I was privileged to share this at SheLoves last week! Things have been a bit, eh, busy around here since we had our baby on September 10th, so I'm just now getting around to sharing it on Scraping Raisins.
As a twenty-something single missionary home for the summer, I sat
quietly judging the other girls in the room who were laughing and
talking about which color Kitchen Aid Mixer they had registered for at
their bridal showers. I thought about my own home—a 300 square foot
cinderblock apartment in China with one sink in the kitchen that looked
like it belonged to an auto mechanic and a “shoilet”—a toilet that got
wet when you showered because the shower was in the same tiny space.
As I listened to those girls, rather than feeling envy, I felt smug. I
was doing the Hard Thing: purposely living a life of discomfort for the
sake of the gospel. I had climbed the evangelical Christian
ladder right up to the top, perching on the pedestal the church reserves
for missionaries. I wasn’t going to waste my life like these
other girls who could guiltlessly own a $300 appliance that would
collect dust on their kitchen counters.
I had this “living for Jesus” thing all figured out. Hard always
equaled holy, I believed. Discomfort was always best. And poverty was
external and had nothing to do with the poverty of my own soul.
But have you ever strode confidently into what you wholeheartedly
believed was the direction you were meant to go when out of nowhere a
giant shepherd’s rod slips around your waist and yanks you backward … hard?
That was how my five-year missionary tale ended—abruptly and with
little explanation from that “still small voice.” Before I knew it, I
was back in America with the Kitchen Aid Girls, drinking La Croix and
chatting about recipes we found on Pinterest.
And I was miserable.
***
That was six years ago.
Since living in China, life has gone from multiple roads, all wide open with glorious possibility, to an ever-narrowing path
where I can only see enough of the way ahead to put one foot in front
of the other. Getting married “late,” we were on the fast track and had
three kids in four years. Sometimes I wake up stunned, wondering what
happened to my life.
As a missionary, I had been a superstar, both in China and back home...continue reading at SheLoves.
~~~
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