From the Archives: What I Didn't Know 4 Years Ago
Almost 5 years ago, I wrote a blog about "What I Didn't Know 4 Years Ago." I can't believe I've almost been in South Africa for 9 years! I still remember the power in writing those words as I reflected over my first 4 years here. If I wrote today about what I didn't know 9 years ago... well, you better be glad you can just read it one short story at a time! Read my story, and then take a minute and look back on where you were 4 years ago. And think about how far God has brought you!
REPOST FROM JANUARY 12, 2014
It’s that time of the year where we rev-up, remember and dream big. We’ve been looking back and everything that happened last year, all that was “accomplished”, and can see the miracles God did in retrospect. We are just a weeeee-little group of full-time staff. We could not have done all that was done by our own strength.
We may not be able to physically see God, but in the numbers, the photos, the smiles, the homes, and the strong-standing relationships, He’s tangibly real. Today is a day that always causes me to look back. I didn’t know what I was stepping into when I stepped onto a plane four years ago. FOUR YEARS!
I don’t know what I’m stepping into today as we seek God for and start running into 2014. So I learn in retrospect and I lean in hope. January 12, 2010 was one of the CRAZIEST days of all of my 29 years. I was going on a “trip” to South Africa.
I’d been up half the night before packing between “WHAT AM I DOING!?!” texts and bites of that one last Chinese binge. The next morning, at the foot of my cousins’ stairs, I FRANTICALLY weighed, packed, unpacked. The extra towel, the vitamin C and assorted other treasures just wouldn’t make the cut… I was sweating and on the verge of losing it. (Probably didn’t have all that much to do with luggage tags and weight.)
And then my ride came. My lifelong best friend with her mom and brand-new adopted baby, as well as my best friend from college who’d taken the day off on her anniversary (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY JARED AND MELISSA!) to send me off.
I had to say goodbye to my family to get in the car with my friends. Tears flow even now when I remember those hugs… and practically slamming the door in NaNa’s face because I couldn’t let her see me break. While luggage was flying and I struggled to keep myself together, I remember her saying, “This is what it’s like when you’re getting ready for a wedding. You’re just going on your honeymoon with Jesus.”
I cry-called my mom in California to say goodbye. I cried to the AT&T lady as I canceled my phone service.
And then there was the airport. EVERYTHING that could have gone wrong DID. Luggage was rolling in the middle of busy roads. We had no idea where we were going. It’s apparently frowned upon to enter a country without a visa and with a one-way ticket. So much chaos, and so much laughter. I was with the PERFECT people for that misadventure. The pain of leaving dissolved with laughter and memories that still make me smile.
I never came back from that trip. Now I go on trips to see those people I love so deeply.
I didn’t know what kind of goodbye I was saying that day. I had no idea that my Beloved was carrying me across the threshold of that airplane to live with Him in a new way and in a new place.
I didn’t know that the sweet, adopted baby I kissed and the forever friends-turned-family I was squeezing at Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas were releasing me to kiss more precious, adopted-by-the-Father babies and make more forever friends-turned-family.
On January 12, 2010, I didn’t know about covenant love that doesn’t require birth certificates or anything binding because Family lasts long after documents, diseases and this earth passes away.
I didn’t know about finding joy and hope in suffering – in broken homes, hospital visits and throughout a land ravaged by HIV.
I didn’t know about the strength of the Body of Christ – a church that loves me for real all the way from Texas, people who come and spend themselves for people they’ve just met, and a local church that doesn’t give up.
I didn’t know that I could never grasp the full love of the Father, but I could get a lot deeper in it with dirty hands and a broken heart.
I didn’t know that I would still be leaving Texas airports with tears every year, still balancing frustrations of multi-cultural living, still in over my head with things that I don’t know four years later…
And that it would all be worth it.
Please look at what my hands are full of.
What I know today is that if I did know (and I mean really, really know) all of that when my alarm clock went off on January 12, 2010, I would not have even walked down those stairs. I wouldn’t have had the faith, the strength, or the endurance.
One day, one step at a time. I’m still walking into I-don’t-knows, and it’s still hard.
But every toe pointed toward His I-don’t-knows leads you toward sovereignty and the freedom of following the Father, one step at a time. The kind of freedom-stepping that leads to dance parties and joy when it doesn’t make sense.
You may not dance every day. But on the days you do, it’s good.
This is my pep talk for both of us.
When your feet hit the floor in January 12, 2014, you might not be heading downstairs to pack, repack, and start a journey around the world. But you’re stepping into something that’s been planned by True Love himself since the very beginning. There’s intentional love woven into unknowns, tears and laughter. Maybe even miracles, whether you see them in retrospect, in real-time, or choose one that’s already been paid for - like forgiving someone as you’ve been forgiven.
At the beginning of 2014, I don’t know anything except that He is good, and He works for the good of those who love Him.
We just have to take one step at a time toward Him.