Six days from now, I will fly out of the gray everyday-ness of a snowy February and take a flying leap back - and forward - into the mountains of Ecuador. My friends Chris & Gretchen have immersed themselves in a small mountain community, partnering with and living alongside a church there, and I have the privilege of joining them for a week.
Only God knew - when He plucked me out of everything familiar and set me down in the midst of a foreign culture, people, and land - that 10 years later, He would send me back. Back to visit that place where my perspective shifted up in lasting ways. And forward, into what seems inexplicably like a new season of life, though its borders remain fuzzy & uncertain.
When I went to Ecuador the first time, I had no real knowledge of how my trip fit into God's overarching plan for my life. Or whether it made any significant ripple in His grand plan for the world. This time around, my foresight isn't much greater. I just know that I have friends there who are doing their best to be obedient to God's call, even though it doesn't make much sense sometimes. I am hoping that I can catch some of that courage, some of that reckless abandon, and even that respectful disregard for people's opinions that comes with choosing God's way over man's. And I feel, though I can't exactly explain why, that some new breath of Life is waiting.
Taking risks isn't exactly a pattern for me. I think that's why, when I do scrounge up the courage to take one, it makes such a lasting impact. So here I go ... my first solo international flight, into a community a few hundred yards below where witch doctors make their sacrifices, coming face to face with the darkness within and without ... all in the hope of discovering the overwhelming Light breaking into both places.
At the moment, I am feeling very unprepared for this new adventure, both practially and spiritually. The momentum of the semester has left little free time & energy for planning, packing, or praying. Physical & emotional exhaustion has settled over me like a cloud, but that stubborn spark of hope refuses to be smothered.
For some unaccountable reason of His own, God has gifted me with Life, and Light, and Love. And these are what I carry with me - before me, behind me, within me. I'm not sure how they'll show up in this all-but-forgotten mountain village on the underside of the world, but I'm going in with eyes wide open, ready to see how they'll appear, how they'll bless the precious ones I'll meet, how they'll be strengthened and enriched for the return trip. And for the Life beyond ...
February 21, 2010
February 05, 2010
Still Looking Up
It's funny how God holds us up when we don't even realize we need to ask Him to...
I'm not feeling very eloquent tonight -- it's the end of a long day, and a long week, or three long weeks -- but I was just thinking about why I started this blog in the first place.
When I was a sophomore in college, I stepped out of the ordinary to spend three months studying & traveling in Ecuador. It was a collection of firsts: my first time on a plane, first time out of the country, first time being so far from home, for such a long time.
I was completely out of my element, both exhilarated and terrified. And because of it, I spent those three months coming to rely on God in a way I'd never realized I needed to before.
In the weeks before my team left on our trip, our college's chapel band had introduced a chorus based on Psalm 121. Adrift in Ecuador, I spent the balance of the semester anchoring my eyes on the Andes and singing that song to myself ...
I lift my eyes up to the mountains
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from You,
Maker of Heaven, Creator of the Earth
Oh, how I need You, Lord!
You are my only hope,
You're my only prayer.
So I will wait for You
To come and rescue me,
Come and bring me life...
The simple reality behind that Psalm -- that whatever I faced, no matter how large it loomed, God was bigger -- got me through a challenging 3 months in a foreign country. Several years later, when I moved away to Denver, Colorado for grad school, that same perspective -- reinforced this time by the breath-catching Rockies -- kept me going when I wanted to quit. Kept me believing when I wanted to give up. Kept me, my problems, the world, and God, all in proper perspective.
Planted now in northern Indiana, there are no visible mountains to remind me of the God behind them. But I have only to close my eyes to see either familiar mountain range firmly fixed in my memory. And, because it became such habit -- in the precious years I lived in the mountains' shadow -- to look up at them in midst of the dirt & sweat struggle of daily life, the practice remains with me still. Only now, it is the eyes of my heart I'm lifting-- up to the rugged beauty of the mountains, and beyond them, to the God who made us both them, and me. He walked with me through each step, each season, each shift of dark & light then ... I trust Him to do so again.
That's why I'm writing here: for perspective. To remind myself -- and anyone who happens to be reading along -- to look up. There is more to life than what can be seen. Yet sometimes, God favors us with a glimpse beyond the veil to another country that lies beyond. Countless times I believe I've almost caught sight of it ... and then it's gone. But no matter how dark it gets, or how brief and distant the glimpses, I keep watching. And waiting. And I keep looking up.
I'm not feeling very eloquent tonight -- it's the end of a long day, and a long week, or three long weeks -- but I was just thinking about why I started this blog in the first place.
When I was a sophomore in college, I stepped out of the ordinary to spend three months studying & traveling in Ecuador. It was a collection of firsts: my first time on a plane, first time out of the country, first time being so far from home, for such a long time.
I was completely out of my element, both exhilarated and terrified. And because of it, I spent those three months coming to rely on God in a way I'd never realized I needed to before.
In the weeks before my team left on our trip, our college's chapel band had introduced a chorus based on Psalm 121. Adrift in Ecuador, I spent the balance of the semester anchoring my eyes on the Andes and singing that song to myself ...
I lift my eyes up to the mountains
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from You,
Maker of Heaven, Creator of the Earth
Oh, how I need You, Lord!
You are my only hope,
You're my only prayer.
So I will wait for You
To come and rescue me,
Come and bring me life...
The simple reality behind that Psalm -- that whatever I faced, no matter how large it loomed, God was bigger -- got me through a challenging 3 months in a foreign country. Several years later, when I moved away to Denver, Colorado for grad school, that same perspective -- reinforced this time by the breath-catching Rockies -- kept me going when I wanted to quit. Kept me believing when I wanted to give up. Kept me, my problems, the world, and God, all in proper perspective.
Planted now in northern Indiana, there are no visible mountains to remind me of the God behind them. But I have only to close my eyes to see either familiar mountain range firmly fixed in my memory. And, because it became such habit -- in the precious years I lived in the mountains' shadow -- to look up at them in midst of the dirt & sweat struggle of daily life, the practice remains with me still. Only now, it is the eyes of my heart I'm lifting-- up to the rugged beauty of the mountains, and beyond them, to the God who made us both them, and me. He walked with me through each step, each season, each shift of dark & light then ... I trust Him to do so again.
That's why I'm writing here: for perspective. To remind myself -- and anyone who happens to be reading along -- to look up. There is more to life than what can be seen. Yet sometimes, God favors us with a glimpse beyond the veil to another country that lies beyond. Countless times I believe I've almost caught sight of it ... and then it's gone. But no matter how dark it gets, or how brief and distant the glimpses, I keep watching. And waiting. And I keep looking up.
February 02, 2010
Of Fear and Fetters
Old, familiar demons creep close, pointing bloody fingers and whispering accusations of shame & doubt.
God, how I long to leave this behind! But to do so, I must walk through a wall of fire that looms up just as fearfully.
Will I trust You? Will I believe enough in Your love and wisdom to take Your hand and let You lead me through the flames?
Or will I cower in fear on this side of the Jordan, within sight of the Promised Land, but never able to set my foot there?
Oh God, far be it from me to stay! Yet how will I ever find the courage to leave?
Help me, Father! My spirit is willing - longing! - but my cowardly flesh pulls back.
"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched one I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" ~Romans 7:21-25
Never more than now have I been so aware of this war! Never more desirous - or reluctant - to see the final victory.
There is something dark & powerful waging war over my soul, Lord. It's had me in its clutches so long I fear to rouse & anger it further, anxious to avoid greater torment. Yet I am uncomfortably aware that the demon has already been stirred - never silent, that one, its wrath is relentless.
Do I trust You to protect me?
I know I cannot emerge from this unscathed - it's already too late for that. Yet I still pull back in this vain attempt to protect myself. I am the wounded animal caught in a trap that bites and scratches at the hand of its Rescuer. I am, by my own stubborness and failure to trust, making my deliverance harder. But I don't know how to relax and let You lead. I am so tightly wound, so firmly wrapped in my own sin & folly, yet I cling pitifully to these dirty rags.
Forgive me, Lord! Open my eyes that I would truly see the tenderness of Your conviction.
God, how I long to leave this behind! But to do so, I must walk through a wall of fire that looms up just as fearfully.
Will I trust You? Will I believe enough in Your love and wisdom to take Your hand and let You lead me through the flames?
Or will I cower in fear on this side of the Jordan, within sight of the Promised Land, but never able to set my foot there?
Oh God, far be it from me to stay! Yet how will I ever find the courage to leave?
Help me, Father! My spirit is willing - longing! - but my cowardly flesh pulls back.
"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched one I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" ~Romans 7:21-25
Never more than now have I been so aware of this war! Never more desirous - or reluctant - to see the final victory.
There is something dark & powerful waging war over my soul, Lord. It's had me in its clutches so long I fear to rouse & anger it further, anxious to avoid greater torment. Yet I am uncomfortably aware that the demon has already been stirred - never silent, that one, its wrath is relentless.
Do I trust You to protect me?
I know I cannot emerge from this unscathed - it's already too late for that. Yet I still pull back in this vain attempt to protect myself. I am the wounded animal caught in a trap that bites and scratches at the hand of its Rescuer. I am, by my own stubborness and failure to trust, making my deliverance harder. But I don't know how to relax and let You lead. I am so tightly wound, so firmly wrapped in my own sin & folly, yet I cling pitifully to these dirty rags.
Forgive me, Lord! Open my eyes that I would truly see the tenderness of Your conviction.
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