Today’s been a really good day. Yesterday we spent a lot of time with family, and as we were driving home last night I started panicking, literally dripping sweat and my heart started racing. I thought to myself, I can’t do this. I can’t leave. I REALLY can’t.
But as we kept driving home in the darkness with Erin sleeping soundly in her carseat God brought to mind all the other things I thought I could never do, but did. I never thought I’d get married. The anxiety of committing your life to one person forever is scary. I never thought I’d be able to go through with a marriage. The night Nate proposed to me I threw up three times. I cried as I told him, “I can’t marry you! It’s too much.” But instead of freaking out and questioning my love for him, he just held my hand and said “I love you.” Every month that got closer to our wedding I knew I could never go through with it. I was convinced at the last minute I’d back out. I got sick. I threw up. I lost weight. But I surrounded myself with beautiful friends. And I married the man I’d always loved.
I knew I’d never be able to have a kid. The thought of having a baby stuck inside my body and me having to carry it for nine months made me sick. Literally. It was reverse claustrophobia; instead of me having to get out of someplace, I needed my baby to get out so I could feel free. But I wanted a family so badly.
My first baby died. And I shed bitter tears as she passed from my body. But my second was strong and grew. And I had panic attacks and I cried, but still she thrived. I had to be induced, but I delivered her. And she’s healthy and she’s fine, and she’s my sweet, beautiful baby Erin.
Am I going to be able to go to Papua New Guinea and stay for all the best years of my life? My heart says I’m going to back out at the last minute because I can’t; I’ve actually been faking it all this time, but then God reminds me of all the things I thought I’d never be able to do, but I did.
Today in church our pastor read and discussed Psalm 102. Whoever this man in exile from Israel was, he suffered, proclaimed his agony and got over it to see the glory of God come. Probably none of us will ever experience the suffering the man in Psalm 102 did. And definitely no man has ever endured the suffering Jesus did.
I am not about to endure a life of suffering. I need to look honestly at what I’m doing and then get over it and move on. I need to get over myself and the life I could have here.
John Piper said, “Occasionally, weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that he’s given you.”
I’m not giving up more than Christian missionaries before me have. I’m not even giving up more than the majority of Christians around the world are for following Christ. And I’m certainly not giving up more than Jesus did.
David Livingstone said, “If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?”
I think of a missions speaker we listened to recently. He told us of university after university after university he went to pleading with young people to come live with unreached tribes and share the good news of Christ. Yet after every session on every college campus ended, he was met with lines of teenagers and twenty year olds saying, “I’d love to, but my parents would never let me.” “I’d love to, but I’m doing ____ here.” Excuse after excuse after excuse.
I decided that I’d refuse to make excuses.
I HATE that I’m leaving my parents.
I HATE that I’m taking Erin and future grandchildren away from them.
I feel like I am not honoring them.
I feel like I’m depriving them of the regular life cycle of happiness: raise kids, look after grandkids and watch your family multiply and be big and happy.
But I NEED to take my kids away from their grandparents.
I NEED to shrink my family to just me and Nate and Erin
In order to grow the family of Christ to me and Nate and Erin and a new tribe.
And one day I’ll see all my family in the air-
My parents who’ve always raised me in the truth.
My dad’s parents who have always been faithful and generous and kind.
My badass grandmommy on my mom’s side who raised five beautiful kids in Costa Rica, excelled in Spanish and managed to make a cozy and welcome home for my grandaddy who shared the Good News of Christ with Central Americans who had never head of the love of God.
And on the topic of badass women, I think of our time in New Tribes in Missouri a couple years ago. During one of our classes, an elderly man with a cane (who’s now dead) was sitting in the back of the classroom. He stood up during a pause in the lecture to talk about his time with an unreached people group in the Philippines. Dell Schultze talked about all he had preached and taught the men of the tribe in the ways of righteousness. And then he talked about how his wife had faithfully taught the women and children; how she taught them to practice faithfulness now to be the next generation of righteous leaders. Day in and day out she taught them.
Nonstop.
No one noticed what she was doing.
They only noticed what Dell was teaching the men.
And I’ll never forget how Dell, with his white hair, stood up in the back of that classroom leaning on his cane, and he said,
“I ask you, who actually planted that church?”
And he sat down.
My heart beat fast,
It shattered.
It soared and it crashed.
I want to be Rachel Schultze.
I want to be known not here but there.
I desperately want to matter; not here, but there.
But I don’t really know who I am.
I don’t know if I can get over myself.
But I’m made at ease when I remember that I don’t matter.
“Laura, God has great things in store for you!”
No, he doesn’t.
He has great things in store for himself.
And I pray and I hope that he will use me
without my resistance
to be an easy, moldable, fashionable vessel.
That it won’t take any effort at all to say
That was easy.
That was effortless.
That was a woman after my own heart.
Leave a Reply