seeking revelation

Truth be told I am not doing great. We are not doing well. We are hurting. It is not one thing. More like the culmination of hundreds of moving parts making me feel sick to my stomach, light headed, and emotionally worn thin. I awoke this morning and prayed for peace, some relief, and much needed fresh perspective. I need to be honest. I have felt this way with too much frequency lately and both Jason and I have sensed something is on the horizon. But it leaves me overwhelmed, out of breath, and off center.

Like the world is askew.

But I sense and see and feel and know the light breaking through.

I am reaching for peace, for solace, for some sense of center but it feels more like grasping through an ever winding path with blurry vision, rubbed raw, and exposed from the trek thus far. This morning I woke up before the roosters, neighbors, noise, and chaos started and I opened His Word. I was commanded to love, to sing, to worship, to focus on Him not me. That helps. So much.

We are sick. Again. Not terribly but enough to make my mind reel again about how we deal with this here and wonder if I can take anymore. And when I realized yet another cycle of sickness was making its way into our home I felt my heart beat so loud in my chest. Fear. I remember in my ‘less chill days’ the feeling of a panic attack rising in my body and I just sat and cried. It is just too much. But tears are cleansing. They can be the beginning of uncovering pain and ushering in healing.

Last night I was folding laundry when Anni came running down the hall and said “come now, Papa is crying.” My heart sank and I quickly rounded the corner of Anni’s room to find my husband shaking and crying. His grandfather passed away yesterday. And we are here and everyone who we need is there. I read the email on Jason’s phone and just sat on the floor holding his hand…silent. We knew this would happen. We knew we would be here and those we love would be there. In our needs. In our joys. In our grief. We chose it. But it is a high price to pay. I started crying and Anni quickly followed suit as did Evy fearing she would be left out. A chorus of crying. Then the power cut. Poetic.

And then something I never want to forget.

Annikah, through her confused tears said “hey, why are you crying? He gets to be with Jesus now! So I don’t want to hear any more crying. Oh Dear!” (The Oh Dear is a recent addition to her vocabulary that she uses with increasing frequency that instantly made us all laugh). We smiled through tears and knew with complete certainty she is right. With limited ability to understand everything going on she can comfort and love and point the way. This is blessing. Poured out for us.

Another 5 minutes and a “hodi” came at our door. I was still teary eyed but went to greet a neighbor and friend who came by to make sure I had gotten the gift of a mango she had dropped off earlier in the day while I was at work. I did. I said thank you and then I explained my tear stained face. I told her we were sad because of our loss but that we rejoice and know he is with God in heaven because he followed Jesus and loved and lived for Him. All of his 97 years worth of days. That moment was such a stark contrast for me. A moment ordained from above. We are here. Lots of days it sucks. To be blunt. But we are here because we really want to see Jesus glorified and lifted up. By us; His beaten down at times, broken but redeemed, and imperfect saints. By everyone; every tribe, every nation, every tongue who has not heard about His glory. His peace. His Abundance. And somehow that made the pain of not being there have less sting.

The same-ness and lack of personal space here gets to me. No seasons, not much “new”, not much travel, always surrounded by people, needs, and constant noise. We work, we study the language, we visit, we make goals and plans, we do our best to respond to the ‘in need of immediate attention’ problems, and we have visitors. A lot. I some how always feel like I am behind in life about a week with no hope of ever catching up. Like a lot of days I am only reacting to that which is swirling around me.

But even though I am surrounded by people there are so many days I am lonely. And we cannot continue like this. But I am so torn because the part of me that wants to put up boundaries and step back also knows that the most amazing learning and growing has occurred for me when I have been stretched past what I knew to be comfortable. Past what I would chose for myself. Right now we are living with the “what-if’s,” with the unanswered questions, and without the plan or clear path we want. But that is life in this space. And I know for sure we want to see Jesus. In all of it. And I do know I am learning a lot about what really matters. I don’t think I’ll ever look back at my life and wished I had spent more time dusting. But I could be biased because I hate cleaning even in moderate temperatures and will make any excuse to not do it. But I do know for sure I cannot let opportunities pass me by to share, love, be with my family, and others. In Kiswahili one word for time is nafasi and it also means “opportunity, space, or chance” and I think that is pretty perfect. We only have limited nafasi. All of us. What will I choose to do with it? And this is life and we are trying to find our way through it. This blurry, winding road somewhere out there in the distance. To still maintain some semblance of family time, space, and time to breathe. Not easy.

But worth it.

And even though we are feeling pressed from all sides we are rejoicing.

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

And maybe He reveals things in His time for His purposes. No definitely. Trust. I took 20 minutes today to hide in our office and blare some Third Day songs to drown out the noise outside our front door. And it was needed. The words brought me to tears because of the rawness that exists in my soul right now.