When Steve and I started our journey overseas 12 years ago our faith was high. It wasn’t easy, by any means, but we had a plan, a clear calling and vision. We were excited. And naive. We had no idea how hard it would get.
It was January 16, 2014. We were about three and a half years into our journey. Steve was in his last semester of school and we were preparing to move back to Bolivia. I was wrestling with all of it. I just wasn’t sure of next steps and was unsure with what the future held.
It had not been an easy three years. God had been faithful and shown Himself trustworthy to us in so many ways, but right then in that moment I was focusing on the negative. The first year we spent in Bolivia was hard. The ministry we had joined was filled with issues, so many that it dissolved shortly after we left. The leadership position I had accepted with our organization was draining. We had just come through what had been the hardest time in our marriage, ever. Raising support was not easy. I missed our old home. And I was tired.
Feeling lost
I was driving home from Chicago having just met with one of my colleagues from the mission agency we were with. I found myself in a place to encourage her. I spoke words to her that I knew to be true, but if I am honest, at that moment, I was not feeling at all. I told her in all the confidence I could muster that I knew that God would make her path clear, and when He did, she would know it. All the while I’m thinking , “but He hasn’t made my path clear”. She told me of a time that God had used a man from Uganda, a stranger, to speak directly to her. I’m smiling on the outside, but inside I’m going, “God, why won’t you do that for me?” So, I started my trip home from Chicago to Fort Wayne, a three-hour drive, and immediately was stuck in traffic and a snowstorm. I was annoyed, knowing I would not get home until really late.
I started to listen to praise music and tried to let my tension go. As the stop-and-go Chicago traffic finally gave way to fields and long expanses of quiet highway in between towns, I was able to reflect back on my conversation. After four hours, (remember, this was only a three-hour drive in normal circumstances) I realized God was speaking to me in His still small voice, and I was finally in a place to listen. He told me to stop trying to figure out the next two, three, or even five years, and just take one step at a time.
I realized that I had been focused so much on doing things for God, that I had forgotten to just be with God. I needed to spend time with Him apart from my to do list. I needed to seek forgiveness. And He responded with His grace. I thanked Him for the new peace I felt.
Looking back
Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” I don’t trust in destiny, my gut, life or especially karma. But I do trust in God. And now, eight years later, looking back I see how it has all connected. God’s hand has been on it all.
Sometimes life just hits you with bricks, and it hurts, and you will be discouraged. But don’t give up. God will use it all if you let him, to paint a picture more beautiful than you can imagine or dream.
“And be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus, Matthew 28:20