hope – A Life Overseas |

Fighting for Awe and Wonder – And Why It Matters

It was her question that I couldn’t shake. The type of question where harsh reality clashes with idealism. And I couldn’t ignore the drive to chase an answer, even if it took months to unpack. Or in this case, twelve months.

“How do we maintain awe and wonder?”

She wasn’t asking because I knew the answer. She’s way smarter than I am. She was asking because she sensed that our souls earnestly wanted to discover some answers together—or at least start trying as we meandered the whimsical neighborhoods of Portland. Her poodle sniffed a statue of Ramona Quimby at the Beverly Cleary Park.

Speaking of awe and wonder while exploring my favorite childhood author’s hometown and secretly snapping selfies outside her childhood home was the backdrop to her inspired question. Standing where Beverly Cleary would have sipped lemonade and chased playmates in Mary Jane shoes felt surreal. Ramona, Beezus, Henry, Ribsy, and even Scooter, and their white-picket-fence lives were friends who flooded my imagination as a child. I devoured their stories—where the biggest challenge is the neighbor’s complaint of your scruffy dog—over and over by the flicker of a kerosene lantern in a village in Africa.

The spark of our awe and wonder conversation felt magical, and everything in me was alive. The fact that I was having this exchange with a brilliant children’s book illustrator made it all the more invigorating.

Until I found out the hard truths about Beverly Cleary’s dingy childhood. There wasn’t much sipping of lemonade and chasing of friends along idyllic streets like I’d always imagined. It seems like her writing was less of a memoir and more of an escape to places deeply longed for.

It hurt to shatter the romantic lens. It was also inspiring. Because there was no better place for me to begin to wrestle with the question of how to maintain awe and wonder in a dark world than outside the childhood home of an author who lived this tension.

How do I maintain awe and wonder in a world that’s bent on crushing it?

And why does it matter? In a world where the bodies of children are swept away by swirling waters in Texas, the children in warring strips of lands are paying for centuries of conflict, and the minority children in Cameroon have been prohibited from attending school for fear of their lives, why does it matter to the beating of my very soul if I fight for a sense of awe and wonder? These things feel secondary when I can’t even ensure the protection of the least of these.

Twelve months later, I still don’t have a clean answer, but I’d like to share what I’ve learned so far and open the conversation to learn from you. I’m pretty sure if you’re reading this, you’ve lived a hard journey across global borders, raised children in hard places, served the unseen, lost a lot, been hurt a lot, wrestled with God a lot, and maybe, just maybe, have lost some awe and wonder in the process. So I think this community has something to teach me.

Why does any of this matter? Why did this question resonate with me and all of humanity?

Because the opposite of awe and wonder is everything that tears us apart from each other and from God. They are the things that disconnect us, suck our souls dry, separate us from empathy for our neighbor, and drive us away from praise. In stark contrast to awe is cynicism, indifference, disenchantment, boredom. On the farthest end of the spectrum of the human experience from wonder is jadedness, apathy, detachment, contempt, and dread.

A dreary worldview leads us to disconnection, comparison, and inaction. It leads us to seeing others as less than fully human and a growing disdain for the many forms of the goodness of God. We lose our ability to love selflessly and take on pride, gossip, narcissistic tendencies, and even war.

I do not want to be accustomed to these things taking up space in my heart. They are diametrically opposed to awe and wonder. I can hardly think of a closer description of hell. Or things that take my mind further from the heart of God.

Against a landscape of evil, hardness, hyper-self-preservation, disconnection, ingratitude, and danger, I must engage awe and wonder because it leads me to

praise God better,
which leads me to softness,
which leads me to share,
which leads me to connect,
which leads me to appreciate,
which leads me to protect.

As a teen full of imagination and wonder, someone informed me that my rose-colored glasses were evidence of a head buried in sand and that my wonder insulted the pain of others. More than anything, I didn’t want to participate in disregarding the pain of others.

So, instead of learning to better balance the pain of the world with my bursting curiosity, I tried to be mature like them. Bury liveliness. Embrace cynicism. Because jaded people seemed super informed, albeit crippled by inaction.

As someone who has lived and worked overseas for decades, I’m painfully aware that the pursuit and expression of beauty may be interpreted as disloyalty and abandonment of those in hard seasons.

But the abandonment of wonder left me hollow. So, I’m back at this question again.

Practically speaking, how do we do this? For starters, we need to name the things that deoxygenate our awe and loot us of joy. Screens. Inauthentic experiences. Passivity. Pride. Hypervigilant self-focus. Reading comments online—where criticism is acutely trained to detect imperfection and is blind to the bravery it took someone to produce art or work.

But simply avoiding thieves of joy isn’t what makes us connected and full. Our beings were made to actively seek the beautiful things that make us fully aware of God and in tune with each other. Here are a few fertile places I’ve found.

Good theology matters. Perhaps there was some level of truth that my childlike awe and wonder neglected to acknowledge the hard things of life, a TCK phenomenon I am only now grasping in my line of work with TCK research. Perhaps a better worldview and a deeper theology would have me explore the complex and uncomfortable truths—learning to hold in tension the beautiful and the hard—and that sometimes the hard is beautiful and the beautiful is hard. Perhaps my heart was meant for deeper worship without reservation when I am called to build a more solid theology of God’s goodness, suffering, sin, and to honor the feeling of paradox of things I don’t fully understand now, but will someday. Perhaps the greatest way to honor the good with awe and wonder is to acknowledge the hard and whisper an invitation for the Holy Spirit to be my teacher (John 14:26).
Cultivate tenderness. Tenderness sees the brokenhearted, turns the throat-lump into sea water running down cheeks, delights in the petal formation of a rose, pauses to ponder the markings of a toad, rebels against the overloaded schedule, believes the best in disquieting misunderstandings, and makes creamy chai for the neighbor. If tenderness is a soft landing place missing from our ability to breathe, stop, praise, notice, engage, maybe it’s time to go back to the root of love—the type that bears, believes, hopes, and endures the things trying to break us (1 Cor. 13:7).
Throw off the things holding me back. With haste. A good, hard look in the mirror paired with the sacred work of the Holy Spirit burns the secrets holding me back from the Father’s innocence, joy, awe, and empathy. Hebrews 12:1 is a much sweeter bid to freedom than a list of shoulds and condemnation. It is the invitation to drink deep of the things that make me alive and release the things that threaten to sink me. It is a call to marinate in Shalom peace, receive it, root in it, fruit it, and share it.
Train my eyes upon the unnoticed things. God delights in the song of the sparrow, Leviathan’s froth from playing in the sea, and he even cares about the sorrow of the tax collector. It’s pausing to admire delicate forest fungi while hiking among towering redwoods or listening to the layers of music in a song you’ve heard a hundred times. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The innocent delight in the little things. To be easily awed is an enviable art these days.

For the past twelve months and twenty-one days, I’ve been sitting on the question I bring to you today: “How do we maintain awe and wonder. And why does it matter?”

Perhaps the steps of Beverly Cleary’s childhood house was the perfect place to begin wrestling with this question. The gift of her whimsical stories didn’t stem from an idyllic childhood but from a place of longing. Joy and wonder didn’t erase the scarcity but became an intentional step out of the dreariness.

So what about you? How do you fight for awe and wonder?

Photo by Chris G. Pexels.

Introducing a New Middle Grade Fiction Novel for TCKs

Sam’s Roommate Disaster released today on Amazon as the newest TCK book on the market.

Have you ever read a story and felt like you were reading your life? Growing up as a kid in Cameroon, I never had that experience – even though I poured over the books in our extensive homeschool library. My new book, Sam’s Roommate Disaster, is my attempt to change that for young TCKs.

TCKs can get exhausted from frequent change and loss. While there’s a lot of loss in the globally mobile experience, there is also precious gain, and that is the beauty of the TCK experience. I want third culture kids to have relatable stories where, even in the pain of unexpected change, they see that it is worth leaning into new experiences and new people to see what is on the other side.

I wrote this book for the kids whose backgrounds are underrepresented in children’s literature. I wrote it for the kid who doesn’t like school and who struggles with reading. I wrote it for the one who daydreams during class, the one who wants to be outside exploring. I wrote it for the kid who does something without thinking and then wonders, “Why in the world did I just do that?”

I wrote it for the kid whose friend moved away and they’re pretty they’ll never make a friend like that again. I wrote it for the kid who is misunderstood and doesn’t want anyone to know why.

I wrote it for third culture kids who live behind cement walls, the ones sitting in metros, and the ones running barefoot through jungles. I wrote it for their monocultural cousins who need a sneak peek at childhood overseas. I wrote it for the kid who needs an imaginative escape into a world of friends and adventures.

I wrote it for the moms who have to send their kids to boarding school. I wrote it for the dorm staff who became like second parents for TCKs during formative years. I wrote it for international school teachers who want a fresh book with settings that don’t have white picket fences and characters who make all the right choices. But mostly, I wrote it for your kid.

I wrote Sam’s Roommate Disaster right in the thick of an incredibly difficult season in my own journey as a global worker. It was a time when I needed to come up for air. And that meant revisiting the awe and wonder of childhood stories, both mine and my husband’s. It meant sharing stories with my kids around the dinner table.

It meant listening to the giggles of old friends as they told stories from their perspective. It meant opening doors to hear fresh adventures from my in-laws about their wild child, Sam, who did all the things, took all the risks, made some mistakes, and picked himself back up again. And it meant fanning a spark of creative writing which soon became a flame that brought me great joy.

Disappearing into these stories transported me back to steamy jungle rains, clunky old bikes with tales that could fill libraries of books, tight sibling bonds, and small schools where your youth group leader is also your math teacher. It took me back to the feeling of dread after doing something dumb and realizing you made a mistake. It awakened the feeling of hot tears on freckled cheeks, the rush of wind through hair on a runaway horse, that first crush. It made me remember small class sizes where even the tattletale belonged and the unforgettable innocence of childhood BFFs.

As your kids read this book, I hope it solidifies their belief that the world of third cultures is one in which they belong. This is their tribe and TCKs are their people, whether they’re in Thailand, Hungary, or Uganda.

If you grew up overseas and you read this to your kids, I hope it transports you back to a time of jungle rains, small schools, and BFFs. Mostly, I hope it unlocks your ability to share your own story with your kids, because that’s what they really need to hear.

Book Teaser:

“Sam’s heart pounded like a hot basketball in his ears. If he heard one more snore from his roommate, his anger might just spill out, and there was nothing more embarrassing than crying in fifth grade. Scrunching the covers tighter around his head didn’t do anything to muffle the noise rumbling from the bottom bunk. Being eleven at boarding school was hard enough, let alone sharing a room with Jordan, the only kid at boarding school who snored like a freight train.”

Buckle up for adventures in the jungles of Congo with boarding school kid, Sam! Hold on tight, because 5th grade for Sam includes a run-in with a highly venomous green mamba, a runaway horse, a heart-pounding close call on his dirt bike, and an angry mama pig. His biggest challenge, however, has nothing to do with snakes or pigs. Sam’s greatest challenge is his new roommate, Jordan.

Jordan is making 5th grade impossible. He’s loud and messy, and he ignores Sam. When Sam realizes there may be more to the story, will he decide to keep his distance or give his roommate a chance?

What kids are saying:

“I like the suspense, the love, and disliking feelings.” –Sam, age 11 (Indonesia)

“Readers beware: full of motorcycle chases, green mambas, flying lizards, and the

dreaded banana bread.” – Michael, 8th grade (Cameroon)

“I really loved how the descriptions made me feel like I was with them throughout their adventures! After reading this book I would really like to learn how to ride a dirt bike!” – Eliana, age 11 (El Salvador)

“It was really fun and exciting, and it was encouraging at the perfect time when I needed it.” – Charlie, age 9 (Hungary and Mongolia)

“This book was really great! I could really relate to my own life as a missionary kid and all the adventures I’ve had!” – Kora, age 10 (Colombia)

“It was cool to see what missionary life is like in other countries. Just watch out for banana bread and lizards with parachutes!” – Andrew, age 12 (Indonesia)

“I liked this book because there are a lot of different adventures, and it’s based on real life. It’s an exciting book, and there’s never a dull moment!” – Asher, age 9 (South Africa)

Fun Facts to share with your kids AFTER they’ve read the book:

Yes, the stories are based on true events from either Sam’s childhood or mine.

Yes, I’m one of the characters.

No, I didn’t meet Sam until high school.

Yes, Sam hates bananas that much.

Yes, soccer really was that big of a big deal. Jordan went on to co-found Petrichor Football Association.

Yes, Josh and his red-headed crush ended up together. They live on a happy little farm in Indiana.

Yes, the lizards were fine.

No, I’m not done writing kids’ books. I’m working on Book 2 of the Barefoot Around the World series.

Where to find it:

Head to Amazon now and grab your copy of Sam’s Roommate Disaster! Dive into exciting new tales that resonate with TCKs around the world. For a limited time, enjoy special discounts on b ebooks ($3.99) and paperbacks ($8.99) through August 23rd. Let’s revive storytime and make it an adventure your kids will love!

Follow Raising a Family Overseas on Instagram and Facebook for practical tips and conversations about doing global family life.

To Bribe or Not to Bribe? That is the Question.

We were on our way home from church and stopped at a petrol station.

We fished around for cash; credit cards weren’t an option in our host country. My husband had only 50,000 shillings on him.

As the attendant filled the tank, I triumphantly rustled up another 30,000 shillings from the depths of my purse. “Aha! We can top up now!” I declared.

I leaned over and asked the attendant, “Please add another 30,000.”

But instead of giving us more gas, the guy pulled out a wad of receipts from his pocket and rifled through them. He pulled out one for 80,000 shillings and offered it to me with an arched eyebrow.

I stared at him, baffled. What on earth was going on?

Suddenly it dawned on me: he didn’t realize I was asking for more gas; he thought I wanted a receipt for 30,000 more than what we had paid. Why would he make that assumption and then nonchalantly comply?

Because it was a commonplace request.

In our host country, hiring a driver to run errands was routine. It was also routine for that driver to fill up the gas tank and then bring his employer an inflated receipt for reimbursement, making himself some profit on the side.

So when customers left their receipts behind, the gas station attendants collected them, ready to dutifully pass them on to pilfering drivers. If I had wanted a false receipt, all I needed to do was ask. Embezzlement was that easy.

****

I sat in the cubicle next to the designer’s computer as she put the finishing touches on the banner I was requesting.

“Looks great!” I exclaimed. “You said 150,000 shillings, right? Please put the name of my school on the receipt.”

“Oh, if you want a receipt, it will be an additional 20%,” she quickly corrected me.

20%: The government sales tax.

Why wasn’t the tax automatically included in the quotation? I didn’t need to ask why; I had heard the answer before. Many customers would go elsewhere if she included tax in her quotations. If her business wanted to compete, her only choice was to offer under-the-table prices. She was trapped.

****

I entered my new culture in my early 20’s, idealistic and naive, ready to change the world. The reality of ethics in a developing country smacked me in the face.

I heard first-hand accounts of teachers who withheld critical exam information from students who wouldn’t pay up. Nurses who ignored any patient who wouldn’t tip them in advance. Social workers who bent adoption laws for the right price. Visas granted only to those succumbing to bribes.

It seemed pure evil until I became aware of the other side of the story. Indeed, greed was part of the equation, but sometimes employees weren’t paid enough to live on – or their paychecks were backlogged for months. Desperation was also a factor.

In a society where no one plays fair, picking yourself up by your bootstraps sometimes means stealing the boots first. If you want to get ahead, you have to play dirty.

So what happens when foreigners find themselves trying to help those locked in corrupt systems? Should we capitulate, arguing that it’s better to give in, as long as we do good work? Or do we defy corruption, even if it means suffering the consequences?

The answer is not always clear. In some places, what we might see as a bribe is interpreted as a “pre-tip” for expedited service. We must observe and explore these cultural nuances, recognizing that the conclusion is not always black and white.

Many times, however, corruption is blatant. Occasionally, acquiescing is a matter of life or death. But should cooperation with corruption be our default?

Confronting corruption is costly. It’s easier to slip the police officer a few bills and drive away than spend an hour arguing for justice. It’s cheaper to give in to the customs official demanding a bribe than to be charged exorbitant fees. Waiting for visas can stretch for months when you refuse to grease the wheels.

But do we want to see quick fixes or lasting change? Corruption breeds oppression for the vulnerable. When fraud has free reign, the subsistence farmer can’t get a fair price for his crops. The small shop owner can’t compete with powerful companies. Emergency aid fills the stomachs of government workers instead of displaced refugees. When we feed that system, we hurt the powerless.

We must remember that as expatriates, we are privileged. We have money, resources, and safety nets. Someone has got to break corruption’s cycle, and those of us with privilege should be the first to fight.

Our attempt to stand up against corruption may seem feeble. Is it worth the trouble? That’s not our concern. Our job is to obey God, do the right thing, and trust Him with the result.

The day may come when our small acts of integrity result in large-scale transformation. I know people who have found themselves perfectly positioned to go head-to-head with an entire corrupt system, and miraculously, they see change manifesting right before their eyes. They are immersed in a profoundly challenging and spiritual battle, but their story proves that change is possible.

Cynicism is the pendulum swing from naivete, and neither is healthy. Somehow we must walk the tightrope between wisdom and suspicion. Not every government official in a developing country is corrupt, and foreigners are not saints. As Christians, we should be alert to the brokenness in this world and ourselves – but also never lose hope.

****

The police officer stepped into traffic and held out his palm in front of me. Sighing, I pulled to the side of the road so that he could inspect my car. “Ah! Look at this,” he announced. “Your insurance has expired.”

I groaned inwardly. He was right. My insurance had expired the day before, escaping my notice.

He demanded a 40,000 shilling fine. “I will pay it,” I told him, “but only if you give me a ticket.”

He did not have a ticket book, and I refused to pay without it. We reached an agreement: I would go to the police station to pay my fine and leave him my license as collateral. When I could show him proof of payment, he would give it back.

The next day, I got up early and drove 45 minutes to the police station. The police there laughed at me. “Why didn’t you just pay the officer? We don’t have any ticket books here either.”

I drove to another station: same result. Finally, at the central police station downtown, in the little room at the very back, I found an officer with an authorized ticket book where I could pay my fine (which was actually only 20,000 shillings).

In the end, it took four hours to pay my fine legitimately. But I felt as successful as a Jedi rebel, a small act of defiance against the Empire. It was worth it.

When Hoping Hurts

My favourite thing about Christmas has always been the name Immanuel, and what it really means. To have an omnipotent creator God who saw that the most important thing for him to be and do is to be present: to be God-with-us. Even as a child, without understanding the theological beauty of this, I loved Immanuel.

In the tumult of ongoing personal and professional storms, with no spiritual community to uphold me, I find myself ruminating on the connection between Immanuel and hope. Both feel far away from me in my current circumstances. When someone talks about hope, I want to walk away. There’s no place for hope in this pit. Things will happen as they happen, and there is no point in hoping for them to fall a certain way.

People wishing for the best for me, saying they hope and pray things will work out even better than expected – this makes me feel alone, not hopeful or supported. More comforting are those who simply acknowledge that my situation is awful and then include me in life, maintaining presence without expecting me to perform either grief or joy for them.

Right now, hoping hurts. It hurts to remember how I previously built a business from nothing to a liveable income. I look at empty bank accounts, and the life I lived two years ago feels like another lifetime. It hurts to imagine living with my husband in our own home, because they are on the other side of the world, out of reach.

Which brings me to Immanuel: God with us.

The Almighty God of love looked at a dark and broken world, and he knew that what we needed wasn’t inspirational stories, cheery words, thoughts and prayers, or to be checked in on. What we needed was presence.

The hope of Christmas isn’t that things are wonderful now that Christ is here.

The hope of Christmas isn’t that Jesus will fix everything.

The hope of Christmas isn’t even that Easter is on the horizon and THAT will fix everything.

The hope of Christmas is Immanuel.

The hope of Christmas is that we are not alone.

The hope of Christmas is that we have a God who has lived in the darkness with us.

The hope of Christmas is that Immanuel is in it for the long haul.

Our God doesn’t swoop in and save us at the end. He’s here for the whole journey. The whole dark and broken experience of life among messy and messed up people. He’s the friend who sticks with us when we’re not nice to be around. He’s the one who will sit with us in silence, not just offer cliched words of “comfort.” He understands that hope isn’t about twirling in the sunshine; it is about believing in light while living in utter darkness.

Sometimes, remembering the good that was – hurts.

Sometimes, believing in the good that will be – hurts.

But it is here in the darkness, the brokenness, the mess and destruction, that we find Immanuel. God with us. This is the real hope of Christmas.

I don’t have to change, I don’t have to fix anything, I don’t have to paste on a smile or make myself peppy. These things aren’t hope. I don’t have to believe that immigration paperwork will happen quickly or smoothly. I don’t have to believe my business will recover. I don’t have to believe my health will ever be okay.

Hope is knowing that what I see now is not all there is.

Hope is knowing that no matter what befalls me – Immanuel.

Hope is knowing that journeying through darkness is part of the journey of faith, and not a diversion from it. It is an opportunity to experience Immanuel.

Jesus looks at my dark and broken life and knows that what I need isn’t inspirational stories, cheery words, thoughts and prayers, or to be checked in on. What I need is presence with me on the journey. What I need is Immanuel.

When the Backpack is too Heavy

Sheila Walsh tells a poignant story of her son wanting to leave home at the tender age of six. Evidently he set out with his backpack and jacket, heading toward a pond near home. She, wanting to allow freedom but aware of his young age, kept a watchful eye from a window where she could ensure safety as well as give him his independence. After a short time he was back at the door, offering no explanation other than a six-year-old going on sixteen response of “It’s good to be home!”

Later that night as she was tucking him in, she brought up the adventure and asked him about it. His response was matter of fact “I would have gone farther but my backpack was too heavy.”

As I listened to her, I was overwhelmed by the truth in a child’s simple comment.

I would have gone farther, but my backpack was too heavy.
Sheila Walsh

These days, I feel like this child. My backpack feels so heavy, the things I carry too weighty. My adult kids and their lives; friends I know who are aching from pain, some that can be spoken and other that can’t; patients and family members struggling beyond believability; worries and fear about the future and regret about the past – a backpack so heavy I can scarcely move.

It’s all mixed together with the good stuff so I’m not always sure what the good stuff is. Sort of like my kids backpacks used to be at the end of a semester, where a mashed up moldy sandwich, an apple, and crushed chips are crumbled up together in what used to be a brown lunch bag, but mixed in with this is a perfectly good juice carton and packaged granola bar. Instead of sorting through, I throw all of it away.

I’ve always thought that the primary lesson to this story was the obvious one – a heavy backpack preventing a child from the joy and distance of the journey. If I just lighten my load I would go farther, make more of an impact, be freer to serve. And to be sure, this is critically important. But dig deeper and the symbolism goes farther.

This little six-year-old knew exactly where to go to remember who he was. and where to drop off his backpack. He knew the way Home. He knew that Home was light, and love and Mom. He knew that there would be no condemnation, just warm chocolate chip cookies, cold milk and a listening heart. He knew that at home he could rest and move forward, his burden gone. He knew home was a place to be reminded of who he was.

As I think about the times I turn around because the backpack is too heavy, I hope I have the sense of a six-year-old who goes back home, and drops off his back pack. I hope I can go back to Jesus, the source and author of love, where condemnation is erased and the load is lifted, replaced with his yoke, his burden. Back to the Church, where I can be reminded of who I am, back to the Author of all that is good and holy and right.

I don’t know where in the world you are today and what things in your backpack make it too heavy. It may be transition and displacement. It may be loss of place. It may be the burden of betrayal or feeling like you’re wasting your life. It may be a struggling marriage or longing for a life partner. It may be the sorrows of your children and their needs that keep you up at night. It may be chronic illness, depression or anxiety. It may be the death of one you love.

I do know that whatever it is, home and rest are waiting. Not home the place, but Home – the person and presence of Jesus.

You Are Going to Hate It

You know that country you’ve been dreaming about? The one that you have been praying over and researching? You’ve been talking about it endlessly these days, building a team who will support you when you move there. You are ready to uproot your family, your job, your entire life to pour your soul into the place you love so much.

Call me a party pooper, but today I’m here to tell you something important: Shortly after you finally arrive in that country, you are going to hate it.

It might take a few weeks, or maybe a few months, but at some point it’s going to happen: You will wonder why on earth you thought you would love this country. You will question why you enthusiastically raised support for so many months to go live in a place that you actually despise.

It might happen when you come to the realization that this doesn’t feel like a fun adventure anymore. The public transportation is claustrophobic and smelly. You are tired of eating baked potatoes and scrambled eggs and yet the idea of facing the grocery store again makes you want to cry. You feel like a frizzy, unattractive mess. The pollution is triggering your little girl’s asthma or your four-year-old has gotten malaria twice in two months.

It might be because the people you meet are cold and suspicious of you. Or in your face and critical. Or just in your face, all the time, peeking through your windows. You feel like a curiosity on display, or you feel like an ignored, cast aside monstrosity. You wonder why you ever thought you could love these people who apparently abhor you.

Or maybe you find yourself spending all day every day learning the difference between a past perfect continuous verb and an intransitive verb. Your body hurts from sitting all day and your brain hurts from thinking all day, yet you know you still have 16 months of this same horrible task ahead of you. And you wonder why you uprooted your happy, productive, meaningful life so that you could spend all of your time looking at meaningless squiggles on a piece of paper.

Maybe you’ll hate it because your team leader seems distant or your co-workers are too busy for you, and you feel very alone. Maybe it will be because you are a woman in a country that demeans women, and you’ve never felt so insignificant. Maybe it will be because you didn’t anticipate how this new country would change your family dynamics, and it’s so hard and so painful to try to figure out new ways of helping your children find joy.

There are a million reasons why you could hate it. But one thing is for certain: At some point, it will happen.

Yeah, I know, just call me a dream smasher. I can hear you imploring, Do you have a point? Do you even want me to move overseas?

Absolutely. Stay with me. I’m going somewhere with this.

Here’s my point: I want you to know what you are getting yourself into. When you get to the point of hating your country and your life and your calling, you need to know that this doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. Or with your country. Or with your calling.

There are three things you need to know:

Make your calling sure. Do this now, before you go overseas. Your calling to this country needs to be more than just a really strong feeling. It needs to come from hours of prayer, consultation with your pastor, soul-searching with godly friends. You need to know the reasons for why God is sending you to this country: What is the need? How are you uniquely qualified to fill that need? Write it down. Plaster it to your refrigerator. You will want to remind yourself of these reasons when you find yourself hating life.

Make your faith sure. Do this now, before you go overseas. You must fully understand your worldview. Read a book on how to study the Bible on your own. Read a book on the theology of suffering. Read a book on the theology of poverty. Wrestle with the big questions before you go, so that when they hit you in the face and seek to destroy you, you will already be prepared.

Perseverance is the whole battle. Not half the battle, not 90% of the battle. The entire battle. Do not give up. Do not give up. Let me tell you something: There will always be a reason to leave. Always. If you want to leave, you will find a reason, and it will be a good reason that will sound honorable to your supporters.

I know, this is tricky. You are not going to live in this country forever; the right time to leave will come at some point, sooner or later. But make sure your call to leave has just as many prayer-filled, logical reasons as your call was to go. Because if not, then maybe you just need to persevere. Learn one more verb. Meet one more person. Go out your front door, one more time.

And here’s the part where I give you hope. You will not hate this country forever. I promise. Cross my heart; hope to die. If you stick this out and keep your heart open, a lasting love for your host country will sneak up on you. It might take 6 months, or a year, or even five years, but you will not hate it forever. There may be some things about it that you always dislike, of course, but your capacity to love this country will stretch and expand and deepen the longer you are there. One day, it will dawn on you that you don’t hate it, quite so much. And one morning, you will wake up and realize that you love this country. And you will never want to leave.

An Empty Ocean and the 10 Things We Must Remember About Grief

Walking alone at a park, a friend of mine saw a woman busily walking towards her, dictating something into her phone. The woman looked earnest and concentrated.

She came closer and closer, and as her words became more distinct, my socially-distancing friend heard these slow, simple words:

“Sadness is an ocean with nothing in it. Period.”

Oh how I want to know that woman’s story. I recently googled those words and came up empty; apparently, she hasn’t published them yet. In any case, I’m guessing you resonate with her sentiment.

These are hard times. Whether you’re still abroad, whether you’ve had to leave the field and stay gone, whether you’re hoping to return, or returned already, or whether the future is murky, my guess is that at some point over the past several months, you could have written, “Sadness is an ocean with nothing in it. Period.”

Or perhaps you would agree with Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry’s famous barber of Port William, who said one bone-soaked evening, “It had been raining, and it was still raining. It was going to rain.”

It feels like that to me sometimes. “It had been raining, and it was still raining. It was going to rain.”

And so we come to this: Ten things to remember about grief.

I hope that you find something helpful here, whether a thought or a link or two seconds away from the folks you’re quarantined with.

Whatever you’re grieving, it matters: whether it’s a job, a family member, or the future you had planned. In each case, loss singes, and grieving matters.

So, shall we?

1. Grief is a process
It is messy, unpredictable, and gnarly, but whatever else it is, grief is a process. That means it is not its own ending; it’s going somewhere, leading to something. Author and theologian Dan Allender doesn’t mince words when he writes:

“Grief is similar to vomiting. At its deepest convulsion it exhausts, nauseates, and relieves. It empties us, weakens us, and prepares us for food that in due season will strengthen us. But in its immediate aftermath, we need rest.”

This meme pictures the “process” well.

2. Grief might not feel like grief
It might feel like discomfort, or generalized sluggishness, or even anxiety. Grief expert David Kessler describes our current situation:

“[W]e’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.”

Read the full interview from the Harvard Business Review here: That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief.

3. You don’t have to be sad all day to effectively grieve
Therapist Kay Bruner recommends the evidence-based time limit of twenty minutes. She writes:

“This is a research-based number: journal 20 minutes per day when you’re working on a specific issue. I recently had an adult TCK client tell me how much the 20-minute exercise has helped. She’s not stuffing down her emotions any more, and the 20-minute limit helps her contain the feelings so they aren’t as overwhelming.”

Read her full article here: How do we process loss and grief?

4. The Dual Process Model allows for oscillations
It is pretty normal to bounce back and forth between “I’m OK” and “I’m not OK and I’ll never be OK and why would you even think I’m OK?!”

Researchers Stroebe and Schut described this as “The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement.”

It is totally normal to oscillate between the two, and actually, getting stuck on either side might be an indicator to get some outside help from a pastor or counselor.

5. People grieve differently, even if they’re in the same family
Some people grieve in giant waves. Some don’t. Some people show ALL.THEIR.GRIEF. Some don’t. Some people are vocal and some aren’t.

Some extroverts want the crowds to know all about it. Some introverts don’t.

The danger here is that you expect others to grieve the right way (read: your way), and instead of allowing them their own grief process, you try to stuff them into your box and they end up resentful or detached, finding solace far away from you.

6. Even if the loss looks the same, it isn’t
It’s just not. The loss I experienced when my dad died was terrible. It was also very different from the loss experienced by my younger siblings.

The hubris that says “my experience of loss is the gold standard by which all others shall be measured” is disgusting and antithetical to the heart of Christ.

7. Things will never be the same again
This is an indelible part of our story now.

And the grief of this season will bleed through the pages of our lives, marking the pages and stories that follow. Failing to acknowledge the COVID-19 chapters is to censor. To edit out. To delete plot twists and main characters. To murder history.

So we leave the pages as they are, splotched and imperfect. Because on every single ink-stained page, He remains. Comforter. Rock. Shepherd. God.

He remains the God who grieved.
He remains the God who understands.
He remains the God who comforts.
He remains. And He is enough.

So we keep feeling. We keep sketching out these life-pages, confident that He knows our stories. He loves our stories. He redeems our stories.

And we keep trusting that in the end, our stories are actually a part of His story.

And He’s really good with words.

8. Hope and despair can coexist in this space
Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has written extensively on prophetic hope, even in the midst of legitimate despair. He writes,

“Hope expressed without knowledge of and participation in grief is likely to be false hope that does not reach despair. Thus…it is precisely those who know death most painfully who can speak hope most vigorously.”

Despair seems to be the crusty soil from which hope itself is born.

We need this reminder.

We need to remember that true hope is not just optimism. True hope is not a flimsy, fluffy thing. No, true hope, Biblical hope, sees it all. It sees the bad, the hard, the pain. It sees the depths and the darkness. It sees the world’s sin and my own sin.

And it keeps on seeing…all the way to Christ. In the end, deep hope must be securely grounded in the character and love of God.

For more thoughts on this theme, including links to a 21-minute podcast/sermon, click here. Or listen to the audio of the message here.

Magnanimous Despair alone

Could show me so divine a thing…

~Wendell Berry

9. While loss is personal, it’s not novel
Many faithful believers have walked hard roads before us, and many will after us. On its face, that’s not good news. But it is.

I wrote more about this idea in my article, What C.S. Lewis, Paul, and the Sword of Damocles can Teach us About Living in Terrible Times. In it, I quote my best friend, Elizabeth Trotter, who echoes C.S. Lewis’ call to do sensible, human things:

So what can we do when we’re confronted with all the darkness within, and all the darkness without? I mean, we know the end is good. We know the Bridegroom is coming back for us. But our eternal hope doesn’t always translate easily into our everyday moments and hours.

I think we need to chase the light. To DO something to help scatter the darkness. These days this is how you’ll find me chasing the light. . .

Singing a worship song.
Kissing my husband.
Chopping vegetables and preparing a meal for my family.
Reading a book to my kids.
Laughing at my husband’s jokes.
Going for a walk.
Drinking coffee with a friend.

These are the things that are saving my life right now. The small, menial acts that remind me that I’m still alive, that I’m not dead yet, and that the world hasn’t actually blown itself up yet.

No matter how sad I feel about everything on my first list, I can’t change any of them. But I can live my tiny little life with light and joy. With passion and hope. I can chase the light.

I chase the light, and I remember that this life is actually worth living, even with all the sadness in it. I chase the light, and I remember the Giver of these little joys, and I give thanks in return.

I refuse to let the griefs and evils of this world pull me all the way down into the pit. I will revolt against this despair. I will chase the light. I will grasp hold of the ephemeral joys of my itty bitty domestic life. And I will remember — always — the Source of this light.

10. Grief can be a gift
Grief is a gift that the Church needs to learn to deal with. Grief has the potential to refocus us on the Eternal, if we’ll let it. Grief and loss guard us against the temptation to degrade Heaven into a distant and entirely non-applicable theory, instead of the life-altering reality that it is.

“When hints of sadness creep into our soul, we must not flee into happy or distracting thoughts. Pondering sadness until it becomes overwhelming can lead us to a deep change in the direction of our being from self-preservation to grateful worship.” ~Larry Crabb

Grief can be an oxygenating reminder of Eternity. Grief is often the mechanism for drawing our hearts and souls back to God and the eternal intimacy he’s promised.

Read more on the gift of grief here and here.

Through it all, Jesus remains
Man of sorrows, giver of the Comforter. Holy.

He is still preparing a place for us, and if he’s still preparing a place for us, then we know he’s still planning to usher us in, one day, to paradise.

The future remains brighter than the past, more glorious, and more real.

Indeed, we live in the “now and not yet Kingdom.” And in this time, and in this space, it is right to mourn, it is normal to feel the pain, it is holy to burn for justice.

It is also good that we remember: he is coming back.

Amen.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Amazing Grace & a Prayer for the Human Family

*Sunset over Cairo – 2011*
Photo credit – Stefanie Sevim Gardner

I’m sitting at my desk in our guest bedroom when the bells from the church across the street begin to ring. They began at eight in the morning and they end at ten at night, giving us a full ten hours without being reminded of the time.

This is new for me. While hearing the call to prayer was a sound embedded into my childhood, I rarely heard church bells. These church bells also tend to peel out the tune of “God Bless America” a bit too often for my liking.

But this morning, as though sensing my despair, I heard the sound of “Amazing Grace.”

Amazing Grace – that hymn sung by believers and non-believers with its haunting melody and stunning truth.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind but now I see
John Newton

Most of us know the history of this song. John Newton’s past as a slave trader, his conversion, his stepping into grace and writing a song. But nothing is quite as simple as the short histories that we read, In fact, it took him three more slave trading voyages before he’d had enough. It took him even longer, 34 years longer, to write a “blazing pamphlet” called “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade” – a publication used by John Wilberforce, a member of British Parliament, to put forward a bill to abolish the slave trade. Newton died six months after the bill was passed in 1807.

I relate with this history. We often take baby steps along our journey toward understanding better what it is to love our world and seek justice as Jesus would, only to look back in stunned disbelief that it took us so long. We look back at our excuses and they seem so pitiful.

And yet – Grace.

Most of us at A Life Overseas are deeply involved in organizations, projects, and with people around the world where injustice is a daily reality. I would submit that it is easier to face injustice in countries and places that we don’t legally belong to. We can see these and have an outsider’s view even if they are a daily part of our work. Turn the camera on our passport countries and suddenly it gets personal.

At least, that is how it’s been for me.

If you , like me, are mourning and longing for a better world; if you, like me are praying for your passport country, wherever it is, and the injustices you see there; if you, like me are longing to do more, longing to fight injustice wherever you see it, feeling guilty about not doing enough yet completely overwhelmed with all that life has brought you in the past weeks – displacement, death, sickness, loss of friendships, goodbyes, uncertainty, inability to plan for the future – I offer you this prayer today.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and
confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in
your good time, all nations and races may serve you in
harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ
our Lord…..
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer – Prayer for the Human Family and Prayer for Social Justice

In closing, may you soak in these words from Eugene Cho:

“Chaos ensues. Anxiety rises. Lament is in the air. Yet, Christ is our anchor. Hold tight. Be steadfast. Resist the empire. Be compassionate. Pursue justice. Stand with the oppressed. Fight for the vulnerable. Seek God’s Kingdom. And keep pointing people to Jesus. “

Amen. Come quickly Lord Jesus.

Posts on A Life Overseas that focus on Racism

Hope as the Church’s Long Game

by Jacob Sims

March 21, 2020 – It’s a beautiful morning as the sun rises over Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The predictably sweltering heat and sticky humidity are not quite yet descended on the city as I make my way across Sihanoukville Boulevard just east of Independence Monument.

In a mere 10-minute walking commute to work each morning, I pass the icons of affluence in a rising capital city — the towering, rapidly proliferating skyscrapers; the dramatic open parks; the army of ultra-luxury cars swerving around aging rickshaws. I pass state power in abundance as well — one of the world’s few North Korean embassies; the US Ambassador’s French-colonial mansion; the fashionable and imposing EU and Singaporean consulates.

These temples of modern wealth and power sprinkled amidst crushing poverty are particularly perplexing this morning in a world gone mad with COVID-19.

In Cambodia as elsewhere, the poor are disproportionately affected by the crisis. Furloughs and lay-offs hit low income jobs first and hardest. Poor families are forced to choose between food and safety. Quarantining itself is impossible for millions of the most impoverished.

Regardless of economic status, fear is rampant and people are looking for a scapegoat. It is widely believed in Cambodia that western tourists and NGO workers are spreading the disease. The theory that the US Army planted the virus in Wuhan back in December is commonly accepted across the sub-continent. New visas from the United States and Western Europe were indefinitely barred several weeks back.

During my brief walk, I am eyed suspiciously as people make a concerted effort to keep their distance. Small children point at the westerner and mothers hurry them into a 20-foot bubble of extreme outdoor social distancing.

Later this morning, the State Department issues its unprecedented Global Level 4 warning. Shortly thereafter, I find myself evacuated home.

—

The situation here is no different.

The open, interconnected, globalized world which this country helped create and seemed unassailable just a few weeks ago now feels very fragile, our future unknown.

Unemployment in the United States is at a record high. The stock market plunges in historic fashion. The country is on lock-down. Isolation-based anxiety is palpably boiling over.

Year-to-date, coronavirus is the leading cause of death in America, claiming more lives per hour than heart disease, all forms of cancer, the flu, or any other cause.

Yet, the country visibly aches for rapid return to normalcy in a characteristically American prioritization of economic expediency over human life. We are paralyzed with fear. Our ability to control the illusory bubble which is modern American society is wholly upended.

And on and on it goes. Day after evolving day, the one constant in this ever-changing crisis is a persistent reminder of how earthly power yearns to protect itself above all else. As chaos looms and life becomes increasingly unpredictable, our world reveals its true nature. In our utter terror, we rampantly stoke prejudice; blame others for loss; and deny reality.

—

With so much uncertainty, so much division and fear, the key question posed in Stanley Hauerwas’ and Will Willimon’s 1982 ethical classic Resident Aliens remains prescient. What tools do we have as a global Church to ‘show the world what it is not’?

On the surface, the global Church is impacted the same way as the rest of the world. Congregations around the world met virtually this Easter Sunday. In Jerusalem, for the first time in over 600 years, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (built on top of Christ’s tomb) cancelled its Easter ‘Feast of the Resurrection.’ The last cancellation came as the bubonic plague was gripping the world and another wave of social distancing to curb a pandemic was required.

But, we find our hope, ‘our difference,’ apart from our ability to meet freely and openly together. Historically, as a body of believers, our hope is directed at the unreasonable result of unbelievable suffering. As we celebrated Easter last month, we remembered this hope. We recalled that even as our church buildings were empty, the tomb is empty too.

If the Church is to distinguish itself, it must do so via this divine and historic gift — a perseverance in suffering well.

We live in a society — particularly in our place as expatriates among the global powerful — which doesn’t often recognize the need to suffer. It is all too easy for us to resist suffering; blind ourselves to loss; delude ourselves into pushing away grief.

We do this when we blame others for the unblameable. We do this when we foster or accept lies which deny the inconvenience of reality. We do this when we look for human solutions — when we look to our wealth, our power, our egos, our ability to travel and move freely — as barriers to the inescapable reality of pain.

Yet, today, we find ourselves in a rare moment where our ascendant world is vulnerable to admitting that it is indeed suffering.

As David Kessler (coiner of the famous Five Stages of Grief typology) notes in a recent Harvard Business Review article, “we are feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed…and it has.”

As post-modern humans, we lack the tools to respond to grief effectively. Since we lack hope in the eternal, we seek to rid ourselves of suffering via other means. We deny. We become angry and blame others. We ‘bargain’ or try to use our own powers to correct the uncorrectable.

Languishing in a German prison cell nearly eighty years ago, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer noticed a similar trend. He pondered the tremendous grief of mortal death and dashed aspirations and unfulfilled human potential as a decimated continent suffered the virus of Nazi occupation. While recognizing the enormous loss, he also saw a larger gain. “That which is fragmentary may point to a higher fulfillment, one which can no longer be achieved by human effort. Strive though we might, the only work that matters was done by grace alone.”

As members of the historic body of Christ, we are offered this other path to the ‘fragmentary’ energies of ‘striving’ and ‘human effort.’ We are offered the very building blocks necessary to deal with suffering well. We are offered a chance to embrace pain as a catalyst for a meaningful life in a fallen world. As Paul states in Romans 5: 3-5, “…suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. Hope does not put us to shame. For God’s love is poured out into our hearts through the given Holy Spirit…”

—

Beyond mere present pain and suffering, Kessler also notes the current prevalence of “anticipatory grief” — the feeling of uncertainty and despondency about the future when outlooks are grim.

In spite of our denial, this feeling is natural today. This world of our own design feels a good deal more chaotic and less welcoming than it did just a few months ago.

But again, as Christians, we are offered something more. In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard defines hope as “a joyful anticipation because of who we know God to be.”

Through scriptural revelation and the inspiration of the living Church, we know God to be merciful and powerful and just beyond our ability to fathom.

As the world attempts, with increasing desperation, to escape and deny its suffering and grief, we have an opportunity to accept these realities with hope.

Our hope then flows from faith in a force, a God, beyond our comprehension — beyond rational proof . This transcendent God desires union with us who are beyond love, and through that love, redeems us who are broken beyond redemption.

Without grounding in this sort of unbelievable faith, human existence — including a supposedly Christian one — is based on nothing more than illusions and rationalizations.

But, if we base our faith in the only realistic hope for humanity’s redemption — a God beyond our comprehension who loves us beyond our ability to receive it — we can start afresh the humble, courageous journey as travelers in the greater adventure of His glory instead of our own.

Perhaps then, we will confront the sin we see in the world with prayer instead of policies of further oppression.

Perhaps then, we can begin to hold our plans and even our very lives more loosely in an uncertain ‘fragmentary’ world.

Perhaps then, we will learn what it truly means to live by faith: a “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we cannot see.” Hebrews 11:1

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Jacob works for an NGO fighting modern slavery in Southeast Asia. From 2015-2020 he led an international development consulting practice and served as adjunct faculty at the College of William & Mary — teaching and guest lecturing in courses on Education, Human Rights, Migration, and Global Health. He previously led humanitarian programs in northern Myanmar and co-founded a social justice organization in eastern Uganda. Jacob holds a Master’s degree from LSE and is currently preparing to publish his first book, WanderLOST: stories from the winding road to significance.

Despair is Where Hope is Born

Sometimes I get tired of talking about sad things. Sometimes I want to talk about peace and love and joy.

So recently, when I was asked to join two other speakers in presenting on the theme, “Emotions in the Psalms,” I asked if I could do something on the happy side. I’m tired of talking about grief.

But the more I got into it, the more I heard Admiral Ackbar declaring, “It’s a trap!” Turns out you can’t talk about hope without dealing with despair.

I started coming across words like these from Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann: “The prophetic poet asserts hope precisely in exile.”

I listened to the amazing new song by Andrew Peterson, Is He Worthy? The song ends with a beautiful proclamation about the Lamb and the Throne and all peoples gathered around, but it starts with these questions and congregational responses:

Do you feel the world is broken? (We do)
Do you feel the shadows deepen? (We do)
But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through? (We do)
Do you wish that you could see it all made new? (We do)

And again, Brueggemann:

We need this reminder.

We need to remember that true hope is not just optimism. True hope is not a flimsy, fluffy thing. No, true hope, Biblical hope, sees it all. It sees the bad, the hard, the pain. It sees the depths and the darkness. It sees the world’s sin and my own sin.

And it keeps on seeing…all the way to Christ. In the end, deep hope must be securely grounded in the character and love of God.

So if you’re not really feeling it, if you’re not feeling happy-clappy-Jesus-is-alive-and-all-my-problems-are-fixed, then take heart, because that’s precisely where hope is born.

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For more exposition on these themes, including a look at the magnificent Psalm 130 and the role of imagination in hope, check out the audio of my message here or via the trotters41 podcast.

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Psalm 130 (A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem)

From the depths of despair, O LORD,

I call for your help.

Hear my cry, O Lord.

Pay attention to my prayer.

LORD, if you kept a record of our sins,

who, O Lord, could ever survive?

But you offer forgiveness,

that we might learn to fear you.

I am counting on the LORD;

yes, I am counting on him.

I have put my hope in his word.

I long for the Lord

more than sentries long for the dawn,

yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.

O Israel, hope in the LORD;

for with the LORD there is unfailing love.

His redemption overflows.

He himself will redeem Israel

from every kind of sin.

On Fundamental Sadness and the Deeper Magic

Some call it pessimism. Unspiritual. A sickness best treated with peppy music and cliché-riddled Christianese. They caution and guard against sadness, considering it a rabbit hole (or a worm hole) leading nowhere good. Others call it holy. Jeremiah-ish. Defending it with the label of realism – open eyes that see things as they truly are.

It is Fundamental Sadness.

Do you know what it feels like, this fundamental sadness? The sadness that seems to be part of all things?

Sometimes the sadness is very personal; it’s the loss of a sister or a father or a good friend. Sometimes it’s the loss of a country or long-treasured plans.

Sometimes the sadness is more global. It’s the emotional darkness that comes after you hear about Las Vegas, Mogadishu, the Yazidis, Paris, the Rohingya, or Raqqa. Sometimes its triggered by hashtags like #MeToo or #BringBackOurGirls.

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It is the blazing sunset that sears, not because of who’s present, but because of who’s absent.

It is the baby’s cry in a mother’s arms that taunts your empty ones.

It is the background sadness, fundamental, and seemingly underneath all things.

It’s the threat of miscarriage behind every pregnancy.

It’s the one who sees the beauty of the dawn, but feels deep in his gut that the dawn comes before the dusk – that sunrise precedes sunset.

It is the lover who knows, at the beginning of a beautiful kiss, that it will end.

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“…of all conceivable things the most acutely dangerous thing is to be alive.”

— G.K. Chesterton

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For me, this foundational sadness is not necessarily depressing, but it is always pressing: exerting force, demanding to be heard, demanding to be observed.

Do you know this feeling?

People get scared when I talk like this. I sort of do too. What will people think? This doesn’t sound right. Or mature. Or Holy.

And yet Jesus wept.

“And yet.” A powerful reminder, hinting at the deeper magic.

Jesus knew Jerusalem would destroy the prophets, and he knew Rome would destroy Jerusalem.

And yet.

Though the sadness feels fundamental, the deeper magic is there, waiting, pulsing. It absorbs the sadness, bearing it, transforming it, then re-birthing it.

The Deeper Magic
“‘It means,’ said Aslan, ‘that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.'”

Witches never know the deeper magic. They know only winter and death, sorrow and pain. Half-truths all.

But the deeper magic persists, refusing to be overwhelmed. It is older than death and wiser than time. The deeper magic knows that there is more.

There is hope.

And when hope is born (or reborn), the thaw begins. Without the deeper magic of hope, we might stop our story at the table of sadness and end up with an eternal winter and a dead lion. And that truly is horrible.

But the deeper magic must be got at, not through escaping sadness or loss, but through fully embracing it. Through laying down. I don’t think we need less lament, I think we need more lament, more tears.

So I invite you to the paradox of life bittersweet. Life’s not EITHER bitter OR sweet. But it’s also not neither. It’s both.

I invite you to make room for the person who is totally happy and deeply clappy.

I invite you to make room for the person who is frozen in sadness and depressed.

And I invite you to make room for the person who feels all of those things at the same time.

Why do we forget?
I sometimes wonder why others don’t see it or feel it. Life is sad. People are hurting. Why aren’t more people sad? But sadness doesn’t sell well, and it doesn’t seem to preach well either. But it’s there. It’s there in our families and ministries. It’s there in our churches and friendships.

Truth be told, it’s much easier to be angry. And so instead of being sad, everyone is angry. All.The.Time. And anger does sell well. (It seems to preach well too.)

Maybe you don’t believe me, maybe you don’t think sadness is there. But do you think that anger is there? That it’s in our families and ministries? That it’s in our churches and our friendships?

As a pastoral counselor, I see a lot of anger. But anger’s just a fire alarm, alerting us to the real problem. People don’t have an anger problem. People have a pain problem. And that pain is most often unlabeled, unwelcomed, unprocessed sadness.

Of course, sadness by itself isn’t the solution. (That’d be depressing.) But insofar as sadness prepares us for Hope, it is the solution.

And although I do not like it and I wish it weren’t so, deep sadness is often the mechanism for drawing our hearts and souls back to God and the eternal intimacy he’s promised.

When we’re unwilling to hold space for sadness, when we can’t handle the unwieldy truths of mystery and paradox, we block the very pathway that leads to hope. And hopeless people are dangerous people, willing to hurt themselves and others without measure or limit.

If we stop at sadness, without digging deeper, many terrible things become imminently rational. But the deeper magic shouts out and ushers in what only it can. Hope.

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I know the Lord is always with me.
I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.
No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice.
My body rests in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead
or allow your holy one to rot in the grave.
You will show me the way of life,
granting me the joy of your presence
and the pleasures of living with you forever.
(Psalm 16:8-11)

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The Shock of Magic
The beautiful and shocking deeper magic meant that, in the near future, “the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

Hope still means that.

The instrument of pain, the actual place of loss, which seems so strong and immovable, will move. It will be redeemed and transformed by the deeper magic; what has broken us will break, shattered by the love of the Lion.

There is Hope!

The altar will be cracked, and where blood and sadness once flowed, will soon be sunrise and Aslan’s roar.

May we never forget.

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photo credit

When God is Too Late

By Erica Mbasan

I spent a lot of time thinking that I somehow missed something, because I was single longer than all of my family and friends. I had a failed engagement and I lived in such an obscure place, I thought that it was too late for me. I was looking at others, comparing myself, when I should have trusted God that His plans for me are unique and beautiful.

Have you ever thought that you must have missed the bus? Maybe all of your friends were married and you were “left behind.” Maybe children come easily for some of your loved ones while you and your spouse have cried, struggled, and lost hope over the years. Maybe your prodigal child seems like they will never come back to the Lord, and you feel like there is no more hope. Maybe you expected more fruit on the mission field, or quicker language skills, or stronger disciples.

Maybe, just maybe, we have at some point in our lives (or multiple times), wondered why God was ignoring our prayers or taking too long in His purposes.

We thought God would act, we thought He would swoop in and intervene; but time went by and we saw no answer. Sometimes years or decades pass and we think God has forgotten about us; or maybe we heard Him wrong; or we have done something wrong to mess up His plans.

We don’t understand God’s ways or His timing.

Sometimes we think we do, and then we are left disappointed, feeling abandoned. That is how Abraham must have felt (you can read his story in Genesis chapters 12-25.). God gave him a promise that he was going to be the Father of a great nation, and even of many nations. His wife was going to give birth to a son. The problem? They were both way too old. His wife Sarah was barren. Everything pointed to God being too late. After God made the promise, years went by. They thought they should “help” God fulfill His promises and ended up making a mess. They lost sight and they lost hope. (It NEVER works out well when we try to help God fulfill His promises.)

Jesus had a friend named Lazarus. When Lazarus was deathly ill, Jesus delayed in coming to visit his friend. Lazarus died, and his sister Martha basically told Jesus: God, You’re too late. You should have come sooner. Now there’s no hope.

Over and over we see this in the Word of God. God’s people get tired of waiting, thinking God was too late. In the case of Abraham, God would fulfill His promise and show His sovereign power. In the case of Lazarus as well, God would show His power over life and death and would resurrect his friend from the grave.

Time and again, God is faithful…

…just not always in the way, or in the timing, that we expect. God’s plans are different from ours. Our expectations are sometimes smaller than what God actually desires to do in our lives. He allows us to go through times of waiting in order to develop our faith and prepare us for what’s ahead.

Don’t worry, He hears your prayers. He hasn’t forgotten about you. He has a bigger plan than you know.

He is not always going to give us what we want, but He will give us what is best. He is our Heavenly Father who knows what we need before we ask Him.

Keep trusting in Him. He is never late.

In what ways has God kept you waiting?

How has God used times of waiting to strengthen and prepare you for what was ahead?

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Erica Mbasan has served as a missionary in Northern Uganda for over ten years. In 2014, she married a wonderful Ugandan man. Together they serve the Lord and the people through discipleship, literacy training and practical assistance. In her “free” time, Erica maintains a blog and has written several books.