I used to want to be an actor. When I was nine. And I was so angry when my parents encouraged me to maybe find something a little less outlandish. So I decided to be a missionary. Or more- God gave me a deep-rooted desire sown in my heart under a starry sky in Mexico. And oh how that desire guided me for so long. It even became my identity.
In America we ask people what they do. It is one of the first questions of small talk and it creates a suddle pressure to have a good answer. What do you do? Oh I am just finding the cure for cancer while volunteering at the local food bank and teaching Sunday school and raising the next Bill Gates.
I was always so proud of my answer. It became a large part of my identity. So much so that I contemplated very seriously breaking up with Hank due to his 'lack of a calling.' It sounds horrible and it is, but my passion for missions had consumed me to an unhealthy degree. I didn't know who I was without it.
Last year I lived my dream. It was amazing. I got to teach ESL, live in a foreign country with some of the most beautiful people I have ever met and share the Love of the Lord with some of the coolest students-become-friends ever. And yet, part of my pined away for my sweetheart. I thought life would be perfect if we could one day get married and then live the dream overseas.
It is still a deep desire and I still think it would be pretty awesome.
But why is it that I am never quite content where I am? Why is it that I always want the next stage to come on and get here?
I have a job and a husband and a house and a garden. But I hate the job most days and neglect to clean the house or water the garden. I praise God for both in the morning light but when they start to need some TLC, I offer it only begrudgingly. Sometimes I do the same with my husband. He gets the dregs left over from a day of helping people who rarely say thanks.
And i think that maybe if we could just live overseas, I would find more fulfilment in my work and have energy to clean and love and more of a burn to worship and grow.
My goodness I must have a short memory. Because I never felt like cleaning last year and would regularly procrastinate on lesson plans and when there were over 200 students to love, I often felt discouraged and empty and frustrated. I often bemoaned all the aspects of the culture I didn't agree with or couldn't even begin to understand.
No, there is no perfect place. There is no perfect phase of life.
But there are gifts for the taking today. There was a beautiful woodpecker to watch at the park and several hours just to sip too-sweet coffee and work on lesson plans at the coffee shop. There were resources to use to teach refugees the alphabet and there was rest and energy. There was a long overdue visit with my best friend and her adorable family and hours to just talk and explore other-worldly parks lit with fireflies and legends.
There were conversations with beautiful grandmothers and a beautiful mom and there was time to burrow deep into the Word for rest and healing and hope. And there is God's never-failing and never-changing character and the compassion, mercy, love, and kindness he shows me daily.
And I am going to keep dreaming big but perhaps I will keep my small dreams bigger. I will rejoice over clean laundry and the tasks that get checked on the daily list. And I will rejoice over what I can't see yet and the promise that the future will be good, hard but good, and that I do not go alone.
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