the Truth to people who’ve never heard. That was a beautiful time of refreshing, redefining, and learning what our task truly is as we go overseas.

After we finished Acts, we read Luke. That got us excited all over again about the Son we are bringing to a people who have never heard of him. We fell in love again with his compassion, were challenged by his teachings, awed by his healings, and rallied by his refrain that the Kingdom had come to earth.

As I came home, settling in for what I knew to be at least a month’s wait for my visa, I debated what book to plunge deep into next. I could read another gospel, but I had just finished one. I could work on Paul’s letters, but they were often written to places where a group of believers was already established. I’m going to a city with no believers among my people group (that we know of), besides the other two women I’ll work with. I didn’t want a letter written to a group of new believers. I wanted something more… universal. Basic. Applicable to the mindset I’ll step into as I disembark my plane. I wanted something to prime my heart, soul, and mind to relate to a people who hadn’t quite made it to the New Testament in their belief. The Old Testament seemed a good place. And I was so intrigued by the Kingdom Jesus proclaimed to be here, that Joshua seemed a good choice.

That may sound a little strange, but in many cases, the physical realities of the Old Testament are the spiritual realities of the New. Paul says in Eph 6 that out struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual realities. The spiritual warfare in the New Testament and in our lives today finds a physical expression in the book of Joshua. The physical Kingdom of God’s people advances in Joshua in similar ways to how the spiritual Kingdom advances today. So I can learn a lot about how God moves, how the Enemy moves, how battles are won, and how battles are lost.

Here’s an example of what I mean: Achan’s sin prevents God from being glorified in the first battle against Ai (Jos 7), so the Israelites lose. People die, the entire nation loses morale, and God’s people are humiliated and defeated. In today’s spiritual battles, we understand that our sin keeps God from getting the praise, and sometimes it even keeps us from succeeding, even when whatever we’re trying to do is a good thing for the Kingdom. There are spiritual casualties due to our sin, and we often walk away from a spiritual battle humiliated and defeated if we haven’t first dealt with sin in our own lives.

It didn’t take long for me to start applying what I’ve been learning in Joshua. And I saw something in the book I’d never noticed before. Let me tell you the story.

About a week and a half ago, the majority of my friends from training headed out to their new countries. I knew it would be a rough day, so I was ready. I took so many requests to the Father to strengthen me and encourage me. I was genuinely excited for everyone leaving, but I felt kind of separated—with my head turned toward overseas, but not getting to go yet. My morning started out well. I got a call from my contact at the Embassy saying he’d received all my paperwork and would begin processing my visa. There was a slight problem though. My money order had been lost and they couldn’t begin without the processing fee. After I hung up from the call, I began praying for them to find it among the paperwork. I opened up my computer a few minutes later to find an email saying they’d found the money! But they needed the originals of my paperwork from Bulgaria, not just copies. I started writing a response email and praying, and as soon as I sent the email, I had received another, saying a courier had come in the door with the originals from Bulgaria! They would send everything off and I’d have my visa within the next 3-4 weeks! It was an incredible chain of events that could only have been put together by my heavenly Father. I stopped and sent up a prayer of thanks. I had an incredible gift—a token of my Father’s provision and faithfulness—to carry me throughout the day.

Just a few hours later, that afternoon late, I performed a quick self-check and realized I was utterly failing to cope well with everyone leaving. I’ll let you guess at my mental state. I was lost in Oklahoma City and pulled over in a parking lot to plug something into my gps. A couple of people had already honked at me because I was distracted and not driving well. A couple more people had honked at me for no other discernible reason than their panties were in a wad. I had very recently realized I hadn’t made myself eat anything since the half-bowl of cereal that morning. Somewhere in the middle I decided Burger King was a good idea (and I really do hate fast food). So as I was going over my life choices for the day, lost in a parking lot, with a half-eaten cheeseburger in my hand, lard coating my throat, and Les Miserables blaring dramatically over my car speakers, I was torn between crying and laughing at how ridiculously melodramatic I was being. I realized I had spiritually faceplanted. (You know… when you trip or fall. And you literally plant your face in the ground?)

After I got un-lost, got rid of the stale french fries in my passenger seat, called a couple people, and teared-up a bit, I pulled over in a different parking lot and had some Jesus time. The biggest emotion I felt then was shame. I was so frustrated that I had been reminded of Father’s faithfulness just that morning, and in the afternoon I had deliberately let myself have a pity party. I knew the day would be hard, and had asked Father in advance to help me through it. But when I needed him most, I ‘turned him off’ and quit listening. I was more content to fall apart and feel sorry for myself.

As I read my chapter in Joshua for that day, I found something I didn’t expect. In the pages of Joshua—a book about conquest, brutal battle, and instructions to follow the Law to the letter—I found grace. What a blessing that was. The Israelites themselves had gone through a very similar situation, except they had quail burgers and were lost in a desert, not a parking lot. God has parted the Red Sea for them, saved their lives, and made a covenant to be their God. They wandered around in the desert for a while and a disobedient generation passed. And when Joshua ushered the new generation into the promised land, God gave them a grace I had never recognized before. As they crossed the Jordan, God’s presence again went before them (in the Ark of the Covenant) and the water once again ‘split.’ It piled up upstream and would have looked much like the waters of the Red Sea, piled up on each side of the Israelites, who walked across on dry land.

Father didn’t owe them a reminder of who he was. They must have heard the story of the Red Sea more times than they could count. But he did remind them. He gave them a smaller, reprise miracle to remind them of his intentions and his power, and of his provision and faithfulness to the covenant. And even Joshua, the man who trained under Moses, needed extra reminding. It was grace that prompted the Lord to tell Joshua so many times to be strong and courageous; he knew Joshua would struggle.  And it was grace that led the Lord to again prove himself to the Israelites.

It was grace that caught me that day when I faceplanted. Through the stories in the Book we are reminded over and over and over again of Father’s faithfulness to provide and care for his children. And Father has reminded me many times of his faithfulness to me through stories from my own past. He doesn’t owe me that reminder, but he gives it anyway, just like that morning when he worked out my visa application.

As soon as the Israelites crossed the river, they set up a memorial to remind the generations to come of the Lord’s provision and faithfulness. That was a physical reality that remained in the promised land for years upon end. In our lives today, our memorials look a little different. They are our stories. They are those times when the Lord does something incredible in our lives. They are the times when we witness healing, miracles, conversion, faithfulness, or provision. And one of my new memorials is the story of when I faceplanted right into my Father’s grace. He picked me up and reminded me once again of his past faithfulness. My prayer for you, reader, is that you are collecting memorial stories for yourself. Call them to mind when you are challenged to forget or doubt your Father’s faithfulness, and let them remind you of who he is.