He just keeps asking
me to trust him, and this trip was my evidence, my reminder, that He will come
through—but, he also asks us to trust without evidence, because, as Voskamp
suggests, isn’t Jesus enough evidence of God’s goodness and love for us, and His
always-come-through character…
That was the only note I had time to write on my trip home
from India but it pretty much sums up my thoughts today. I am currently sitting on my porch in
Bloomington, Indiana, drinking a latte from Bloomingfoods, watching my neighbor
mow his lawn. The sky is blue with
fluffy, white clouds. It is 75 degrees (in August!) and the air smells sweet
and clean like grass. Birds are chirping. Bunnies pounce from one lawn to
another, and a pretty green vine is growing on the brick column of my house. Is
this heaven?
It feels like it. Why do I get to experience this? Why is
this my reality when on the same planet people’s homes and schools are being
bombed, people are living as refugees, and people are dying of terrible
illnesses? I know, I know, maybe not the cheerful note that you had wanted, but
I am going to use this space to work through some rather difficult thoughts
that have been circling in mind since my return. I am using this space more for
myself, so don’t feel like you have to read it all, but thank you for whatever
you feel drawn to reading.
One day when I went to a school for orphans that a friend
works for in Kolkata, the young boys wanted to know about America. They asked
me if we had Porsches and robots since they had seen in movies that all
Americans have the kind of affluence that allows them such luxuries. I was sort
of stunned and self-righteously reported that, no, only very rich people had
those kinds of cars and I wasn’t “them” (the boys concluded for me that robots
could only be found in Japan).
Then they asked me about one other luxury: trash cans. “Do
you have trash cans you put your trash in on the street?”. My heart sank. “Yes.
Yes, we have that luxury.” “Wow! Your country must be so clean!”. Yes, trash
cans are a luxury, and one that I take for granted.
It is astounding the everyday gifts of my world: clean
streets, access to excellent health care, plumbing, transportation, a safe
home, police officers that I can trust not to rape me if I report a sexual
assault, food on my table and a clean, safe place to prepare it, clean water
(that I even bathe in!), grocery stores full of produce and everything I might
need, reliable electricity and internet….
I am experiencing a real mix of emotions back home. I’d like
to say that utter and complete joy and gratitude is the only emotion I am
feeling—it’s all that seems appropriate given the heaven in which I so undeservedly
live in. However, I also have feelings of guilt and even fear that because I do
not deserve this goodness I will have it taken away—like the life I have is
just a dream I have always wanted but certainly is too good to be a reality
that I get to have everyday. And if this is my totally undeserved reality, how
can I ever return the blessings I have been given when they are more than is
even fathomable?
I think part of the reason I am feeling these strong
emotions is that Travis and I have really been building up to this trip for,
well, basically our entire marriage. I knew at some point I had to leave him
and do this research before we could do anything else—before I could graduate,
before we could start a family, before any real roots could be planted
anywhere. So there was this sense of, “We just have to get this research
successfully completed and then…(ß-that’s
a big ol’ dot, dot, dot). I put a lot of importance on the trip and although I
wanted as much as possible to be fully present for it and especially for the
people I worked with, I think there was always this feeling of “You just have
to get this done and then (dot, dot, dot). That’s not the healthiest way to approach anything because
it closes off the possibilities of the present, but, that’s how my little brain
processed it. Having completed the
trip and having the research so fantastically completed, I am truly overwhelmed
by the feeling of relief and gratitude—but, as I said, also a kind of fear and
guilt. How could it be that I was fortunate enough to have that challenge
completed?
I must admit that underscoring all of this is a continued fear
that God is a vengeful divine—tallying all the gifts He has given me against
the gifts I have returned and, finding me selfish and unable to courageously
return those gifts, creating some kind of sinister plot to teach me a lesson
about true gratitude by taking every gift away from me.
I don’t actually think that is how God works. In fact, Jesus
makes it quite clear that it is quite the opposite. With God, there is no
tallying or vengeance. God (thank God!) doesn’t work like people—like me who
does often do that tallying; who loses patience with people who make promises
and don’t follow through; who gets angry enough to cut off communication. Instead, God is all about upside down
economies, clean slates, undeserved love and forgiveness. God is the God who
washed feet and gave his doubters and deniers an infinite number of chances,
and used the most broken and messed up people to make his kingdom.
Ann Voskamp notes in her book that she is thankful that God
does not give us what we deserve, because we don’t deserve any of this. Its all
an undeserved gift, and God somehow just loves giving those kinds of gifts. Boy
am I thankful for that!
But I often forget the Christ character of God, and simply
replace God with this kind of angry accountant who has lost his patience. I
forget that the more appropriate image of God is my mother or father, who love
me despite my flaws. Why I replace the image of God embodied in Christ with
this other angry God, I don’t know, but I think its probably because it is so
hard to fathom the kind of love, patience and grace I find in God. I certainly
can’t embody that. I get impatient with my husband when he doesn’t do the
dishes right away. So I guess its partially a matter of trust—trust that
although I do not fully know how to do that kind of love, goodness, patience
and grace as a broken human, that God extends that love, goodness, patience and
grace to the world.
To trust in the goodness and faithfulness of God is the
biggest lesson I am learning this summer. Its a lot harder than it sounds, at
least for me. I wish that it
wasn’t. It would make sense, given the way God so fully, sometimes even
comically responded to my prayers (one time my phone literally rang in the
middle of a prayer that I would get said phone call) and the prayers of those
lifting up my health and safety in India, that I would be totally convinced of
God’s absolute goodness and faithfulness. But there is always this thought in
the back of my mind—“When is the shoe gonna fall?…This is just too good to be
true, so when do I see who God really is…” This is when, if I was God, I would
just be so annoyed. So exhausted. So impatient with my fear and doubt of His
goodness. Luckily, my ways are not His ways.
There are countless ways that I saw God each day. That He,
out of love, reminded me again and again that I need not fear, that He was
there, that I was going to be ok. My research went so perfectly; there were no
kinks, no hiccups—that NEVER happens in research, and especially not research
in India. I didn’t have to be lonely because I made friends and even family
with the women with whom I worked. I spent the last week at Munuphishi’s house
eating her wonderful food, and taking naps with her and Hena. When I thought I
was going to have to register with the Indian government, I was sent an angel
who investigated it form me (by going all the way to the government office for
me!) and discovering I didn’t need to. When I ate food covered in Ganga water,
I somehow didn’t get sick. When I rode the bus every day, there were always
people helping me to ensure I got on and off at the right places. When I needed
to talk to family because I was feeling anxious or home sick, I had internet to
talk to them the entire time I was there. My research advisor was randomly in
Kolkata at the same time I was and our times together were wonderfully
encouraging. At any point in time, if I had needed help with something, I had
like ten women I could call. I had
a safe and clean place to stay with good clean food and water, and guaranteed
electricity and running water.
At the beginning of the summer, I didn’t think I would have
ANY of that. I was worried my research was impossible, that I would get sick,
be without internet, live in a dirty, dangerous place, be lonely and friendless,
and have trouble finding clean food and water. Actually, I was worried that I
wouldn’t even get my research visa to even do the research. I remember laying
in bed one morning in April, just crying, out of fear and anxiety, in Travis’
arms. And here I am, safe and sound in Bloomington, none of my fears and
anxieties having materialized into anything. Yet, I sit here wondering when
that bad thing will happen.
Trust is annoyingly hard for me.
Trust is a daily discipline…or maybe its more like hourly.
My trust seems to waiver with the hours rather than the days. I haven’t quite
figured out how to do that discipline of working at it, but I do like what
Voskamp suggests: gratitude. By counting the everyday gifts of life, we are
reminded of God’s faithfulness. I
have been trying this out and even if my anxieties remain something I am
working through, gratitude is a reminder of the true, loving character of God
If I am gracious with myself, as Christ reminds us God is,
then I recognize that trust is an understandably difficult thing to have,
particularly in a culture that so often tells us that we can and should be able
to control everything. Lack of control becomes scary and I, for one, believe I
have learned throughout the years to not trust but to control. This is, of
course, an ultimately frustrating task since we don’t really have control.
For the past week, I have been waiting for a call from my
sister-in-law who is waiting to go into labor. For months, since I learned of
my niece’s existence, I have prayed for her delivery to go perfectly and for
her life to be long and healthy. But, truly, all I can do is wait and
pray. I am also waiting to hear
from my father. His father, who has had dementia for many years now, has
forgotten how to swallow and has not eaten for a week. His nurses believe that
he will be going home within the next few weeks. These things—life, death, health, family…they are the very
substance of life, and although we can do some things to achieve the outcomes
we desire, much of it is simply out of our hands. And that is terrifying when
we are so used to controlling things. Its terrifying for me because I want so
desperately my outcomes.
But it doesn’t have to be so totally terrifying if I
remember the character of God. If God is loving and ultimately wants good for
me, for us all, and can turn all things into something good (Romans 8), then
can’t I trust that, in the end, its going to be ok? If God answered all of my
prayers about India so thoroughly, so perfectly, can’t I trust that this other
stuff will be ok too? Can’t I trust that there isn’t some ironically bad thing
about to happen? Yes, of course.
But it doesn’t mean that I always do.
It’s a discipline and it takes time, and even as I type these things
out, I become anxious.
I can’t end this last post with some grand assurance that
everything will go as I plan. And I can’t end it with a simple, perfect realization
of total trust in God (actually, now that I think of it, perhaps the two are
antithetical). I continue to struggle with trust and anxiety. And I struggle to
accept the gifts of my life and existence as realities that, although I did not
earn them, can be enjoyed without fear that some angry God will snatch them
away. And I struggle to understand how I can have so much, so many prayers so
fully answered, when back in India, it is a struggle just to do the
everyday. And I struggle, in that
knowledge, to breathe in the unearned goodness and breathe out gratitude because
it just doesn’t make sense that I have it.
There is a lot that doesn’t make sense, and there are a lot
of things I don’t know. But these are things I am learning to know and believe
(yes, both) more fully:
1) When we cry out, God responds, often with abundance
beyond imagination. We don’t know where God will lead us, or what exactly will
happen, but my time in India illustrated that God responds with such abundance,
such patience and such love and goodness, that we can take big leaps of trust.
Its not easy, but it can be done. God can be trusted to turn all things into
something good—it may take a long time and may not look like what we thought it
would, but good is to come. This is the hardest one to believe, and even as I
type it, I can’t help but pray a quiet prayer for God’s continued protection as
anxieties creep in.
2) Even when we think we are alone, we are not, because God
shows up through people. I saw God in all of the men and women who showed up in
my life in Kolkata, who sent me emails and messages from the States, and who
prayed me through my journey and welcomed me home. Truly, we are the hands and feet of Christ.
3) Life is an unearned gift to be enjoyed, and I can enjoy
it if I stop worrying, calculating and trying to control.
4) Finally, God doesn’t work off of the kinds of economies I
am used to. God’s love, goodness, and patience are beyond limit, and certainly
beyond my comprehension or ability, and they reach beyond my brokenness. So
even though I am broken and I often don’t trust that goodness, and so often
spiral into selfish worry, God comes alongside me and continues to love me and
care for me through all of that brokenness. His patience and love don’t wear
out the way I do.
So those are the lessons I am trying to believe/know, and
given the hour, I believe/know them to different degrees. Perhaps that is the best I can do for
now, and its all I can leave you with, but I am so thankful to know that you
and God walk with me through it.
Thank you all for your prayers and support throughout my
journey. I am so thankful to be back home and surrounded by the splendor of
Bloomington. I guess I encourage you to look for God’s faithfulness in your
life, and to enjoy the everyday gifts of your life. We only get this one,
undeserved life and we ought to live it with as much gratitude and joy as is
possible. Perhaps we can try encouraging one another to live like that
together.
Finally, I guess I would ask you to pray with me for peace
in Iraq, Syria and Gaza, and for the people of West Africa as they seek medical
assistance in their terrible emergency. May God’s healing, perfect intervention
and goodness show up there!
Hallelujah!
Blessings,
ashlee
