When You Struggle – A Life Overseas |

No Idea What You’re Doing? Girl, Join the Club

When my husband and I accepted the call to India, a man walked over to us and put a “mantle” around our shoulders: a yak wool shawl with red and blue woven trim.

“I’ve worn this every day for two years while I pray for the people,” he said. “It’s yours to carry now.” It was a fittingly cinematic moment at the end of a year of preparation that had felt divinely orchestrated, like watching our lives unfold in a film.

I hadn’t grown up hearing about Elizabeth Elliot or Mary Slessor or Amy Carmichael or Gladys Aylward. I didn’t have a clear idea in my mind of what a female missionary does. So I asked a few furloughing women.

“What do women in missions do?” “What do you feel is your role on your project as a woman?” “Do you have any advice for me?”

These women would get a far-away look, like their lives were flashing before their eyes. They would start talking and then get flustered and stop. Maybe they weren’t sure how to put such a huge topic into words. Maybe nobody had ever asked them to. Whatever the reason, most of the women I spoke with struggled to articulate their role in or approach to ministry.

One of them asked me how I pictured my future ministry.

“Um,” I began. “Maybe I’ll wash my clothes at the river with other women . . . and we’ll talk about Jesus by the water?” A dense fog descended upon me as the divine orchestration of the past few months was enveloped in uncertainty.

We launched to India that fall, newlyweds with backpacks disproportionately stuffed with books, to an area with no other foreigners. We were pregnant by Christmas.

For the next seven years, I tried hard to be a good mom while wondering what a good mom looks like. I tried to engage in ministry while wondering what faithful ministry looks like. I learned to wash my laundry like locals, alone in the bathroom with a bucket and a bar of soap, and I challenged myself to put aside what I wanted, for my kids and for the mission.

I felt my way along in life with the nagging feeling I was not doing anything quite right. I felt very much like the awkward labrador retriever who has grown too fast to know where her legs go.

After India, we moved to Africa and had the privilege of serving alongside other workers. I finally got to see how other women parent and do ministry and take care of their families and themselves.

One friend loves to paint. So she teaches painting classes, helped organize a community mural, and created some thought-provoking artwork to help her and others tell the gospel story. Another is gifted in conversation. She is socially savvy and loves to walk around meeting people and seeing if she can turn a conversation to spiritual topics.

There are women who are super organized and women who are free-spirited. There are bold, business-minded women and shy, hospitable ones. There are doctors and high school graduates and everyone in between. Each woman has a way to meet and minister to their community.

Shortly after meeting and getting to know all these incredible people, we went on a furlough and saw what the Bride of Christ is doing in our home country.

A small church started a free food truck ministry for the homeless. Another created a beautiful park on their church property where families can picnic. We saw stop-smoking classes, depression recovery seminars, MOPS groups, car shows, and a whole host of other creative ways to reach and bless communities.

Then I started reading to my kids about mission heroes like Mary Slessor and Gladys Aylward. These experiences began to gel in my mind. And suddenly I wanted to beam myself back to younger me and have a good heart-to-heart. But since I can’t do that, I’ll share my thoughts with you here:

Listen, girlfriend, nobody else knows what they’re doing, either. So don’t get discouraged thinking that the fog is your own personal Winnie-the-Pooh cloud, following you around to keep you confused and ineffective. As philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

You’ve got gifts, interests, passions. Try something. Try anything. Give yourself permission to fall flat on your face and eat a mouthful of desert sand. Wait on God, yes, but don’t wait too much on yourself. Some of us just never feel ready.

So toss your kid in the baby backpack and get out into your community. Learn things. Invite people over. You know that great idea you have, the one that really scares you? Do that!

Here is what you need to know: You are still growing up. You will always be growing up. So don’t feel dumb when you don’t know what to do. You will always need wisdom like you need water, a fresh supply every day, every hour.

The only way to find your niche in ministry is to pay attention to the needs around you, say a prayer, try something, and honestly evaluate how it went. Do that over and over. And when you look back on your life, your motherhood, your ministry, it will finally make sense. It will look like the divinely orchestrated series of events that it really was. A life lived on purpose, with a niche only you could fill.

A cinematic masterpiece.

Finding Flickers of Light in the Darkness of Re-entry

One day I’ll write our looking back story — how I can see God’s hand was with me through the darkest valley and how He turned it all to good. One day, I’ll see how the prayers were answered for the best, and I’ll thank God for the ones that weren’t answered. One day.

But today is not that day. I have faith that God is faithful and will be faithful. But today I am in the midst of it, the darkest valley.

I quote the psalm to myself as a promise I’m clinging to: “Even in the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for I know that you are with me.” But it is my faith that prompts me to repeat these words each day, not my feelings.

I am in the smack-dab middle of re-entry. I am not looking ahead in planning mode or looking back triumphantly that I have finally gotten through. I am in the midst of it — the smack-dab middle.

Here is what the middle is actually like and what I would tell you if I could say how hard it’s been without being accused of being ungrateful or unfaithful (neither of which is true). In the smack-dab middle this is how it feels and how faith in what I cannot see is the only thing getting me through.

Some days and some weeks I have felt everything has gone wrong. Our whole family has been exhausted and sick. We’ve had mystery illnesses, staph infection boils, and tormenting lice caught at a summer camp. What we were really hoping would be a spiritual high ended up being a long, drawn-out physical and spiritual battle.

We are trying to enjoy the US, but it’s hard, and we miss so many things already. We miss our healthy food from our host country. We are sick of peanut butter and jelly, hotdogs, chicken strips, and French fries. But we’ve been so busy and transient for weeks that lots of days, that’s all we can manage. We miss unrushed meals together. We miss having a bed that’s ours and our favorite blankets. We miss our pets and our favorite yard tree. We miss routine and rest and family time. We miss life being familiar.

We’re over travel. We’ve driven too many hours to count and spent too much money on gas and car repairs to transport our family. Anxiety over a broken-down car is constantly lingering in my mind behind all the higher-priority anxieties — what will we do if it actually breaks down unrepairable?

It feels like we are living in our car, and it’s felt that way for weeks. We’ve packed and unpacked the car so many times, I am completely exhausted by it. I am almost paralyzed. I can barely bring myself to load and unload, to carry in another bag. But our travel isn’t over. We don’t yet have a home to call our own. And there’s nothing to do but lift the bags and do it again.

We needed a break from the constant travel, so we planned two stationary weeks at a free retreat center. We were hoping for rejuvenation — instead, the remote mountain gravel roads caused car damage and necessitated major repairs. All my previous anxieties confirmed. We had to leave early for repairs, we missed our debrief, and my spiritual renewal gauge went down rather than up. “God, why?” I asked in frustration.

I want to tell you some peoples’ words and encouragement and faith in our next steps have been exactly the cup of cold water we’ve needed in this barren land. But others’ hurtful comments have pierced so deep, it’s hard to imagine a time in the future when the wound could possibly fully heal.

Church member support has been the same mixed bag. Some have shown little or no interest; some have made hurtful comments; some have continued on so faithfully and generously, it brings me to tears thinking of their love and sacrifice. But I have so little to give in this season, I am not thanking them as I should.

In the darkest valley, I want to tell you that we’ve never had so much conflict or so many things go wrong. Yes, even in our life overseas. It’s been in every way a battle, fighting spiritually to hold on to all the beliefs and behaviors we’ve cultivated so many years. It’s taken just as much faith to return as it did to leave, maybe more.

I want to tell you it’s been so hard on our kids, even as they have been so eager and willing to participate in all the new experiences with such courage. They are worn out from the faster pace of life. They are sad that so many people are so busy with their own schedules they barely have time to spend with them. They miss the home they left, even as they want so badly to make a home in this new place, to fit in to this new, foreign world.

This was a planned re-entry for our family. We did plan, grieve, and say goodbye well. Yet, it’s been so hard just the same, and each of us has reacted differently, which has also added to the conflict and confusion and tension we’ve felt. Some of us pre-grieved and are jumping in to our new life with gusto; some of us are post-grieving, and every day we feel the emotional weight of loss.

Knowing all we did beforehand and how carefully we prepared to leave and yet how hard re-entry has still been is at best confusing. I am grateful for our own preparation, full of compassion for those who have no time to prepare their re-entry journeys, and trying to accept the reality that no matter how much anyone prepares, re-entry is still really hard.

We’ve seen light in this dark place, but it’s felt like the flicker of fireflies in a dark forest rather than a constant lighthouse beacon telling us clearly which direction to go. The firefly lights only appear as the sun fades and the darkness is taking over. Then a tiny light here or there appears. But just as quickly, it is gone. Darkness again.

In the darkest times, I haven’t questioned if God is real. An undeserved gift of faith makes me know He is. But I have questioned if He is good. If He will give good gifts, especially to me. If suffering is the only path. If joy will come in the morning.

If this all sounds like a big, faithless complaint, maybe you’ve never walked through your own dark valley. But this is what it feels like to be in the midst of it. My feelings aren’t getting me through; neither are my outward circumstances. I’m walking by faith, not by sight.

My faith tells me He is with me, even in this dark valley. And I’m clinging to that promise. I can’t see my path ahead clearly. The sun is gone. But in the darkness, I’m watching for the fireflies.

Will You Leave, Too?

We had just finished a rowdy dinner together with a lot of belly-laughing and story-swapping from our overlapping eight years in northern Japan. I remember sitting on the floor with our youngest, still a baby, while our older kids played upstairs together, content and full. Then these dear friends looked at each other, subtly nodded, and said something along the lines of, “We don’t know how to tell you this, but we sense that God is telling us that it is time to move back to the US.”

I felt like the top of my head was being squeezed by a too-tight swimming cap, like everything around me was slowly being drained of color and going grayscale. I was caught off guard and felt devastated, lost, deflated. In the following weeks and months, I felt as if someone had died. Perhaps this is dramatic and I shouldn’t have felt this loss so strongly. But this goodbye hurt with an intensity that previous and subsequent ones didn’t.

Perhaps this is because this departure was coming after so many other goodbyes, perhaps because this friendship required work and repair and was therefore all the more precious to me, perhaps because I ached for a family with whom we could live our missionary lives together — knowing one another’s stories, living in close proximity, bearing with one another through good and hard and all the in between. We’d weathered miscarriages, births of our babies, language study, disappointments, transitions, growth, major culture mishaps, and celebrations — together.

Their decision to leave didn’t make sense to me. They had a great relationship with their Japanese partner church, they were doing good ministry in their community, their kids were thriving, and they modeled many things I hoped to be one day: easy to laugh, ready to serve, willing to work hard yet valuing play, strong in their faith. Yet shortly after this conversation sitting together on the floor of our house, they left — and I swirled through the stages of grief poorly for, I am embarrassed to admit, a couple of years.

Writing this now, there is still a part of me whispering quietly, “But why did they leave?”

I could understand other dear friends, teammates, and fellow missionaries’ reasons for leaving: aging parents, adult children needing help launching, younger children with disabilities or mental health needs. I understand those who leave for resources, systems, support, and treatments that are not available where they live. I still grieve these departures, but I understand them.

What are more difficult to process are the departures I don’t understand. Those who excelled in language study — surpassing most people I know in a few years with humility and hard work and humor. Those who served on an easier-to-adjust-to team. (We partner primarily with local churches. I sometimes envy those who work with international churches or on mostly international teams, perceiving them as having fewer barriers to cross and having to do less cultural bending.) Those who basically got to do the ministries they wanted in the location they wanted with the teammates they wanted . . . and now they, too, have left.

I am not an expert in missionary attrition, nor am I involved in member care in a formal capacity. Yet what I have read recently has mostly been from the perspective of those who have left their countries of service to go “home” and how difficult of an adjustment that is for many. I am thankful for people writing and sharing their experiences with reverse culture shock, rebuilding their lives, and coming to a new understanding of their identity and calling.

Yet what about the experiences of those of us who stay, who are left behind? These losses add up and break our hearts, too. I confess that I have not always responded gracefully or as well as I would have liked. When meeting people new to missions, I occasionally find myself suspicious, guarded. “Will she leave, too?” “If I get too close to them and they also decide to leave, can my heart handle being broken yet again?”

Sometimes I want to be someone who can say, somewhat perkily, “Oh, that’s too bad. We will miss you, and God bless you in this next chapter.” And then move on, looking toward the future with my heart and the top of my squeezed head intact.

Yet the truth is that ministry (anywhere!) is hard. Missions is hard. Feeling foolish and making thousands of mistakes — hard. Misunderstanding and being misunderstood — hard. Going to and living in spiritually dark places — in our case, where maybe 0.1% of our city is Christian and 1% seems like a dream — is hard. Partnering alongside and under the vision of national leaders is (often) hard. Dying to my preferences, not being funny or finding local humor funny for a long time, missing people/places/things from my home culture, culture stress that lessens but never goes away completely — all of this is hard. But the goodbyes, for me, are a different level of hard.

Yes, missions involves adventure, new experiences, and countless ways we and our perspectives shift and grow and expand. We get to notice and enjoy the beauty of where God has placed us: the people, places, things, and even pieces of culture that reflect the kingdom of God. It is a privilege and a blessing to be entrusted with this calling, this life, these relationships.

But this life involves so many (may I say too many?) goodbyes: to our extended families and dear friends in our home countries and to fellow missionaries who become like surrogate family in the countries we serve in. How I ache to be able to control outcomes. “This person is well-trained, well-supported, mature, on a good team, and has great member care. They will thrive and stay.” But it doesn’t seem to work like that.

We have known many people who have left. People who have excelled at language learning and those who have struggled. People who were well-trained in missions and those with minimal training. People who partner with national churches and those who work independently. People who are underfunded and those with incredible funding. People with remarkable member care structures around them and those without. People who are single and people who are married. People still in the throes of culture shock and those who have ridden the wave and come out the other side.

Many years ago, a TCK friend who grew up here told me, “My mom eventually stopped making friends. She held people at arms length to protect herself from the inevitable revolving door of missionaries coming and going and the heartbreak of goodbyes.” While I don’t want to follow this woman’s path, I understand it.

Although my heart may look like a patched up, scrappy quilt with a few places in need of mending, I am thankful my life has intersected with these remarkable, hilarious, sensitive, curious, faith-filled, and faithful people. I learned about celebration and finding humor in mistakes from one, that hanging laundry can be a meditation rather than drudgery from another, about gratitude and rhythms of work and rest from another.

My life is richer from moments shared and memories made together, from watching them parent and lead and live beautiful, imperfect lives, from praying for and encouraging one another, and from walking, arms linked, in the same direction together for a season. I wouldn’t trade all of this to protect myself from the pain of goodbyes.

And so I pray:

God, give me courage to love. To welcome new people. To not fear their futures nor my own. God, help me be like my mom, who said to me when I was preparing to go on a short-term trip in my early 20s, “I want you in the center of God’s will for your life, whether He chooses to keep you safe or not.” And may I add, “Whether He chooses to keep you in my life here or not. Whether He chooses the path I want for you or not.”

God, help me to release dearly loved friends, teammates, mentors, and mentees who have, who might, and who will move on. I don’t want to live guarded or hold people at arm’s length, so help me to trust that You will guard and uphold me. Help me to receive from You comfort, Your presence, and the reminder that someday there will be no more goodbyes.

Is This the End? (When the Mission Becomes Dangerous)

Written by an anonymous worker

“The rebels burned a plane.”

I looked up at my husband, a sense of dread growing in my chest. “Who was it?”

Over the next few hours, we learned the devastating details. American pilot Nick Gosselin had been ambushed by rebels shortly after landing on a village airstrip. He was executed, and his plane set on fire. My Instagram feed filled with images of the burned aircraft and blurred photographs of his body.

“That could have been you,” I whispered to my husband.

This is not the first time a civilian aircraft piloted by an expatriate has been targeted by rebels here in Papua. In 2023, New Zealander Philip Mehrtens was kidnapped and held captive by a rebel faction for nineteen months before being released through lengthy negotiations involving Indonesia, local leaders, and the New Zealand government.

Then, in 2024, New Zealand helicopter pilot Glen Conning was shot and killed shortly after landing. Following Conning’s death, the Associated Press reported, “No one has claimed responsibility for that attack, and the rebels and Indonesian authorities have blamed each other.”

Still, Nick’s death feels different.

As a pilot for the Catholic aviation mission AMA, Nick flew humanitarian flights to isolated communities. Rebels have attempted to justify the attack by accusing mission aircraft of supporting military and police operations — an accusation that is categorically false. Rebel spokesman Sebby Sambom later released a video calling for the murder of all foreign civilian pilots, the burning of their aircraft, and the murder and expulsion of missionaries from Papua, dismissing them as “useless.”

Pilots are not the primary targets either. In recent years, schools have been burned, teachers killed, medical personnel murdered, and construction workers attacked. But none of this is really new, is it?

Around the world, missionaries and humanitarian workers knowingly place themselves in harm’s way to serve others. While there is no comprehensive annual count of missionaries killed worldwide, the Aid Worker Security Database recorded a staggering 383 humanitarian worker deaths in global hotspots during 2024 — the highest number on record. Most of those killed were local aid workers.

Before leaving for the field, we understood that serving in Papua would involve risk. As a missionary pilot, my husband would fly through some of the world’s most challenging mountain terrain, navigating rapidly changing weather and difficult landing spots. We would face diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, dengue fever, malaria, and typhoid. We knew robbery or assault was possible. We came to Papua knowing that choosing to serve here meant walking hand in hand with heartache.

Over the years, we’ve had our share of challenges. The flying environment has given us a few scares. Our family has battled serious illnesses. We’ve lived through riots, evacuations, and tribal conflict. And yet, despite it all, we would say our lives have been made immeasurably richer because of this place. Papua has become home. Our children — from our teenager down to our toddler — love life here.

Now, it all feels like borrowed time. I find myself praying, Lord, what are You doing? Is this the end?

I carry a tremendous sadness — not only for our own family and the life we’ve built in these mountains, but especially for the people living in isolated villages who depend on mission aviation.

What will the mother suffering complications in childbirth do when reaching the nearest medical facility is several days of hiking away? Who will respond when a village is devastated by a landslide? What happens to communities cut off by mountains and jungle when no aircraft are willing or able to come? And if we are forced to leave, how will our family grieve losing our home?

I don’t know what comes next. Can we stay? Must we go? Nick’s death has forced us to revisit questions every missionary must ask themselves. What risks are ours to accept? Which are not? And what abilities do we have to wisely mitigate the dangers where we can?

I think of the apostle Paul. When the Jews in Damascus plotted to kill him, fellow believers lowered him through an opening in the city wall under the cover of darkness so he could escape (Acts 9). Later, on his journey to Jerusalem, the prophet Agabus warned Paul that he would be captured and handed over to the Gentiles. His friends pleaded with him not to go, yet Paul remained convinced that obedience required him to continue (Acts 21).

At first glance, those two stories seem to point in opposite directions. In one, Paul escapes because God provides a way out. In the other, he walks knowingly toward suffering because he is convinced that obedience requires it. Yet neither story is ultimately about avoiding or embracing danger. Both are stories of faithful discernment.

That is where we find ourselves today. We are praying. We are listening. We are engaging with community. We are weighing our responsibility to our family, the people we serve, and the calling God has entrusted to us. We are grateful to serve with an organization that views security planning and thoughtful risk management not as a lack of faith but as faithful stewardship.

I don’t know whether we will remain in Papua or whether this chapter of our lives is drawing to a close. I don’t know whether the risks will increase or diminish in the days ahead. But I do know this: God holds tomorrow, and we can trust Him.

So we pray — for Nick Gosselin’s family as they grieve, for the people of Papua who continue to bear the greatest burden of this conflict, and for the missionaries, pilots, teachers, healthcare workers, and local believers who continue serving in places of extraordinary need. We also pray for the wisdom to surrender our plans continually to God, holding neither our comfort nor our calling more tightly than our obedience to Christ.

* * *

Editor’s Note: If you are in currently in a season of risk, danger, or fear, here are some additional resources for discernment and support on our site. ~Elizabeth Trotter

Risk and the Cross-cultural Worker (an interview with Anna Hampton about her first book, Facing Danger)

Can Faith and Fear Exist at the Same Time? (an interview with Anna Hampton about her second book, Facing Fear)

Confronting Risk and Managing Fear in the Uncertainty of War (resources from Anna Hampton)

Sobs of Joy: Surrendering the Grief of Singleness on the Field

by Emma Bell

A few years ago, I flew back to the U.S. from my home in Thailand to be a bridesmaid in my dear friend’s wedding. It’s a common missionary experience. Occasionally, if the moment is dear enough to us that we just can’t miss it, we might fork up the money to fly back for such an important event.

As soon as I landed in the U.S., delirious with jet lag, I was swept up into the flurry of the wedding: getting nails done, preparing the bachelorette party, sleeping on an air mattress, squeezing in a trip to Chipotle. After just a few days of craziness, I found myself all dressed up, standing to the right of the altar with the other bridesmaids and watching one of my best friends walk down the aisle towards her almost-husband.

At some point during the ceremony, we all sang the song “You’re Beautiful” by Phil Wickham. I was already failing to hold back the tears, but they really started to stream on the last verse:

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful

I wanted to think that I’m just a sentimental person, that weddings are so beautiful and I’m just so tender, so that’s why I couldn’t keep my composure. But now, a few years later, I’m trying to be honest with myself: that moment was not only beautiful to me; it was also deeply painful.

I resent that singleness could make me feel pain. It feels embarrassing to care. It feels anti-feminist. It feels weak. I have spent years learning the gifts and the beauty of singleness and have preached it from the rooftops. I shout to anyone who will hear me, “Singleness is a valuable gift! Jesus was single! Paul recommends it! Marriage isn’t superior to singleness!” And I still stand by these things. At the same time, in my own experience, singleness has caused me deep grief.

I’ve been seriously processing my singleness since I was about twenty-four. At that age, it truly felt like everyone around me was getting married. I had two roommates who were planning their weddings, and that same year I was discerning whether or not overseas missions would be my long-term career. I imagined going overseas and being the only single woman in a missionary community of marrieds and their kids. I pictured the isolation on Christmas when others would celebrate with their families, and I would be alone. I pictured the humility of it — being regarded as less mature or less of a leader because of my single status.

[Praise God, most of these concerns have not been realized in the way that I had feared. God has given me wonderful friends—of both the single and married variety.]

It was age twenty-nine that singleness struck a new chord with me. I was twenty-nine when COVID upended my life. I found myself stuck in America, my home and possessions left behind in a country I had no idea if I’d ever get back to. Perhaps more importantly, I found myself living far away from my overseas team. I experienced, quite dramatically and suddenly, what I knew would come for me sooner or later: having to say goodbye to my teammates and closest friends — alone.

Because friends don’t come with a “till death do us part” promise, I parted ways with the friends I had come to depend on like family. I’ll always remember when I chose to relocate to Thailand in 2021, and my favorite married couple decided to stay in America and work on getting pregnant instead. They told me they would be exiting this next chapter of my life over a Zoom call. We stayed on the call and cried, hardly saying a word, for probably an hour.

About a month later, I packed my bags and joined a new team in a new country. The missionary life is full of goodbyes — goodbyes on goodbyes on goodbyes. But for single missionaries, it is uniquely difficult because we do it alone.

I saw a statistic once that said of all the single missionaries on the field, women make up 80%. This means a couple of things for us single ladies. First, it’s hard to meet someone out here. The odds are not in our favor. Second, I am mercifully not alone in my singleness. In fact, I feel more seen and understood where I live overseas by other single missionaries and single Thai sisters than I do back in my church community in the U.S. where it feels like everyone was married by twenty-three.

Are we missionaries because we are single? Do singles have more freedom to go to the nations than those who marry? That’s at least partly true. I can think of a few people who had dreamed of being overseas before they married someone who did not share that calling. So, are we missionaries because we are single? Or are we single because we are missionaries? Would I have met someone and been married with kids by now if I had lived in the U.S. for the last twelve years instead of Asia? Maybe. Not necessarily. I know plenty of single people who live in their home country.

Yet I find myself in a situation where my obedience to share Christ in an unreached part of the world appears to be at odds with my desire for marriage. I could “try” to meet someone, but again, there aren’t many options where I live. I could get online, but then I’d likely be meeting men who live somewhere else, so I’d have to be willing to at least consider leaving the field. Is my ministry calling more important, or is marriage? If a simple answer popped into your head, I doubt you’ve walked a mile in the single missionary’s shoes.

Singleness is a strange grief. It’s a grief that increases with time. I process it. I mourn it. I put it away for a time, only to take it out again and realize it’s grown bigger and changed shape.

I’m thirty-four now. Some days, singleness hurts. It’s not having anyone to bicker with. It’s the social smallness you feel in comparison to a couple. It’s a lack of physical affection. It’s having to build trust from the ground up all over again with another new roommate. It’s when your age is getting older and your life stage is the same as a recent college-grad. It’s the feeling of rejection compounded over many years. It’s when the conversation turns to pregnancy or kids, and I have nothing to contribute. It’s when baby showers have a new twinge of sadness and shame.

One night, lying in bed trying to fall asleep, my overactive mind stumbled upon a thought: What if God really loves me? A few days earlier someone had been praying for me, and as she prayed, she said this to me: “He loves you so much, Emma. He would do anything for you — just ask Him.” Those words stunned me. They felt so personal and specific to me. Days later, they were still ringing in my ears. Is she allowed to say that? How could she even know that that’s how God feels about me?

Yet I couldn’t deny that it had to be true. God’s Word says so over and over. Jesus said to his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And a few verses later: “Whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you” (John 15:16.) Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

The idea that Jesus deeply loves me and takes care of me wasn’t brand new information, but that night, the Spirit allowed me to believe it in a way I hadn’t dared to before. I sat up in my bed and started to cry. I started to really cry. Sobs. I had to get a box of tissues. Sobs of relief. Sobs of joy. Sobs where my walls of self-protection were being dismantled. Sobs I thought I might have if a man ever told me, “I love you, and I choose you.”

And ever since then, I’ve consistently found it much easier to believe God really loves me. His love is not theoretical. It’s not just for theologians to muse upon. He is near to us. He heals our wounds.

When we arrive on eternity’s shore
When death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful

I may never ever have a wedding day. I may have to continue dealing with my ever-expanding, ever-changing grief for the rest of my life here. But I will be at that wedding — the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). Because of Jesus, I’m invited to be in that marriage. The marriage of which all marriages are but a dim shadow — the eternal union of Jesus and His bride, His people.

At that wedding, rejection and shame will fall off my shoulders as I am welcomed by the King himself. To be included and chosen on that day will far outshine any loneliness I’ve ever felt. And I know that on that day, when I finally see Him with my own eyes and worship Him alongside people from every tribe, nation, and tongue, no part of me will regret trusting God with my singleness. Not one part of me will regret putting my whole life into His hands. When I hear Him welcome me home, I won’t have any more questions.

~~~~~~~

Emma Bell has loved doing evangelism and discipleship with the unreached for ten years now — first in East Asia and now in Thailand. If you’d like to respond to this article, Emma would love to hear from you. You can contact Elizabeth Trotter, and she’ll connect you.

Looking for a Place to Call Home

by Val Robb

As our plane descended into Auckland, I stared at the arrival card: “Answer this section if you live in New Zealand. Otherwise go to 2B.” I glanced further down the card to section 2B: “Answer this section if you DO NOT live in New Zealand.”

The form blurred as my eyes filled with tears. At the moment, I didn’t live anywhere. Our family was returning to New Zealand after over five years in Beijing, leaving a home and life we loved. Moving out of our apartment just days earlier already felt like a lifetime ago.

Leaving hurt. My husband had thrived in his job at the university. We enjoyed deep friendships with both locals and expats. Ministry opportunities had grown. We loved our international church. However, for education and health reasons, we felt God was closing this chapter of our lives.

As the plane landed, I felt rootless and displaced. Originally from Canada, I had embraced New Zealand as home in the past, but five years away made it feel foreign to both me and my Kiwi husband. Coming ‘home’ to no physical home also felt strange. My husband’s parents were kindly hosting us for a few days, and then we’d be house-sitting while looking for a place to live.

Having sold our house before moving to China, we now faced the reality of Auckland’s sky-rocketing house prices. We considered buying but soon deemed the market out of our reach. Friends warned us that rentals were hard to find, especially large homes like we needed for our six children. My stomach tightened when I heard that multiple people vied to rent each house and sometimes even bid each other up.

Before searching for a rental, we took a brief break at a rural holiday home called Emmanuel House. The name reminded me that God was with us. As we strolled the nearby beach, the salty air and rhythmic, rolling waves soothed my restless spirit.

The Creator brought to mind the verse He had impressed on my heart in Beijing: “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in You” (Psalm 31:19 ESV).

“Hey, Mom, here’s a gift for you.” My oldest daughter presented me with a bumpy purple and white shell. On it she had written, “Remember–if God so houses molluscs, will He not house you? Do not worry. Matthew 6.”

Smiling, I gazed at the shell. Its simple beauty encouraged me to trust the Shell Maker, and I thanked Him for His abundant goodness in the gift of a faith-filled daughter.

I reflected on God’s faithfulness to our family throughout our many international moves. Each one had involved enormous changes and emotional turmoil. Each confirmed that my “citizenship is in heaven” and that my true home is in the never-changing, ever-loving heart of God. Cupping the shell, I imagined the insignificant little mollusc safely housed inside amidst wild ocean breakers. Surely I could trust such a compassionate Creator with our family’s needs.

Back from our holiday, we scrolled online for five-bedroom houses for rent. Only three options came up. One looked dilapidated. The next exceeded our budget. After repeated failed attempts, we finally connected with the agent to see the last possibility. While waiting to view the house, we discovered several Asian supermarkets in the nearby shopping area. Chinese signs, the familiar sing-song sounds of Mandarin, and the aroma of Asian spices made us feel at home.

My heart filled with hope as we viewed the house. Despite a quirky lay-out and dated decor, it boasted an ocean view and convenient location. The kids were enthused about the spacious deck. We immediately filled out the forms. The next day, as we completed the paperwork to make this house our home, we heard another client had applied. We had signed just in time.

The transition still took time, and my emotions often lurched like a roller coaster, but we now had a place to call home. God’s kindness in details like the view from the kitchen window, nature walks nearby, and a heat pump for cold winter days moved me to tears.

After settling in, I put the treasured shell in a prominent spot on my dresser as a reminder of God’s faithfulness. Many years have gone by since then, including multiple moves. Still the shell reminds me of my kind and faithful Father whose heart is my ultimate home.

~~~~~~~

Val Robb met her Kiwi husband in Canada while completing an education degree. Their family moved to Auckland in 1994, the first of 13 international moves so far. Homeschooling six children while living in New Zealand, China, Canada, and America has provided plenty of material for her to write about! Val has taught workshops for parents and writing classes for children on three different continents as their family travelled for her husband’s university job. Now that she’s completed her 25-year homeschool journey, Val offers coaching and workshops to encourage homeschooling parents. She blogs at www.inspiringwriting.co where she loves helping parents strengthen relationships with their children while growing their kids’ writing skills. Val is the author of the upcoming book, Walking Together: Grace-filled Guidance for your Homeschool Journey.

God Was Not in the Storm

I was leaving a conference room after a lengthy presentation when a woman I’d never met before — I’ll call her Judy — came up to me and said, “God chose you for this storm. He knew it would give you a richer story to tell.”

She was referring to something I’d alluded to only briefly in my seminar, as a means to emphasize God’s power to console — the recurrence of breast cancer I had to battle in 2018, which ended in life- and body-altering surgery.

Judy looked at me earnestly and kindly as she essentially stated that cancer was an affliction chosen by God, wrapped in divine motives, and addressed directly to me.

I looked Judy in the face and lowered my voice. “God didn’t cause this storm,” I said. “But He was in it with me.”

I quelled the impulse to add more to my response. It wouldn’t help — it never did. For the woman now looking at me uncomfortably, a trial on the scale of what I’d endured had to have been both intended and inflicted by God Himself so I could bear a more convincing witness to His goodness.

That’s the problem with verbal placebos of imprecise theological origins. It’s the problem with simple statements that roll off our tongues so easily in the ministry community, when we’re eager to say something, anything, and reach for platitudes.

In an attempt to lend meaning to the unimaginable, we too often condense complex biblical concepts into sentence-long statements that can do more to misrepresent God than to express the mercy, compassion and relational longing of his heart.

More dangerously, those statements can intentionally or unintentionally convey the message that God is not only in the storm, but the originator of the storm—that all pain, not just some pain, is God-inflicted.

God chose you for this disease to punish you.

God picked you to walk your child to her death so you would learn to trust him in the trauma.

God selected your marriage to be destroyed by infidelity because your trust in him would be an effective witness to others.

I work with TCKs. I’ve heard them wrestling with a casually articulated theology of suffering in which God is painted in unsympathetic and self-aggrandizing terms by adults with decades of faith, who don’t understand how their words are perceived by young, fragile souls whose faith is not yet strong enough to hold their weight.

Children hear the statements to which Bible-savvy adults might be able to apply context and nuance, but to their ears (and to the ears of anyone whose faith is still in its infancy), the words can stand stark and unmitigated.

“God chose you for this storm” means exactly that to them, especially when stated by people whose faith is more mature than theirs. God chose me for this loss, this injury, this misery. God wanted me to suffer. He chose me for this cancer, this abuse, this addiction, this isolation, this unbearable reality. God wanted me to hurt this way for divine reasons that make no sense to me.

By using uncareful language in an attempt to bring spiritual clarity to contexts that are, at best, unfathomable to the human mind, we too often make of God the instigator of all storms, portraying him, as Judy did, as a merciless tyrant who uses our pain to punish, teach, or hijack our suffering for his greater glory.

As someone who is acquainted with pain — having endured abuse, years of depression and life-threatening illness — I can assure you that I’d be hard pressed to trust a god who was always the perpetrator of my torment.

Yet the Bible is filled with instances in which death and destruction were not His handiwork. The children and young believers in our lives need to have these pointed out to them again and again by adults whose relationship with Jesus they trust. Though His justice and discipline are sometimes meted out in painful ways, our suffering more often originates elsewhere —

The self-inflicted turmoil of flawed human beings like Adam and Eve, David, and Judas.

The collateral damage from someone else’s sin endured by people like Tamar, Hosea, and Paul.

The physical decay of illness and old age.

The maleficent pain of the devil’s targeted attacks.

The cataclysmic havoc of a groaning planet on which tectonic plates shift and oceans surge.

It may be our desperation to make sense of our pain that moves us to proclaim a divine actuating of the loss and trauma that maim and confound us.

Perhaps it’s also easier to pin the unexplainable on God rather than leave a question mark where we’d rather find certainty. Yet naming God as our assailant can cause a sort of spiritual dysphoria in which He is both our comforter and the orchestrator of our distress.

The implications can be trust- and faith-shattering, especially when applied to the worst of life’s pain — the molestation of a child, the murder of innocents, widespread famine, and deadly tsunamis. Global pandemics too. If we don’t measure the meaning of our God-words, we may unintentionally communicate to young people with young faith that God willed all atrocities into existence so He can prove himself to be God.

Expecting those who are suffering to turn to that God for solace may be asking too much. Even if those suffering have been raised in the complicated, Jesus-centered world of ministry, where faith can be as much a “job” and an obligation as a relationship.

I didn’t remind Judy about Elijah’s story when she told me that God had essentially pointed at me and said, “Michèle Phoenix — she’s the one I want to see lying awake at night knowing that she might die a horrible death in the months ahead. She’s the one I want to see retching from the anxiety of vague medical answers. She’s the one I want to see waiting in the pre-op room to have her body altered in ways her mind still can’t comprehend. Michèle — she’s the one I pick for this battle, even though she’s already suffered so much.”

Yet it is the prophet Elijah I go back to every time the enormity of what I’ve been through threatens my image of God as a loving and comforting Father. Every time the evening news covers an atrocity I can scarce fathom. Every time someone I know endures a loss that threatens to destroy her.

Elijah feared for his life when he fled to a cave on Mount Horeb. Then a storm of monumental proportions enveloped the mountain on which he’d found refuge. It’s right there in 1 Kings 19:

We’re told that winds strong enough to break rocks in two raged around him. But God was not in the wind.

The earth rocked and spasmed under his feet. But God was not in the quake.

When a fire consumed the mountain, scorching it with its power and intensity, God was not in the fire.

The Bible clearly states: God was not in that storm.

Well-intended Christians might have seen nature’s bluster and declared to Elijah that God was the perpetrator of the wind, earthquake and fire — that He was punishing Him for fleeing or ordering him to praise him with the display of force and fury.

Yet when God speaks to the prophet, it isn’t in the raging storm. It’s from directly at his side, in a whisper only Elijah can hear.

He reveals himself intimately. Lovingly. Gently.

People who are young in age and young in faith need us to acquaint them with this God. Through our words about Him. Through our trust in Him. Through our dependence. Through our love. Through our embodiment of the healing and comforting traits of God.

They need the litany of platitudes that make God their lyncher to be replaced by a fierce proclamation of God’s heart for them. They need to know that, though God may redeem that inevitable pain of humanness by using it to empower his purposes, he grieves when his children suffer. He rages when they’re harmed. It breaks his Father-heart.

God is not in every storm. He does not routinely injure us to teach us to praise him. He does not indiscriminately slaughter us so our families learn to trust him. He does not callously afflict us with diseases and death so our waning lives can bring glory to his name. He does not rejoice in the atrocities, injustice, barbarity and cataclysms that destroy us, and He certainly doesn’t cause them to happen out of some tyrannical, sadistic desire to hear us praise him from the dungeons of our pain.

These are the truths the young believers (and unbelievers!) we care for need to hear. This is the personal, so-close, so-loving, so-wounded-by-our-wounds God they need to encounter through our words and see embodied in our out faith.

The God of Elijah is near, and He will triumph in the end. The God of holy wrath and immeasurable goodness, who whispers comfort in our storms and loves us into peace does not rejoice in our suffering. He aches with us. He groans with us. And He scatters flecks of gold amid the debris of our loss.

Short Roots Are Safer

By Lauren Wells

I used to think the discomfort of settling down was just another challenge of growing up as a Third Culture Kid. I was taught that because of the high mobility and transient nature of our upbringing, stability can feel more uncomfortable than constant transition. I saw that play out in the lives of many adult TCKs who, even though they claimed to want stability, couldn’t seem to stay in one place, or one job, for very long.

I saw it in myself, too, as I lived a shallowly rooted life through college and my early 20s.

I deliberately fought against those “TCK tendencies” during the six years we lived in Oregon, where we started our family. I was determined to learn how to grow deeper roots and very slowly inched them down into hardened soil. When we moved to South Carolina, the pain of ripping out those newly formed roots reminded me why I had avoided growing them in the first place.

The relationships we’d built in Oregon were worth the pain, but I knew South Carolina was a temporary layover. So I poured myself into my family and my work, holding a quiet readiness to be transplanted again when the time came.

Two years later, we decided to settle in Georgia. Our mantra was, “We’re here for the long haul.” We bought a home where I imagined raising teenagers. We invested deeply in community, church, and friendships. I made it a point to turn our house into a home from the very first day, hanging pictures before the boxes were even unpacked, as if willing my roots to grow deeper, faster.

We sought out friendships and opportunities to get involved in our new community, and over the years our family’s roots grew longer, fuller, and increasingly intertwined with the roots of the people we came to love deeply.

Four years and a few months later, those boxes are packed again, and my walls are bare. God, and my husband’s job, are leading us back to Oregon. This is not what I anticipated when I chose to let my roots grow deep. Nor what I wanted when I brought my children along for the root-growing ride.

As we prepare to leave, I remember why my younger self warned me against this. Ripping out deep roots hurts. Watching my children’s roots be torn up hurts. Watching dear friends grieve alongside us, when we all thought our kids would grow up together, hurts.

And maybe the hardest part is how familiar this pain feels.

I’ve known it before. At 13, moving to Africa. At 16, moving back to America. At 18, returning to Africa again. At 27, moving to South Carolina. I remember making quiet, protective decisions along the way to avoid feeling this again.

That part of me whispers, “This is why you don’t grow roots. You should’ve listened.” But there’s a louder, steadier truth the Lord keeps bringing me back to, the same one I keep speaking to my girls: “It hurts big because we loved big.”

These years of sinking roots deeper than I ever had before mean this uprooting is more painful than any I’ve known. Shorter roots surely would have been safer. I’m not looking forward to the time it will take for these freshly wounded ones to heal.

But I know this too: In the rich soil of Oregon, they will grow deep again. I’ll fight the battle against shallow, safer roots. Because maybe deep roots were never meant to keep us in place, but to teach us how to love well wherever, and for however long, we’re planted.

~~~~~~~~~

Lauren is a wife, mama to two girls, founder and CEO of TCK Training, and author of Raising Up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids, The Grief Tower, What Made That Feel So Hard?, and several others. An Adult Third Culture Kid (ATCK) who spent her teenage years living in Tanzania, East Africa, she draws on both her lived experience and her background in Child Development and Prevention Science to support TCKs and those who care for them. Through TCK Training, her work integrates research-informed frameworks with practical, accessible resources that equip families, educators, and organizations to cultivate resilient TCKs.

An Open Letter to Relatives of Workers in Conflict Zones

Dear parent or sibling of a loved one living in a conflict zone,

I see you. Oh how I see you. I see you grabbing your phone before you are even out of bed to see what happened overnight in the Middle East and find reassurances that your family there is okay. I see you wondering why they haven’t gotten on an airplane and come back “home” to safety. I see you texting them, asking them several times a week (several times a day maybe?) “How are you? How are the kids? What do you need?”

I know the many what ifs in your head. I know the plans you’ve made to get the house ready, “just in case.”

You are weary after the last three years of wars in the Middle East, especially. You said goodbye years ago and have kept saying goodbye every time your loved ones come on home assignment or you visit them. You miss your kids and grandkids, and this added component of instability (again!) feels like maybe a bit too much.

You are struggling to understand why your dear ones are making the decisions they are, decisions that may be putting them at risk. The government is even calling Westerners to leave the region — why are they not heeding that call?

A Little Reassurance

First I want to reassure you by saying that most organizations that send workers overseas are really well trained in how to handle security issues for their workers in country. Not only do they have really accurate intel on security, but many have trained their workers in how to assess risks and how to stay safe when they are overseas.

Most teams usually have contingency plans in place, with different levels of care depending on the nature of the threat. When war in a region breaks out, the safest thing isn’t always to run away and leave your home. There are many other things to consider, and usually workers on the ground are doing very heavy lifting of considering all those things with their spouses, children, teammates, leaders, and organizations.

In the United States’ case (and I am guessing this is true of other countries as well) the State Department has a “no double standard” policy that if their embassies and official U.S. personnel in a foreign country are in danger, and they are pulling them out of the country, they need to share with non-official U.S. citizens the potential threat. But when an embassy is attacked and personnel is evacuated, it doesn’t necessarily mean that every single Westerner needs to leave that region.

We may feel urgency when we hear that the State Department has issued a call for everyone to leave a conflict zone, but it doesn’t mean that if someone chooses to stay they are in immediate danger or that they are doing something foolish. The government is covering their bases, but each unit/family gets to decide what is best for their family and specific situation. For a team, there may be units that need to leave, and we bless that. And on that same team, there are others who will choose to stay, and we bless that too. Each unit needs to prayerfully seek the wisdom of the Lord for their specific lives.

Remember too, that your relatives are not tourists stuck in a foreign land. They likely speak the local language, know how to navigate their cities, and know which areas to avoid when there is unrest. They have access to food and water, have a local community linking arms with them, and have rhythms of safety in place. Simply said, they have made their home in that land. Sometimes the actual lived experience of people on the ground is very different from the one that is reported on the news, and it is much less disruptive for families to stay put, for their kids to continue to go to school and keep a sense of normalcy.

So I hope these things help you feel more at ease — that your relatives are likely trained and are being led by others who value their safety and have contingency plans in place. And that staying in the region might be far better in the longer term for your relatives than uprooting their families and lives for an indeterminate period of time.

Two Tips Backed by Brain Science

At the same time, I don’t want to minimize the impact of this situation on you. You are experiencing real distress and concern for your relatives, and when our nervous systems are activated, we often feel the need to reach out and to do something. And that makes so much sense.

Something to understand, though, is that our nervous systems don’t exist in a vacuum. They are wired to communicate with each other. God has given us mirror neurons that respond to what we observe in others.

When you share a lot of anxiety and deep fear about your loved ones and their decisions, their nervous systems pick up on that. And instead of you being able to be a safe space for them in their vulnerability, they feel the stress and burden of caring for you and your emotional response to the situation. It is also hard for them when they sense that their judgment and their ability to make wise calls is being questioned.

I know you want to love well, and I know you want to be a safe space for your loved ones. So in light of how God created our nervous systems and how they communicate with each other, I want to share a couple of tips on how to interact:

1.) Communicate confidence in God’s guidance and in your relatives’ discernment and capacity to follow the Spirit as they follow Christ. They don’t need to hear what you think they need to do. They don’t need to hear deep fear. Please remember they are walking a tightrope and that their stress levels are already high. They feel the extreme responsibility of caring for their children and those in their care. In that space, they need a listening ear, they need validation that what they are experiencing is hard, and they also need reminders that they are not alone and that however God leads them, God will be faithful. Your confidence in God is one of the best gifts you can give to them in this season.

2.) If you realize that your nervous system is activated, name it and move the energy in your body, preferably before having interaction with your loved ones. Take care of yourself first and of your emotional capacity, so that you have the capacity to be there for them. Do breathing exercises, go on a walk, call a safe friend that will be tender with you.

A Comforting Presence

Lastly, dear relative, I know you know this — we have a Shepherd who is with us and who serves us a feast even in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23). He knows you and sees you as you care for and carry heaviness over people you dearly love. He is with you in this valley.

The song “Surrounded” by Josh Garrels has been such a huge blessing to me. Remembering our generous host, Jesus, who has given us Himself to be our feast through His body and blood is how we fight our battles. We take the bread and drink the wine, we believe He has overcome, we praise Him, and we wait for Him to deliver us and our loved ones.

Surely goodness and mercy are pursuing you specifically as someone who loves people in a conflict zone. You matter, and your love for your kids, grandkids, siblings, or parents is a beautiful, good thing. The Lord honors that love. Your love goes around all those precious people and even better, our Triune God’s love goes around all of you, all at the same time. In the presence of such a God, our tender hearts rest.

And if you are not a relative but you know of relatives of people overseas, reach out to them. Ask them how they are holding up. Show them that you see them. Ask for specific, tangible ways you can help. Sometimes reaching out to these relatives is the best way you can serve workers overseas. Reaching out to them directly may be overwhelming. But letting their families know they are not forgotten is a gift they will not soon forget.

May you sense tangibly how held you are,
Lilly

Do Not Worry About Tomorrow? How About Next Tuesday?

This is in the Bible: “Do not fret. It only leads to evil.”

It’s not fair, really. People who fret are trying to prevent evil. They are being conscientious. Yet they are chronically misunderstood.

Take me, for example. You’d think that after over 100 flights with kids, someone would notice all the mission-critical tasks I perform. Shushing. Quadruple-checking departure times. Taking up more than our fair share of the overhead compartment weight limit. Producing entertainment out of thin air. Distributing pretzels. Fanning airsick kids with in-flight magazines. Finding lost Lego pieces. More shushing.

Repeatedly praying the pilot is sober.

My family rarely expresses their appreciation for these services. But I suppose that’s motherhood—notoriously under-appreciated. The cooking, the cleaning, the listening . . . especially on airplanes, when one strange sound could mean an imminent nose dive into the Atlantic.

Every once in a while it would be nice if, for example, my husband would say, “Dear, I just wanted to tell you that I notice the death grip you have on the arm rests. Thank you for your tireless watch-care over our family.” Instead, he usually says something helpful, like, “Did you know there’s never been a successful water landing in the ocean?”

In those moments, I’d like to call God up and say, “Are you sure you didn’t mean, ‘Do not joke around, it only leads to evil?’”

I know you’re probably thinking I sound imbalanced. So let me reassure you: I am very aware that flying isn’t the only thing I should worry about.

Did you know, for instance, that rabies can be dormant for a whole year? And that one of the first symptoms can be itchiness? If I don’t interrogate my son every time he scratches his left elbow, who will?

I once wrote an article about how Feeling Awkward™ is the job description of a missionary. But sometimes I’ve lived like my job description is to feel anxious.

I know, I know. Whenever Jesus and I hang out, He’s like, “Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself.” And I’m like, “No problem, Jesus. I’m totally not doing that. I’m worrying about today, and next Tuesday, and three years from now, but tomorrow is absolutely off limits.”

And then Jesus is like, “I think we need to talk again.”

Two and a half years ago, I was at the peak of my “planning” prowess. I was spinning all the plates and getting my ducks in a row (ducks are surprisingly difficult to keep in order, particularly when you are already spinning plates).

And then I got actually sick. Like, worse than elbow itchiness.

Like, lie down on the floor in the middle of the night crying out in pain sick. Waking up your husband to pray for you sick. Remembering that your grandma died young of colon cancer sick. And no matter how many funny Dave Barry articles you read, it’s hard to laugh away the paranoia that comes from not knowing why you’re in pain all the time.

It was a journey. And the journey began, as so many do, on an airplane.

I was tasked with visiting a single female worker in a creative access location. We bought tickets. I packed my minimalist backpack, making sure to include my Airplane Preparedness Kit: warm socks for potential polar temperatures, wet wipes for potential pathogens on the arm rests, and headphones, so I could drown out the sound of my heart palpitations with Scripture songs.

It took several flights to get to The Location. My last flight was with a small national airline a friend of mine likes to call, “Maybe Airways.”

Anyway, there I was, boarding my plane, looking about 19 with my li’l backpack, even though I’d just turned 39. I walked to my seat, as one does, only to discover there was a guy lying across my seat with an IV going into his arm.

I looked at the stewardess, who was slamming shut various overhead compartments.

“Um?” I said.

“Sit down, we need to take off!”

“But my seat . . .” She waved her manicured hand around dismissively. “Just sit anywhere.” A burly guy whose broad shoulders needed their own seats motioned for me to sit by him.

So I did.

Then I put my elbows on my lap to try not to get into his personal space or let him into my personal space, while simultaneously avoiding making eye contact. Then I put in my headphones to begin my Flight Preparedness Ritual.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . . there is plenty of air in here . . . breathe, breathe . . .

He-makes-me-lie-down-in-green-pastures-He-restores-my-soul . . . I’m sure the pilots are not even a little bit inebriated, breathe . . .

It was a special time with me and God. A thing we do together relatively frequently. To my surprise, though, God actually interjected a comment into this little one-way conversation.

“The man next to you is safe.” I heard it in my heart, not my ears, but it was a very clear message.

“That’s nice, God. Though what I’d really like to hear is that the pilot is safe.”

Two more times the Lord said to me, “The man next to you is safe.” I accepted this. Relaxed a bit. I was just beginning to enjoy my soothing music when God spoke again.

“Wouldn’t you like to get rid of that anxiety?”

“Not to be disrespectful, Lord, but I’ve prayed about this a gazillion times already. You and I have been doing this anxiety thing for years, and I don’t let it slow me down anymore. I do it scared, etc. I’ve accepted my thorn in the flesh.”

“But wouldn’t you like Me to heal you?”

“Of course, God. But Your grace is sufficient, Your power is made perfect in weakness, etc.”

“But Perfect Love casts out fear.”

“Touché.”

“Is it possible that you think your worry is somehow keeping this plane in the air?” I froze. I looked up at the plastic ceiling. Suddenly, Jesus’ words came like a hurricane into my mind: “Who of you by worrying can add an hour to his life?”

It seemed absurd. My worrying had nothing to do with whether this airplane stayed up or fell down. That had to do with a bunch of physics diagrams I didn’t understand. My fear was just making the ride unpleasant. So why was I holding onto it?

“God, I’d give You my worry, but I’ve already tried so many times. Besides, I don’t know how.”

“You don’t have to know how. You just have to know Me.”

“Okay, then. You can have my fear of flying.” I literally opened my hands toward the ceiling, hoping the burly Arab guy wouldn’t notice. And after fifteen years of enduring flight-related anxiety, I suddenly felt relaxed. Peace actually flooded my soul, just like the cliché says it does.

“Wow, Lord! You’ve truly delivered me from all my fears! How can I ever thank You?”

“Share Jesus with that man.”

The first words that came to my mind at that moment were “bait and switch.” I did, however, share Jesus with the big burly Arab man, and I went on to encourage my friend in her service. But it was while visiting her that I first took special notice of the discomfort in my abdomen.

Over the next several months, as I endured pain and underwent testing, I felt Jesus draw near. We faced the truth together: God is God and I am not. He is infinite, all-powerful, and all-loving. I am finite, mortal, and have just two hands and twenty-four hours a day with which to hold things. I have plans, but He has The Plan.

God doesn’t have to rest, but I do. I am unable to carry this world and its cares. I need to trade my self-made burden for the one Jesus designed for me to carry. I can easily take on too much, but He will never give me too much.

In the end, the enemy of medical normalcy in my life, was . . . cue the drumroll . . . gluten.

I’d always been the kind of person to say, “I’ll eat whatever,” when invited over. Now I am the kind of person who asks, “Is this popsicle gluten-free?” The doc says I’ll have to avoid it for the rest of my life, which is sad because I really liked bread. But I’ve been mostly pain-free for two years now, so it’s worth the sacrifice.

Here’s what I’ve learned: planning for the future, risk analysis, even feeling afraid are not wrong. But our bodies and minds can overreact to those things, just like they can to pollen, or pet cats, or pizza crust.

While there may not be a cure that will let me eat whatever I want, there is a way forward for me in freedom from anxiety. I know that because I’ve been on many flights since the day I agreed to let God handle my fear of flying. And, to His honor and glory, I am still free and at peace.

Worry sometimes shows up in other places, of course. Thankfully, I know exactly what to do when it does.

“Jesus? I think we need to talk again.”

Present Tense Grace

Editor’s Note: This article discusses a violent attack encountered on the field.

By Breanna Rudolph

I wasn’t ready for it, that beautiful spring evening in 2016 in the mountains of Haiti, when three men burst out of the ditch with a gun and a sword. I also wasn’t ready for what came after: the years of relentless what-ifs and the way fear doesn’t always end when the danger passes.

Michael and I had only been married a year and a half, and I was five months pregnant with our first child. We had met in Haiti, married, and made our home there in a remote mountain village. We were passionate about the gospel and committed to helping people with medical needs for which there was no local care.

Our lives were full of work and travel. That spring evening, after preparing for a visiting team of surgeons, we stopped in town to grab supper plates before heading up the trail for home in our UTV. We drove to the first mountain crest and stopped to eat where it was cooler. The view was spectacular, overlooking the vast blue ocean and the noisy city below. We remarked that this almost felt like a date, the first we’d really had in months.

We ate quickly; dusk was falling, and we still had an hour left. The trail home stretches about twelve miles over rugged mountain terrain. We continued our journey, and as we rounded a corner, a motorcycle driver stopped and watched us pass. That wasn’t unusual, but I gasped at the evil in his eyes. I almost said something to my husband, but the UTV was loud, and I was too tired to shout.

We forded rivers and climbed ridges and eventually reached the most secluded section of the trail. Recent rains had turned it to deep mud, and our pace slowed to a crawl. As we slogged through the mud, three men shot out of the deep ditch on our left.

Immediately a gun was pressed to my husband’s head. The gunman shouted, slamming the weapon against him. Michael blocked the blows with his hands, trying to reason with the men in Creole.

On my side, two of the men approached. One held a long, dull sword. He prodded me with the blade, then began using his hands. He’s either looking for money, or I’m about to be assaulted, I thought. I shoved him away. His face twisted with rage, and he raised the sword, beating me again and again. Adrenaline is a strange thing; you don’t feel pain until you do. I bent over to shield my belly, letting the blows fall across my shoulder instead. Michael’s back was turned as he fought off his own onslaught of shouting and pistol whipping.

Soon I started to hurt. I grabbed the man’s sword and pulled. He pulled harder. I let go, and he stumbled backward. Now he was even angrier, and he unleashed his weapon on me again. Fearing Michael would rush to save me and be shot, I forced my voice to stay low and calm. “Michael, they’re hurting me.”

Michael managed to get his wallet from his pocket and called them over with an urgent voice, explaining we had only supplies in the back. I suppose they felt their intimidation had done its job. They went over the cab area, took whatever they could find: money, bags, and passports, and vanished.

In the weeks after, the weight of what happened pressed down on us. Each day brought new questions: Will it happen again? Will they come to our home? We learned that these men were part of a small gang camping out in the mountains and that the motorcycle driver I had seen likely tipped them off.

Perhaps the worst part of it all was my mind constantly playing out darker versions of what could have been. My husband could have been shot. I could have been stabbed, and my baby might not have made it. Were these fears close to reality? Maybe. I felt there was no way I could handle even one of those scenarios.

Over the next few years, the stress moved from the trail to our doorstep. While we were away, a thief broke into our home and went through everything. While home alone with our two young kids, a thief came again, once entering successfully, another time attempting it. Camera footage showed a masked man, later found watching our house with a machete hidden in his pants.

While driving to visit friends, unruly kids threw a rock at us from the embankment above the road. It struck the roll bar on the UTV with such force that it shattered — inches from our son’s head. Events like these fed my growing fears, sending my mind spinning through what could have been. I was hyper-vigilant and always on edge, checking and rechecking my surroundings.

The breaking point came in 2021 during what was supposed to be a five-week furlough in the States. Our missionary friend was killed in a plane crash. He’d been flying over the southern mountains we all crossed to avoid the gang-controlled roads. I watched his widow handle this unimaginable loss with such grace and fell apart.

This could happen to us too, and I was certain I didn’t have her level of strength to endure it. Days after that, the Haitian president was assassinated, and Haiti descended into anarchy. What was meant to be a brief furlough became an indefinite return for our family.

In the safety of the States, the tension in my mind finally began to ease. I started to recognize just how deeply fear had settled into my body and thoughts. What I would later understand was post-traumatic stress had mushroomed into anxiety and insomnia.

In missionary circles, the language of sacrifice is well known; wholeness of mind, body, and spirit is not. People asked about our work, but rarely about how we were really, truly doing. I felt pressure to remain the “heroic” version of ourselves, a projection of the unshakable missionaries portrayed in the biographies they admired.

It’s easier for most people to sanitize a story from a distance than to sit in the dusty disappointments of its reality. I remember some of the most confident “faith over fear” advice from individuals whose homes were wrapped in security systems, where an alarm would bring the police in minutes. Though they had the best intentions, and by no fault of their own, this exposed a seemingly vast disconnect.

In those moments, theology offered without empathy felt cold, and I instinctively pulled away. I had no words for what I was facing, and even less understanding of how to bring it before God without feeling like an ashamed imposter who was failing at faith.

Only gradually did I come to understand that I had never brought my pain and worry into the light of God’s truth. I had been trying to build a life in the gap between them, keeping my suffering and faith separate. In doing so, I had overlooked something so simple: God does not give imaginary grace for imaginary things.

I realized I was putting myself through ‘simulated suffering,’ trying to summon the strength to survive a murder, a plane crash, or a loss that hadn’t happened. I felt weak because I was trying to carry a burden God had neither placed on my shoulders nor given me strength to bear.

I think this is more common than we admit — many of us do this with finances, health, politics, and relationships. We rehearse disasters that haven’t even happened to steel ourselves against losses we haven’t actually faced. As a thinker and organized planner, some of my greatest giftings and strengths became weaknesses when driven by fear and worry.

Trusting God’s sovereignty over what does not happen takes a different kind of discipline. It requires believing that, despite our vivid imaginations, He remains the gatekeeper of our lives. The Lord governs over all that comes to pass and shields us from the countless tragedies that do not. I had somewhat viewed God’s sovereignty as passive, as if He simply stepped back and let Haiti’s chaos engulf us and our friends. But even the boundaries around our suffering are as much under His control as the circumstances He allowed, just as God set limits that Satan could not cross in Job’s life.

As we pray about whether God will lead us back to Haiti, I still struggle. Part of working through that has been writing this. I am reminded of “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). This isn’t a passive “letting go”; it is an aggressive arrest of the mind. Obedience often leads straight through our deepest wounds and fears.

When my mind begins to unravel, I now ask: Has God given me grace for this yet? The answer is always no, of course not, because it hasn’t happened. And that “no” is a gift. It turns my heart from worry toward deep thankfulness.

Perhaps God will one day lead our family through what I fear the most. I may wonder if I have the faith for that journey, but I now understand that burden is not mine to bear — it belongs to God. The unknown ahead isn’t a dark void, it is territory already claimed by the light of His presence.

While I don’t yet have the grace for tomorrow, I do have exactly enough for this breath, this prayer, this step. And maybe, if you are walking through fear or uncertainty too, this can serve as the reminder we both need: His grace is enough for the road we are actually on.

~~~~~~~~

Breanna Rudolph is the wife of Michael and a mother of three. After serving in Haiti for over seven years, their family now lives in Tennessee, seeking to be faithful where God has them while waiting on His next steps. Her writing can be found at thinkingwithtruth.com.

You Were Never Meant to Break Alone

Content warning: This article contains descriptions of a tragic death.

If you’ve ever suffered alone, you know how unbearable it is. Suffering is bad. Alone-ness is worse. This is what Lent is showing me—that this liturgical practice of communal reflection, grief, and hope is a formative Christian discipline about togetherness. It’s teaching us how to hold together in the weight of human brokenness. It’s teaching us not to protect ourselves from grief or rush past it, but to sit with it, be changed by it, and move forward together in it.

I don’t want to be spared from sadness. I want to learn what to do with it, how to be changed by it, and how to live fully with others in the midst of it. I was eight years old when I first learned this.

“Something is wrong with Richard.” The name of my best friend in Cameroon fell heavy as my neighbor delivered grim news—the kind that is worse at night. Richard’s flu had taken a turn for the worse when his family sought a traditional healer, whose methods of cutting out the swollen uvula spiraled into disaster.

My dad, having the only vehicle in our village at the time, loaded the young teen into our family car/community ambulance and began the starry-night journey across wretched clay roads to a mission hospital two hours away.

As the sun broke through the night the next morning, I woke to wailing. My dad drove up our driveway and delivered my friend’s body to his horrified mother. I later found out that my father had to watch as Richard’s eyes grew wider and his lungs filled with his own blood, mission doctors and nurses desperately trying to provide relief that never came.

I remember falling silent and shaking on my front steps, overwhelmed by the sight of my village mamas who came running, screaming, tearing their clothes, fainting. The air filled full and loud, their wailing alerting the rest of the village that we’d lost our own. These women made grief a force that was fierce, collective, and fully alive. I was overcome. But I was not alone.

Then the rituals began. They are customs too sacred and culturally protected to write for the world to see, but they are ones that honor the pain of the living while honoring the life of the dead. Ones where the body of a child is passed around, and the women who once nurtured life into this being now metaphorically drink of the death that the body experienced. That day my village mamas gathered around a broken body and remembered—together.

This felt viscerally like communion.

Was I afraid? Yes. Did I crawl into my parent’s room the following nights scared that my own lungs might choke the life out of me in my sleep? Yes. Was the sight of my friend’s body being passed around in sacred ritual overwhelming? Yes.

But I didn’t need saving from the sadness. I needed to be taught what to do with it. I needed to see with my own two eyes that crying your lungs out with your neighbors is exactly what you do when life is lost. I needed to learn that shared shrieks of crushed hearts mean you’re not alone. I needed to see that falling to the ground and losing consciousness from grief is what mothers do when they put to rest the bodies that sprouted inside them—and that they have people who will do it with them.

We were breaking. But we were breaking together.

My Cameroonian mamas taught me to acknowledge sadness for the violence that it is on the soul instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. They taught me to hold the paradox that grief feels so constricting because life was first good, because we first loved, and now we have lost. My parents taught me that crawling into their room for comfort instead of panicking alone is exactly what I should do when I’m afraid.

Years later, I went to my first Western funeral. The stoic suits and stifled tears felt almost hollow. The room felt uncomfortably polite, and this form of grieving seemed to tell only a partial story as everyone sat perfectly spaced in their individual chairs. That is, until I saw my normally put-together friend drag herself to her son’s casket and lay herself fully across it, refusing to rush mourning for the sake of the ceremony. And the whole room broke.

It was then that I knew grief is universal. No matter the ritual, we need togetherness when anguish hits.

No one is truly protected from the shattering moments of life. But straddling worlds may mean there’s a little less insulation between you and death, poverty, war, injustice, bad medicine, and crime. Becoming one with our neighbors and bearing their burdens as our own makes these truths worthy of our attention, our energy, our love, and our sadness. And this sadness isn’t valueless.

As we sit together around the world in the reflection of Lent, may we heave a collective Christian sigh. One where we commune to honor the hanging of Heaven’s Child while also hungrily accepting His atonement. One where we refuse to rush through the observance so we can start life’s ceremonies. One where we are not protected from brokenness but are changed by it. And one where we break—but never alone.

Photo by Marianna Smiley on Unsplash