When people ask me what I am doing these days, I wish I could tell them that I had some idea. I wish it didn't look like I am lost and not living up to my "full potential". I wish I didn't feel on some days that I had been too naïve, thinking I could just give up developing a career and go to Africa. Like that would be the only plan I'd ever need because surely something would come up right after. These unsaid expectations are more made up in my mind than communicated by other people, but I still feel so weighed down when I let my mind focus on them. Even though I know that focusing on what hasn't happened yet probably is not what God wants me dwelling on. So again and again, I am learning to just keep keeping my eyes on Jesus.
Not my circumstances. Not my future job. Not what other people think. Just Jesus.
He is my answer to my longing heart, searching for "what's next?"
"Me," He whispers in my quiet time with Him. He is what life is all about anyway. Not my plans or my life or what I'm doing. And when I realize it's not about me, I feel like I can breathe again. With clear eyes I can start to see that God is still doing wonderful things all around me, things I don't want to miss.
Like special moments that have happened while mentoring a little Burmese woman who has become my friend. Lu Mai had only been in America for a few months and was preparing to have a baby in this confusing new country whose language she barely knew, not to mention our confusing healthcare system. I had asked to be matched with a French speaking refugee if it was possible, but I was so excited to meet her for the first time. God amazed me at this first meeting by providing a girl named Flora to interpret for us who also spoke French! One cold day a few months later, the three of us met in Lu Mai's home to make her birth plan for the baby, and even though it was a cold rainy day outside I felt so happy there, curled up on a sagging couch sipping sweet and creamy coffee and talking in French with Flora.
Even though they are so simple, it's moments like this where I see Jesus most clearly. Lessons re-learned from Ivory Coast that it's the little, normal, day-to-day "yes"es to love the person in front of me that matter to Jesus. And, that give me this happiness knowing that He sees and cares and is so present in these moments that I can so easily overlook.
Like the time when Lu Mai and I started clapping in excitement at the bank together when we successfully were able to deposit and take money out of her checking account. The time we went grocery shopping together, and being humbled when before I left to drive home she packed a grocery bag for me too, full of kale, tomatoes, garlic, onions. And of course, the day when I received an unexpected phone call from her saying through broken English that she was having the baby, and I arrived at the hospital just in time to witness the birth of her fourth girl. A beautiful healthy baby that I was given the privilege of naming - Liberty.
Finally, a different story, of the girl who I have become friends with as she went through some really rough circumstances in her life. And as we became friends, being able to tell her about the One who changed my life, filled my emptiness, and gave me something sure and unchanging to hope in. Not some idea or religion but a person whose name has the power to save from the darkest situation. How she's now messaging me bible verses and telling me how good God is. "Wow, Jesus" is all I could think. Through our unexpected friendship, as I encouraged her I never expected how much she would encourage me.
These are the things going on in my life that are hard to put into words. But they're things that matter so much more than what I can point to in my life that I've done and try to find my worth in.
For He satisfies the longing soul,
and the hungry soul He fills with good things.
Psalm 107:9
