Day 13: Longing for Home {31 Days of Re-entry}

This is the painting I chose to hang in my bedroom when my parents moved houses during my freshman year of college.  That was 18 years ago and since then I have moved my possessions 11 times, living in 3 different countries, 2 different states and 6 different cities.  Each time I would return to my parent’s house, I would study that painting and imagine I was the girl in the pink dress, wondering how to get home.

In her, I found a kindred spirit and someone who looked as homeless as I felt. 

She always seemed to be longing for something more, but never finding the strength to get there.  Many Jim and Elisabeth quotes get tossed around, but one of their quotes from a letter written before they were married made an impression on me:  “Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.”

When I was in college, I longed to know which roads I would take–which job I would end up doing and in which city.  Who I would befriend and if/when I would get married.

After college in the thick of teaching public school in Chicago, I wondered if life would always be like this.  Would I ever meet someone?  Have a family? Go overseas like I had always wanted?

When I was finally in China, I longed for a partner and someone to be my “constant” in a world that was ever changing.  I yearned for that man and hoped for a family of my own. I wanted to make a difference in a country that makes up one fifth of the world’s population.  And yet I still longed for America and the familiar.

And after returning from China, getting married and having children, I now long for a meaningful life.  I hope our family can live counter-culturally and stand out from the seemingly homogenous culture that is now our “home.”

Longing.

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.

On a run one dreary spring day in Chicago before leaving for China, I ran under the elevated train (El) tracks that were stained, rusted and tagged with graffiti.  There was a railing that ran parallel underneath and in it someone had planted a tiny garden that pierced the day with its cheerfulness.  Even though you are miserable because of the cloudy days, the crowded streets and the lonely commutes home, you can grow here, God seemed to say.  

Many years later, on another run, this time in China, I passed a dried up field in the outskirts of the city which had become a dumping ground for trash and refuse.  I had a holy moment when I noticed a single yellow flower bursting through the sad field, thriving in spite of its environment.  You can grow anywhere, God seemed to be saying to me.

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.

I believe humans will always long for more.  We long to know the future and to make a difference.  We long for love, community, belonging, peace, healthy challenges, beauty and meaning.  This is not just true to the Christian experience, it is true to the human experience.

But the Christian takes the longing one step further by naming our hope and defining our longing for an eternal home.

Yes, there is a place for contentment, being thankful and having a grateful heart, but some degree of longing is appropriate and reminds us that we are out of place here.  We are a garden in a concrete jungle and a flower in the wilderness.  Our longing is good, but it is temporary.  And in the meantime, we are to beautify our surroundings–wherever God places us.

(For practical ways I’m trying to do this, check out Readjusting: Same Tools, New Work Space)

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This post is day 13 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

Day 1: Introduction
Day 2: Grieving
Day 3: No One Is Special
Day 4: Wasted Gifts
Day 5: I Never Expected…
Day 6: Identity: Through the Looking Glass
Day 7: Did I mishear God?
Day 8: When You Feel Like Shutting Down
Day 9: Caring for your Dorothy
Day 10: You’re Not the Only One Who’s Changed
Day 11: 12 Race Day Lessons for Serving Overseas
Day 12: Confessions of an Experience Junkie
Day 13: Longing for Home
Day 14: Readjusting: Same Tools, Different Work Space
Day 15: Book Review: The Art of Coming Home
Day 16: The Story of My “Call”
Day 17: Is Missions a “Higher Calling”?
Day 18: And Then I Fell in Love
Day 19: Is God Calling You Overseas?
Day 20: Life Is Not Seasonal
Day 21: What I Took and What I Left Behind
Day 22: Groundless, Weightless, Homeless
Day 23: When the Nations Come to You
Day 24: The Call to Displacement
Day 25: Scripture Anchors for Re-Entry
Day 26: In the Place of Your Exile
Day 27: Resources for Re-entry
Day 28: A Time for Everything: A Prayer of Leaving
Day 29: Journal: 8 Months After Re-Entry
Day 30: 12 Survival Tips for Re-Entry
Day 31: A Blessing
(Day 32: Writing is Narcissistic (And Four Other Reasons Not to Write)–a reflection on this Write 31 Days experience)


Linking up with #WholeMama

Painting: “Christina’s World,” by Andrew Wyeth (American), 1948.

Day 7: Did I Mishear God? {31 Days of Re-Entry}


Yesterday night I read the following story to my son before bed:

“Once upon a mountaintop, three little trees stood and dreamed of what they wanted to become when they grew up.

The first little tree looked up at the stars twinkling like diamonds above him.  ‘I want to hold treasure,’ he said.  ‘I want to be covered with gold and filled with precious stones.  I will be the most beautiful treasure chest in the world!’

The second little tree looked out at the small stream trickling by on its way to the ocean.  ‘I want to be a strong sailing ship, ‘ he said.  ‘I want to travel mighty waters and carry powerful kings.  I will be the strongest ship in the world!’

The third little tree looked down into the valley below where busy men and busy women worked in a busy town.  ‘I don’t want to leave this mountaintop at all,’ she said.  ‘I want to grow so tall that when people stop to look at me they will raise their eyes to heaven and think of God.  I will be the tallest tree in the world!’

The trees grew and one day three woodcutters came and cut the trees for their own purposes.  [My 3-year-old son was very distraught at this point]. 

The first tree was fashioned into a feed box for animals, the second  into a simple fishing boat, and the third into strong beams which were left in the lumberyard.  ‘What happened?’ the once-tall tree wondered.  ‘All I ever wanted to do was stay on the mountaintop and point to God…'”

Some of the most confusing times of my life have come when I have been convinced that I was doing God’s will, only to have my way blocked.  One time I thought the Lord had told me that I would marry a certain person (I didn’t) and the other was when I thought the Lord had told me to go into missions.  If you have read any of my previous posts, but especially the one about wasted gifts, you know my angst in leaving China.  Since I was 16 years old, I was convinced I would serve the Lord overseas, so when He made it very clear that He wanted me to leave the field, return to America and get married, I couldn’t understand how that could be His will.  

Had I misheard God?

I sometimes wonder if the Apostle Paul felt confused when the Holy Spirit prevented him from going to certain cities to tell them about Jesus (Acts 16). Why wouldn’t God want that? And why would God allow him to be imprisoned, when the word missionary itself means “a person SENT”?  What good could he do from inside a prison? (wink, wink)

[This is an aside:  This will sound melodramatic, but thinking about Paul in prison actually helped me to prepare for motherhood.  Stay with me here.  When I entered motherhood, I felt what my husband and I call The Narrowing happen even more.  Used to being fiercely independent and willing to travel anywhere, I knew that having a child would restrict that in many ways.  To be dramatic, I was being put in Parent Prison.  How was this better than seeing “the nations” come to Christ?  But it was helpful to think of all the ways Paul ministered FROM prison.  Think of all the “prison epistles” we wouldn’t have if Paul had never spent that time in a jail cell…]

In addition to Paul, I can also relate to David and Moses’ passion to serve God in a specific way that didn’t go as planned.  David’s dream was to be the one to build a temple for the Lord, but God chose his son, Solomon, to do it instead (2 Sam. 7). And when Moses finally tried to right the injustices against the Jews (by fighting and killing a man), the timing was all wrong (Exodus 2).  Instead, he fled to Midian for 40 years before he was truly called via burning bush to go back to Egypt and convince Pharaoh to let his people go. 

Lately, I have actually been thinking of my time back in the states as “My Midian.”  I came here to get married, have children and now “tend the flock.”  Moses actually seemed to forget all about the plight of his people, just as many days go by for me now without a thought of China.  But God was the one who “heard the groaning; and God remembered his covenant…God saw…and God took notice of them” (Ex. 2:24).  This doesn’t remove our responsibility, but it certainly assuages my guilt when I remember that God is the one who sees and delivers–not me.  Moses had moved on and was just living his life.  And THEN he was called in a way that was unmistakable. 

Conclusion to The Three Trees:

“Many many days and nights passed.  The three trees nearly forgot their dreams.

But one night golden starlight poured over the first tree as a young woman placed her newborn baby in the feed box…and suddenly the first tree knew he was holding the greatest treasure in the world.

One evening a tired traveler and his friends crowded into the old fishing boat.  The traveler fell asleep…Soon a thundering and thrashing storm arose…He knew he did not have the strength to carry so many passengers safely through the wind and rain.  The tired man awakened.  He stood up, stretched out his hand and said, ‘Peace.’ The storm stopped as quickly as it had begun.  And suddenly the second tree knew he was carrying the King of heaven and earth.

One Friday morning, the third tree was startled when her beams were yanked from the forgotten woodpile.  She flinched as she was carried through any angry, jeering crowd.  She shuddered when soldiers nailed a mans’ hands to her…

But on Sunday morning, when the sun rose and the earth trembled with joy beneath her, the third tree knew that God’s love had changed everything. 

It had made the first tree beautiful.

It had made the second tree strong.

And every time people thought of the third tree, they would think of God.

That was better than being the tallest tree in the world.”

The Tale of Three Trees: A Traditional Folktale.  Retold by Angela Elwell Hunt.  Colorado Springs, CO:  Lion Publishing, 1989.

We never really know how God plans to use us, do we?  Our gifts, dreams and plans for God are never wasted, but sometimes they may be “up-cycled” into something even more beautiful, strong and glorifying to God than we could have ever asked or imagined. 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
(Is. 55:8-9, NIV)
Have you ever felt you “misheard God”?  Which of your dreams for God have gone unrealized?

This post is day 7 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts:

Day 1: Introduction
Day 2: Grieving
Day 3: No One Is Special
Day 4: Wasted Gifts
Day 5: I Never Expected…
Day 6: Identity: Through the Looking Glass
Day 7: Did I mishear God?
Day 8: When You Feel Like Shutting Down
Day 9: Caring for your Dorothy
Day 10: You’re Not the Only One Who’s Changed
Day 11: 12 Race Day Lessons for Serving Overseas
Day 12: Confessions of an Experience Junkie
Day 13: Longing for Home
Day 14: Readjusting: Same Tools, Different Work Space
Day 15: Book Review: The Art of Coming Home
Day 16: The Story of My “Call”
Day 17: Is Missions a “Higher Calling”?
Day 18: And Then I Fell in Love
Day 19: Is God Calling You Overseas?
Day 20: Life Is Not Seasonal
Day 21: What I Took and What I Left Behind
Day 22: Groundless, Weightless, Homeless
Day 23: When the Nations Come to You
Day 24: The Call to Displacement
Day 25: Scripture Anchors for Re-Entry
Day 26: In the Place of Your Exile
Day 27: Resources for Re-entry
Day 28: A Time for Everything: A Prayer of Leaving
Day 29: Journal: 8 Months After Re-Entry
Day 30: 12 Survival Tips for Re-Entry
Day 31: A Blessing
(Day 32: Writing is Narcissistic (And Four Other Reasons Not to Write)–a reflection on this Write 31 Days experience)

Linking up with Jennifer Dukes Lee  

Day 4: Wasted Gifts {31 Days of Re-Entry}

If you read my post yesterday, you know that I struggle with pride, so it will come as no surprise to you that when watching the movie, The Incredibles, I identify with being an undercover super hero.  If you haven’t seen the movie, a super hero couple marries and decides to try and live a “normal” suburban life without using their powers, until, of course evil forces threaten and they are coerced into using their powers once again.  Currently a stay-at-home-mom in America, I sometimes feel like some of my gifts for language, culture and teaching have gone into hiding. I am Elastigirl incognito.

From childhood, we develop gifts that we often use only for a season, or they are latent in us until we have an opportunity to feed and water them once more.  Those who have changed careers, left jobs to stay home with children, immigrants with PhD’s working at McDonald’s in the states, those who were concert pianists, on the varsity team or on the traveling dance team in their childhood can probably relate. 

Missionaries develop a unique skill set that is often less useful if they return to their passport country:  tribal languages, cultural knowledge, bargaining skills, and the ability to live without running water and electricity aren’t skills that are usually in high demand in the western world.   If you return home, are you wasting your gifts?  Will you ever use them again?

I returned to the states to marry an amazing man, an actor who had just begun recording audio books full time, but did theater on the side.  He studied theater in college and has his MFA in acting.  In addition to loving God (and me), His passions in life are books, theater, Frisbee and craft coffee (in changing order depending on the time of day).

Before I met my husband, I got my Masters in Intercultural Studies and spent five years studying Mandarin Chinese, including two years of full time study, fully intending to spend the rest of my life in China.  Weeks before we met, I began applying to PhD programs in cultural studies.  

But God had different plans for us.

It seemed that each of us, in being called to marriage, were being called to lay our most precious gifts on the altar.  Missions and China for me and theater for him.

Upon returning to the states, one of the most painful questions someone could ask me was, “Are you using your Chinese?”  It triggered a sense of shame that I was perhaps squandering a gift I had spent hours in honing.  Likewise, my husband now knows to brace himself for sadness when he attends his friend’s plays or is asked what show he is currently in.

In the past five years of being back in the states, my husband and I have each had some opportunities to use these latent gifts, which I may go into in another post, but for the most part, we have had to leave these talents buried in the ground.

From the world’s perspective, this is “waste,” but God seems to operate by a different economy and at times, His equations just don’t seem to balance.  Living overseas, I was always surprised when the most “qualified” people (fluent in the language, with deep relationships, culturally savvy) were the ones that seemed to leave. How could God want that when they were “doing so much to help the kingdom?” 

Similarly, in Scripture, I have always been baffled by the fact that God called Paul, who seems like he would have been the perfect candidate for ministry to the Jews, to preach to the Gentiles.  Not logical.

Paul must have felt this loss.  It seems to come through in Philippians 3, where he recounts his qualifications as being a Pharisee from the “right” lineage.  He knew what he was capable of by the world’s standards.  And yet.  He counts all these as LOSS for the sake of Christ.  He is willing to lose all–his status, education, gifts and abilities–for the sake of knowing Christ.

This is the kind of man God wanted to use to spread His kingdom in the world. 

Jesus, take my gifts.
I break this valuable alabaster jar and pour it out for you.
You are worthy of my every sacrifice because you already sacrificed your life for mine.
Nothing done for you or for your glory can ever be considered “waste.”
Thank you, Jesus.


Do you feel that you have latent gifts?  What gifts is Christ asking you to lay at His feet until He chooses to use them again?

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This post is day 4 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

Day 1: Introduction
Day 2: Grieving
Day 3: No One Is Special
Day 4: Wasted Gifts
Day 5: I Never Expected…
Day 6: Identity: Through the Looking Glass
Day 7: Did I mishear God?
Day 8: When You Feel Like Shutting Down
Day 9: Caring for your Dorothy
Day 10: You’re Not the Only One Who’s Changed
Day 11: 12 Race Day Lessons for Serving Overseas
Day 12: Confessions of an Experience Junkie
Day 13: Longing for Home
Day 14: Readjusting: Same Tools, Different Work Space
Day 15: Book Review: The Art of Coming Home
Day 16: The Story of My “Call”
Day 17: Is Missions a “Higher Calling”?
Day 18: And Then I Fell in Love
Day 19: Is God Calling You Overseas?
Day 20: Life Is Not Seasonal
Day 21: What I Took and What I Left Behind
Day 22: Groundless, Weightless, Homeless
Day 23: When the Nations Come to You
Day 24: The Call to Displacement
Day 25: Scripture Anchors for Re-Entry
Day 26: In the Place of Your Exile
Day 27: Resources for Re-entry
Day 28: A Time for Everything: A Prayer of Leaving
Day 29: Journal: 8 Months After Re-Entry
Day 30: 12 Survival Tips for Re-Entry
Day 31: A Blessing
(Day 32: Writing is Narcissistic (And Four Other Reasons Not to Write)–a reflection on this Write 31 Days experience)

My Story: When Marriage is Viewed as Selling Out

I had always heard those stories of people being “called” to missions, then meeting someone, falling in love and never actually going.  Or, even worse, going and then returning home…for a man (dun, dun, dun).  After being “called” to missions myself during a conference at 16, I knew I never wanted to be that girl.  I hardly dated in college, wanting to keep myself freed up to be able to go on the mission field.  I even broke up with one guy a few years later, telling him, “I don’t want the ‘white picket fence’ kind of life because God has called me to missions.”  After going overseas, I was a bit dismayed when I was placed in a city with one female teammate and only two other foreigners in the entire city, both in their upper 50’s. How was I going to meet the godly, single man who was also called to my specific people group in my tiny corner of China? (seriously)

So I tried online dating.  “At the very least, you’ll be encouraged by how many matches you get!” another single friend encouraged me.  I signed up for EHarmony, filled out my profile and waited for my numerous matches to encourage me that if I tried hard enough, I really could find Mr. Right.  But nope.  Just one match.  (It just may have been the fact that I checked the little box, “Am not willing to leave my current location (China) for someone…”).


After that, I came up with a Grand Plan.  I decided the best thing for me to do would be to marry a Chinese American.  Perfect.  That way we would already have both cultures in common.  So I picked the ONE single Chinese American in our organization and dropped a few hints….nothing.

I finally gave up the search, which is of course when I met someone who was out of the question: a guy from Chicago (the city I had dramatically exited with tears, commissioning and prayer meetings five years previously)—an actor with no “calling” to live overseas.  Wrong.  Wrong. Wrong.  This was not The Plan.  I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that I was “leaving for a guy,” so I said I was taking a “home leave.”  When we soon got engaged (3 days after I flew back from China), I was actually nervous to tell people.  I knew what they’d be thinking…I thought you were “called.”  You sure are quick to abandon your “call” as soon as you meet a guy.  Don’t you need God more than you need a husband? Did you mishear God’s will for your life? Why are you selling out? 

No one actually said any of these things, but I knew what they’d be thinking because I had thought the same things about others in the past.  I felt ashamed of “forsaking my call” for something as “weak” as marriage. 

I think part of the problem was that throughout all my years of singleness I had fortified myself with verses affirming my marital status.  1 Corinthians 7:32-35 seemed to portray married people as distracted and bogged down by the world and single people as holy and completely sold out to the Lord.  Isaiah 54: 5 called the Lord my “husband and maker,” which I took literally and thus felt completely guilty about when the Lord wasn’t enough of a “husband” and I had to replace him with an earthly husband.  When I feared I would never have children, I found comfort in Psalm 17: 13-15 that seemed to say that people with children would have their “portion in this life,” while  those who didn’t have children would be satisfied in the Lord.  With these verses, I was impenetrable.  I wasn’t even open to the prospect of God bringing a man into my life.  So when I met the Actor, I was completely blind-sided.  I really think it was the only way that I would have let down my guard.

Fast forward ten years, after lots of grieving over the loss of China (weekly tears for the first year), running parallel to the joy of an incredible husband and two devious, yet delightful children, I’ve come to these conclusions:

3.    God can and does use any state of being—single or married—to refine us and make us holy.
4.    Being a missionary isn’t the ultimate expression of your love for Christ.

I’ll unpack these a bit more in some other posts, but for now I will comment on #3.  1 Corinthians was a huge stumbling block for me as I found myself falling in love, but as a married woman, now I think:  Am I more distracted than I was when I was single? Yes.  Do I need to worry about meeting my family’s needs?  Yes.  Am I more worldly?  Possibly. But the ultimate question is this:  Do I love God less? No.  And more importantly, does He love me less?  Absolutely not. 

So far, marriage and missions have been mutually exclusive for me.  Grief, loss of identity and loss of purpose are just a few of the emotional pits I have found myself scrambling out of in the past five years of re-entry, but I have slowly found more peace about “leaving my calling.”  One help was reading in Matthew 22, which includes the parable of the marriage feast and Jesus answering the Sadducees’ incessant questions on marriage in heaven. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that He seemingly skirts their questions about marriage and instead reminds them to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind.  It turns out that marriage wasn’t the issue at all–the issue was always about God having ALL their hearts.  Marriage can certainly muddy the waters of devotion, but nothing can change His love for me.  In fact, it gives me a pretty good forum to work out that second command to love my neighbor as myself.

 

Have you ever felt that singleness is viewed as more holy than marriage?  Have you felt guilty about leaving the field to get married? How did you reconcile your “call to missions” with your “call to marriage”?

Linking up with Velvet Ashes.


Photo by:  “Sandra and the ring” by Lbartley – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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