Dreams 4
The Winding Paths That Lead Us Home
It all seemed so clear…until it didn’t anymore. I had a vision and a plan and I believed it was all from God. As circumstances lined up, I became even more assured that it must be true.
I hear it all the time when something unexplainably good happens: “It was such a God thing.” It’s our way of saying, God ordained this; it must have been the will of the Lord. That’s why it all worked out, right?
But then, it doesn’t work out. Something that seemed so clear gets fuzzy. Dreams die. Plans change. Life smacks us around and derails what looked like a path set out for us. Wasn’t that God’s plan, too? Could our detours and our suffering be part of the perfect plan for us? We don’t like to claim that one.
I remember it like yesterday, a conversation that seemed innocent enough; not like one that would change my entire life. I had stopped by an old friend’s house to meet him for lunch. We had known each other since middle school and went to the same church as teenagers. We had reconnected in the past few weeks when we both moved back to our hometown after college. When his dad walked into the kitchen he reacted the way most people did upon hearing my plans. “What can we do to keep you from moving to India?” he said.
I raised my head with the confidence of someone following the way intended by God alone. “Nothing,” I insisted, “I am going.”
I had followed the breadcrumbs that led me to this place of kismet. I knew in my bones since college I would live in a foreign land but I wasn’t sure where. I chased that dream to seminary to get a stronger foundation under my feet before I launched out into the world.
I met a visiting lecturer who talked about his work in Northern India. He was supporting local artists who were seeing Hindus and Christians work together to create amazing art. I jumped at the opening to use my dance training and my faith together. When I started studying classical Indian dance, I became infatuated with all things Indian culture. I devoured the food, Bollywood movies, and the thumping bhangra beats.
I felt elegant in my sari the night of my first Bharata Natyam performance. My teacher said I took to the dance style so naturally I must have been a temple dancer in a past life. I found a job in which I could study dance in India and build relationships with college students in a big city. Clearly, this was a God thing.
Until…I fell quickly and madly in love with that old friend I said I was having a harmless lunch with. I weighed this perfect vision I had of what my life should look like with what also seemed like a perfect fit between the two of us. Wait, was I wrong? How could two paths be the right ones? Was India all my dream and not God’s?...
CONTINUE READING AT THE MUDROOM
Remembering I Can Overcome. For Sheloves Magazine.
In the middle of that moment with the cold seeping into joint and marrow, in what felt like an endless night, we couldn’t imagine being warm ever again. We had been hiking down the mountainside all day. The expansive view of the Ozarks still fresh in our memories, we descended into the absolute opposite landscape. My family and eight others had been hiking for four days already. Bone weary, hungry, and exhausted we stood in front of the mouth of a wild cave with our hearts beating loudly in our ears.
We walked into absolute darkness and total silence, overwhelmed with the experiences of the past few days and all the emotions they stirred inside of us. That stillness was harshly broken the moment we stepped out of the cave to find a downpour had begun in the valley. We quickly got to work, easily falling into the teamwork we had built. Those best at building shelters set to work with the tarps, finding the few places of flat ground to stay for the night. As soon as one shelter was set up just high enough for us to crouch under, those who had gathered whatever wood they could began stacking it for those of us with knives. Quick but methodical, we shaved off the soaked bark until we reached something inside that was dry enough to burn.
Hours later we stood huddled near the fire, arms around each other as much for warmth as to keep ourselves standing. Together we’d succeeded in building a fire in the least ideal conditions. We devoured the food prepared over it, grateful for both the warmth and the sustenance the flames had provided. We coughed as smoke gathered in our tiny shelter. We alternated between keeping warm and turning our faces outward to gasp for clean air.
At three in the morning, we wept together as we recalled the past few days. We had done things we never imagined ourselves capable of. We had seen such darkness in ourselves as we grappled for certainty in the wilderness. We glimpsed such light in each other as we banded together as family to carry one another when we didn’t believe we could make it. We felt the deepest cold imaginable as the rushing waters flooded the valley where we stood. We felt the warmth of peace as we sang hymns together and reminded each other that God gave us the strength to press on. Whenever I stare into the flickering glow of a fire, I remember that night. I remember what it feels like to know I can overcome.
In the middle of this moment with the numbness of depression sapping the energy from joint and marrow, in what feels like an endless night, I can’t imagine ever being warm again. I have been stumbling through the day and finally have a quiet house to myself. The expansive view of a new adventure on the horizon fills my memory. My family had been working towards our international move for years. Bone weary, alone, and exhausted I have descended into culture shock that I never saw coming. You prepare for it. You read about it. But you don’t think it won’t shake your whole world. Then it does...
When What Resonates With You Looks Ridiculous to Others. For Sheloves Magazine.
Have you ever felt a connection to a place without yet visiting it? A kinship with a people you’ve never met?
That’s the way I felt when I first dreamed of going to South Asia. Tiny glimpses of a vibrant culture ignited a fire inside that didn’t make any sense, but wouldn’t let go of me. Friends and family thought it was absurd. I feared they might be right, but I had to see for myself.
For two months I lived in a land I’d only known in my dreams. But the moment the sticky heat of that crowded city hit my skin on the tarmac, I felt connected. It was like a physical weight settled over my body and the presence of a place felt like home even though I had never known it outside of stories and photographs.
Now I find myself back at that strange avenue between worlds again. My family has been working towards moving to South Asia for over a year. When the door to the city we had been planning to move, slammed shut a few months ago, we were left scrambling and asking God what it all meant.
A place was suggested and we resisted at first. But then the power of a story entered in, that mysterious feeling of belonging tugging at our hearts. We watched a video of a woman who had been a child-bride. She had complications in childbirth that had stripped her of her child, her husband and her dignity. She received the care she needed and training in a skill. She had a hope and a future again and her face beamed. Her joy crossed the miles between us and drew me to a sister I might never meet but who is changing the destiny of my entire family with her story.
We watched video after video, read stories and talked to people who live there. We made the decision to move to a city we have never visited, a country that is foreign to us. Ridiculous? Maybe.
Sure? We couldn’t be more certain.
When we tell people we want to move to a developing nation, we get those looks...
To the One Who is My Anchor
It wasn't any secret when we met that I have a mind of my own and a will that is as strong as iron. We had barely begun when you said goodbye to me at the gate and trusted in our new love to carry us through months spent continents apart. A year into our marriage there was another month spent in which I said my "I love yous" through emails sent from internet cafes a world away.
You never once complained but rather gave wings to my dreams. I couldn't have gone had I not known you were the home I would return to.
My love for the big wide world is as much a part of me as my love for you. I cannot separate the two any more than bone and marrow. There is nothing I love more than when we get to explore it together.
My hair has faded over the years from a fiery red to more muted tones but the stereotypical fire of a redhead in me hasn't faded one bit. I walk the fine line between wanting so badly to please everyone and being just rebellious enough to let others know I won't fit into a mold they have defined for me. And you never seem to mind, either my stubbornness and strong will or my anxiety over what others think. I don't know how you do it, but you always make me feel like I am doing just the right thing and that you will love me no matter what.
Not a day goes by that I don't wonder how your quiet strength and my wandering spirit find such a fit in each other. Continue Reading
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