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.

Italy and a murder mystery (or something)

1. Today I came out of the post office to see a car with a license plate frame that read "Happiness is being ITALIAN." It made me smile, as earlier in the morning I'd had a skype call finalizing the details of my trip to Rome next week. There was an Italian flag sticker next to it and a flag hanging from the rear view window and a sticker in the window that said something in Italian but I didn't know what it said. The car was cool. Silver, sleek, I imagined it belonged to a man proud of his heritage or maybe a spunky mid-thirties woman. But as I glanced in my rear view mirror ready to drive off, I noticed an elderly woman climbing into the car! I had heard her chirp, as I left the post office, "I'm back! I forgot to buy a book of stamps!"

I went on with my errands, Walmart, for a light rain jacket and a prepaid phone card, and Target for some on-sale thank you notes and a new notebook for end of the day journaling and beginning of the day prayer.

I went to Kroger after that, made a big loop, to get tilapia and other such morsels for dinner. (Okay, I don't know if I'd call tilapia a morsel, but it is a fun word!) THE ITALY CAR WAS PARKED TWO OVER FROM MINE. Note, this was quite a while after the post office sighting. It wasn't as if she'd followed me to the store. I hoped I'd run into her in the store, though I wasn't sure I'd be brave enough to mention the car, as I'd just seen her from inside my car after all, and she hadn't seen me.

I was perusing the clearance shelf, looking at a box of fancy decaffeinated black tea, when SHE APPROACHED. "Are you finding any good deals?" She asked, and I showed her the tea. Earlier, I'd been told via skype that in Rome they don't really drink tea in cafés. (I suppose it is less common here, as well.) I told her that the tea was a good deal, "if you like tea" and she said "I LOVE tea!" And that gave me hope I could still love tea and live in Italy. :)

2. I've started reading Gone Girl for my mama's book club, which I've joined. I'm not a thriller, murder mystery kinda gal. There's enough of that in real life, I don't want to read it for pleasure. Ugh. I'm only about fifty pages in and I already hate it. Not because anything has really happened yet, I mean, something happened but we have no real information, but because I can already feel the tone of "menacing" and "sinister" the back of the book warned me about. The book is a page-turner, quite riveting, I'll give it that, but I hate it. The writing is magnificent, and the characters, I think so far, are well done. So if you're into that sort of genre, give it a whirl. I am just not!

café havana: a while ago.

we respect the guest.

he gave me fourteen cents off my tea,

because he is the owner and he can do that.

i told him not to, i handed out my crumpled dollar

bill but i guess my sloppy appearance gave a case

for a poor university student

and he wouldn’t take it.

fourteen cents for a dollar. if only i

had pulled out my old wallet and taken the

dime, the pennies—

but for the line behind me, i handed the dollar for my tea,

milk tea.

and i glimpsed at life and couldn’t breathe

after an hour

and couldn’t stay

and couldn’t sleep
and couldn’t speak this young language.

On Being Called (and how I wasn't)

*Writing this, I sat in a park and watched butterflies, stink-bugs, and the sky. It's a beautiful day!

People often talk about being called. About how they have or haven't been called to this, or how I have been. This talk of "call" always makes me feel like an impostor. I haven't been called. Or if I have, so has everyone else. Quite honestly, I think the idea of "being called" is quite silly. I won't discount the incredible stories of people who have received clear messages from God to go somewhere or do something. He certainly can and does use incredible ways to get ahold of people. Indeed, sometimes we need a bit of convincing.

I do not have, by human standards, one of these stories. I simply went on a whim, fell in love, and went again. There was one sentence I heard when I was in the process of deciding whether or not to return to Hungary (in 2013) that swayed me. It was just that, "the need is the call." And oh, my friends, the world is full of need.

I believe that there are many different ways I could go, we all could go, many different paths on which God could use us. And God doesn't need our help. I wanted to go. And He either wants me to go, or is graciously allowing me to.

I wonder if sometimes we use "the call" as an excuse not to walk. But the truth is, that Jesus said to go. I know that God can redirect me as I walk, and I invite Him to do so, but I want to be walking. Certainly, we do not all walk in the same way, in the same place, at the same pace, or with the same people. But I think as Jesus' followers, we are all sent. We're all to be in the business of bringing hope.

It's not fair, my friends, to pretend that I am called and others are not. I'm not special. I'm not, without Jesus, qualified. At all. I don't have any special skills. I don't pray constantly. I'm a pretty poor lover of people, but I'm His.

I do not refer myself as "called," because I think we're all in that boat. I'm simply walking. Let's walk together.

In the morning,

memories of you exhale into

dawn’s light and leftover fog.

Still you cannot see.

Climb up,

step through.
My bones are for you.

(excerpt from RIBS by myself)

real.life.

moose pajama'd boys

The Super Moon

Mama's Book club

hand-written letters

flowers in every room

generous neighbors

cricket sounds

cool air

wearing long sleeves all day

french braids

open windows

i'm happy, yo!

"poetry, like the moon, advertises nothing" -william blissett