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.
