Choices

*I am worried that posting this will come across as dramatic, or pitiful, or silly. But this is honesty and I wanted to share it. It's good. :) I am content, just wanted to share some realizations I've had. :)

Rend CollectiveExperiment’s The Cost has been stirring in my heart recently. The lyrics have been perfect. I am reaching the point in the process where reality sets in. I’m glad it’s hitting now, so I have time to think about it, rather than hitting in when I actually move!

I joked a few years ago as I traveled to Austria for Christmas, “my friends are getting engaged…I’m running away to Europe!” Time has passed and friends have gotten married, had children, more engagements, settled into salaried jobs, moved into houses and across states… I’ve never been one to pine after marriage and I’m not now, but I am well aware that I’m walking down a different path. I’ve committed to two years, which could expand, and I don’t know what this side of the world will look like when I return. 

This isn’t just a trip. I’m moving, putting to test my loud proclamations of, “I LIKE being single!” Do I? I guess I’ll find out. The choice I’ve made has consequences. It’s scary, moving to a city of three million people where I don’t speak the language, alone. Alone. Singular. Solo.

I’ve never been the most courageous. I’m not an adrenaline junkie. Jet lag usually wrings me out and I don’t pick up language quickly. Overseas traveling is not easy for me, and yet it pulls me. I must go; I can’t stay. Even if it means I will sometimes be afraid, sometimes alone, sometimes lonely. It has a cost, and much as I have chosen it and want to go, there is a reality I must grasp. To be a single woman in the world of missions is accepted, and yet sometimes I feel a bit off, lacking, as friends move towards marriage, children, stability. I have chosen something else. Because I have tasted this life and I want it. In all its hard, I know it will be worth it. Because Jesus said “go” and because I am not afraid of going, scary though it is, I will go. Because he has blessed me in it. Because of beauty. 

They say to me, “it’s good to go when you’re young,” things like, “you’ve got plenty of time,” as if something is wrong with me for choosing this way, as if I’m strange to want this to be my life, instead of that, as if I will return because I have finally come to my senses and am ready to settle down.

Well, I am young, and if I didn’t start now, when would I? I am young, but my young heart is not choosing this for the ‘adventure’ or the ‘experience.’ My young heart is choosing this because it is my passion. Because Jesus said “go” and this is the way I chose to go. My young heart is going because I have chosen to believe that Jesus is worth the time, the fear of missing out, the singular.

I am young and I will follow Jesus where he asks. I have as much time as he gives me to do whatever he asks. If I were going into it with the idea of “I’ve still got time” or “it’s good to have this experience before I settle down,” I’d be cheating myself and God. No. I want to be fully there. Not as a young one experiencing some adventure before some comes home to get married and a “real job” but as a child of the Most High God, fully focused on the Lord and on the task He has set before me.

I remind myself, I’m not going alone. There is God, first of all. My God who does not abandon. There are my supporters who provide the means and pray and encourage and share excitement and their own stories. There are friends, family, church families. There is the body of Christ. There is the wonderful team I am joining, people who laugh, have passion for people and Jesus. People who will carry me; and I them.

And you know what, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The slow process of finding supporters gives me the opportunity to foster relationships in prayer and encouragement. 

This thing is bigger and better than I would have ever dreamed. I’m moving to a city full of beautiful people with my Love. I know culture shock will hit hard, relationships with teammates won’t always be easy, I’ll ask myself what I am doing and why He ever let me come. There will be lonely days (which I will fill with dancing). My heart will stretch and grow, break and become. 

In a few ways, I will seem to be alone. Humanly singular. But in a hundred more ways, ‘alone’ does not exist. It is just a lie for dreary days.

This is the realization of a choice. A timezone, a status, a singularity, an ease, a freedom, an inconvenience. The realization that spiritually this is the place I am to be, for now, and emotionally, though hard, this is exactly what I want. 

The hard places are where the beauty is. Might as well follow Jesus there, because whether it is safe or dangerous; empty or full, I wanna be where He is.