It’s been 6 years since my last post, but amazingly I’m right where I left off in 2014: at the start of a year-long Home Assignment in the states. A major transition, such as a move to another continent, can’t help but disrupt all semblance of normal life. Add to that a global pandemic and a 14-day quarantine upon arrival, and I’ve layered the feeling of lonely staleness on top of the chaos of a trans-Atlantic move. Instead of diving into family life and an instant schedule to keep me busy, I’ve been forced to sit still and deal with the rawness.
Stale and raw are both words I’ve used with God in the past two weeks as I try to work through my emotions. But really what I’m feeling is saturated. I had planned to use quarantine to read and write a ton, listen to podcasts, and accomplish a pile of work-related projects, and while a fair amount of that has happened, I’ve felt rather robotic. Nothing I hear or read sticks, almost as if I don’t have the capacity to take in new information right now. It remains on the surface of my brain, and all too often I’m turning back pages or starting podcasts over while asking: What is wrong with me?
Oh right. Transition. The capital-T word of the missions world. The thing that encompasses so very much death. I just said farewell to a season of life with certain groupings of friends that can never be recreated. My heart knows some good-byes were spoken that will end up being final, but my head doesn't know yet which ones. Not a single student will be where I left him or her when I return - if I return. Uncertainty reigns, and I haven’t even touched on the deaths inside me: to the confident, capable teacher in her own classroom; the rhythms of work, Tuesday night Small Group, Sunday morning crepes, and walks on Black Forest trails; to the calling and oversea-living I’ve come to cherish and love. With so much dying, it’s no wonder I can’t absorb anything. Dead things don’t take in living things.
Yet I believe in a sovereign God who uses death to pave the way for new life. In fact, sometimes he kills off some old habits, the pride of control, the obsessions with things I love, precisely because he wants to make room for new growth. Perhaps reaching the end of what I can take in is exactly where he wants me so that I’ll surrender some of what fills me too full. Surrender. The capital-S word of the missions world?
In her book Looming Transitions, Amy Young writes “I want a fertile soul. I want to be the kind of person who is able to let roles or locations or seasons of life die so there is space for the new to grow” (p. 11-12). She’s singing my song! There’s a healthy pruning that needs to take place so that fruit can grow - fruit that is needed and appropriate for the new place and season. What I’m learning is that the saturation by itself isn’t bad because it’s marking something important, but I cannot cling to what’s dead. If I ever want to feel vivacity again and enjoy learning and growth, I need to let some of the old things be siphoned off. And those deaths, for Jesus’ sake, can lead to life (2 Corinthians 4:11).
So, here I am: stale and raw, ending my quarantine and about to launch into Home Assignment, palms up and open in a posture of surrender, hoping my heart will follow my body soon. I need the pruning. I want the fruit. Have mercy on me Jesus, I am yours.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
2 Corinthians 4:10-12
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