I’ll be honest, this missions gig hasn’t gone like I thought it would.
When I was a teenager, I devoured books on Amy Carmichael, determined to live in some hut rescuing orphans. I wanted to “accomplish great things for God,” and I assumed that meant a dramatic adventure, namely, taking a plane somewhere.
When I had kids and my husband began feeling the pull towards a life overseas, the dream began to morph. Now, I’d just be Amy Carmichael with Kids, my children walking amongst the impoverished, learning a sacrificial love, developing a sold-out faith on foreign soil {while at the same time maintaining a sense of national home, cultural-relevance in America, minimal transition-issues, and general up-to-date fashion sense}.
I thought before we began this journey that it would be easy to find our niche of ministry– we are working for free, after all. I assumed we would do what we came to do, and when that shifted, I assumed it’d be simple to find the gaping hole of need that we had been divinely equipped to fill. That the Story of our purpose here and role would make sense, sooner, rather thanlater.
But, two and a half years in, and I am continuing to find that Amy Carmichael I am not, that missions can be brutal on a family, and that fog is no respecter of the Jesus-disciple.
And I was reading just the other day in this book I happen to love, and the words caught my breath, as is often the case when I have the guts and discipline to really ask the Living Word to speak. And it said simply this:
And now, these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – 1 corinthians 13
And I’ve read that a million times, but this week, it’s struck a new chord. Because, this, this is what I so desperately need– faith, hope, love– qualities not dependent on my circumstances, missed expectations, or personal doubts.
Faith. That God is in the smack-dab-middle of writing a good Story — for me, for us, for them.
Hope. That beautiful things can rise from ashes. That the next bend could bring what we’ve been waiting for all along.
and Love. From God, for God, and for all his kids around me. The extravagant, never-stopping, everybody-included kind.
And I don’t know where you find yourself this weekend, what circumstance or fog or barrier weighs heavy on your soul. Maybe it’s a job you hate or money that can’t stretch far enough. Perhaps it’s a child you don’t have yet or one who’s drifted far, on purpose. Maybe it’s the drag of the mundane or the failure of the adventure. But whatever it is, whatever circumstance threatens to speak doubt or anger or depression, my prayer for you, for me, is that these three will keep on remaining,
faith. hope. and love.
Played out in a million, daily, gritty, far-from-dramatic choices–
The kinds of choices Amy Carmichael probably made, but that never made her books.
