Did I Get in the Wrong Line?

Sometimes I sit and wonder why I was chosen for this job. The other night I was overwhelmed with the chaos that is my life. I thought back over the last two years. I moved to a new country, into a "quaint" little 15th century apartment with no sun in which we were trapped for 8 hours one frightful night, three weeks after arriving, when someone threw a rock through our second-story window in an attempt to break in. Without a phone or internet or any way to call for help, Rob and I sat huddled together, barricaded in our room in the dark, me trembling for hours, him praying for our safety. Shortly thereafter we moved into a new apartment, much better than the first. About 1 month after that move, we found out we were expecting a new little baby. Yeah! We celebrated our 2 year anniversary in Geneva and joyfully followed the growth of our little girl. 7 months later, on our vacation, we lost our little girl, and were flown back to France where for the first time, and on the same day, I went through labor and delivery of a child, and for the first time, laid my child to rest. I saw for the first time my last name on a gravestone. For the first time, I felt the most grief, pain and sadness of my entire life thus far. I spent the next months of my life trying to keep my head above the mire of depression and continue on with normal life.

In January of this year, Rob and I decided that God had said "no" to another baby for this time, and that we should plan our move to Chad for April. We took a short vacation to the US to visit family and have some time to rest. With us, we took all of our clothes and belongings that we wouldn't be taking to Chad, we purchased the final necessary items for a move to Africa...and then we found out that the rebel army had invaded N'Djamena, the capital and our team was being evacuated. We came back to France to sit through week after week of meetings during which we try to determine our plan of action. Do we wait in France, can we move to Chad, do we go to another country, do we go home? We make decisions and the next day find out that all the information has changed. We make new plans and find out the next day that the same thing has happened. And in the midst of all this, I continue to watch almost every woman that I know get pregnant, while God still apparently shakes His head to me. In the midst of the uncertainty, I still have to deal with the reality of my own pain, that few can imagine or know is still so vivid and real to me as it was on this day 9 months ago.

I was thinking the other day, God, I didn't ask for this. I got in the wrong line. This is not what I want. When I was 16 years old, twelve years ago, I told God that I wanted to have my life work be full time ministry, to thank Him for what He had done in my life; for saving me. But when I said that I wanted to be a missionary, I didn't say that I wanted to do the "hard work." I didn't say that I wanted to be fighting my way to the village through a war zone. I didn't say that I wanted to be sitting at my kitchen table reading the US Army Ranger's Field Manual for Outdoor Survival and making an "Evacuation Bag Packing List". All I wanted to do was tell the T people about Jesus. That's it! I'm tired of being stressed out, having to make life and death decisions. I literally do not know what each new day holds.

Rob and I were on a hike the other day, and during this one part of the hike, you turn around the corner, and ahead of you is this very long stretch of path; you can hardly see the end. When I rounded that corner, I looked up at Rob and said, "I don't think I can do this anymore." We'd already been hiking for about 5 hours, my feet were blistered, it was getting windy and cold, the sun had been behind the clouds for quite a while, and we were low enough in the trees now that we couldn't see the valley anymore to know how close to the bottow that we were. He promised me that after this long stretch we would be ten minutes from the bottom. Now, this stretch of the path wasn't any more draining than any other part, but the fact that I could see so much of it, made it extremely daunting and left me wanting to give up. It made me think about our life journey. If God had shown me at any point in the last 12 years how long this strech of the path was going to be, I would have chosen a different hike. Hands down. And I've thought, when I beg Him to let me know what is going to happen in the future with our lives, I think He is wise not to show me, because I would most likely pick a different hike. He is good. Is my life chaotic? Yes. But I praise the Lord that He is kind enough to show me nothing of what will happen in the future.

These difficult times, feelings of uselessness, hopelessness, fear and pain have begun to teach me a difficult lesson. That is that although God is pleased to use me in His plans, I am not central to them, and they are so much bigger than me and my little world that I cannot make sense of them. Our friends told us the other day how they were trying to give their 17mo. son some homemade bread for breakfast instead of his normal cereal and yogurt, because the homemade bread is what he would have to start eating in Chad. They said that he screamed and cried when they gave him the bread, because it wasn't His normal breakfast. I asked why he didn't like the bread, and they said, "Oh, he likes it fine, He just doesn't want to eat it for breakfast because that's not what He's used to. But it's better that we start giving it to Him now, because then it will be much easier for Him to adapt when we are finally in Chad." It really is true how much my relationship with God is like that of a parent and a child. Children know nothing of the things of life, of the "Big Picture". There's just no way they can comprehend it, and neither can I comprehend the things of God. When people tell me things like "This is all in God's plan" I used to think, what a rude thing to say...and how could allowing me to hurt really be in God's plan? But the thing is, there are things in life that hurt because they have to (immunization injections for example) but the child doesn't understand the necessity of the pain, and there are things that God allows because it is preparing us for some future event (even if that be simply drawing us closer to Him, which He knows will really bring us more happiness). It's just so hard to see, isn't it, being that we are children. Only God knows why Ella had to die so early, but He allowed it for a reason, and He has it under control, and I choose to believe that my Father knows exactly what He's doing with our chaotic lives right now, and that this is ultimately for a greater good.