tightrope emotions
A few days ago I hugged "my" PNG boys for the first time in more than a year and since it seems my arms have ached with a newfound emotional surge to hold Taylor and Tia. Partner that with the reality that Marty has started working outside our home again and Miriam and Jade have begun the new school year. Basically for extended hours in the morning and afternoon I am alone, and here I am feeling emotionally raw. Revealed and unable to hide. Painfully exposed from the fairly consistent waves of grief that seem to -all the while- be holding hands with hope.
Grief and hope holding my hands.
This physical aloneness has been forcing me to stop and face these tightrope emotions. Teetering from one side and then back again to the other. As if we three are in some sort of synchronized dance together, leaving me feeling like I am tripping over my feet.
Thankfully this time alone is doled out in small little bursts. The bursts that exist between working, laundry, cooking, and doing life from scratch here in PNG. Here in those empty spaces of less busy times I am forced to rest in my new reality.
Grief is so weird. It comes and goes. Yanking and pulling me off balance. Grief is sneaky and seemingly pops up when it isn't expected or invited.
But when it hits. BAM.
While grief does like to jump up and bite me in the butt, hope is consistent and steady. Waiting and ready to be taken notice of. Subdued and patient until focused on.
Hope lingers.
In those bursts of time spent alone, you will most likely find me here in my little home with often what seems like only the cool Ukarumpa breeze for company. A breeze that blows curtains across cool wooden floors, rustles banana leaves against a barbed wire fence on our property line and sweeps the clean laundry back and forth too close for comfort against the lush green carpet we call grass. This afternoon the wind is the thing to keep me company in between those busier missionary-mom moments. Much like the clean linens wafting in the breeze in my back yard so are my emotions controlled by something unseen. Swaying this way and that without ability to be stifled, stilled or mastered. Excitement for the future and holy-moly hope for things to come and still yet simultaneously paired with utter heartbrokenness from the separation of half of the globe from my Liberty beauties.
Swaying. Shifting. Swaying.
Grief and hope are here holding my hands.
Two words are on repeat in my mind as I tightrope walk through my new reality. Obedience. And Grace.
You guys!!!!! I am so freaking excited about what God is doing and going to do through our second term here in Ukarumpa. That holy-moly hope for future things and job roles is all up in my face. That hope is alive for what is to come only because we followed His will for our lives in obedience. Obedience. Y'all, He is the only one who could ask me to remove myself from those girls. Not the people of PNG that I love. Not the desire to see, know and experience the world. Not serving to further the amazing work of Bible translation. None. Of. It. None of these things, people or places. Nothing that this world has to offer me could tear me apart me from my girls. Only obedience born of love and devotion to my Lord.
"if you love Me, obey" John 14:15 NLT
In the black and white those words appear to be rather simple. He said "go" to our hearts and so here we are.
But my loving Father is not the One to just say "because I said so". He hasn't left me emotionally stranded here in my obedience.
Grace.
Not demand for perfection. Nope. Instead grace. Unmerited favor. Nothing earned by what I can or can't do.
Grace and I are tight. Grace has met me in a brilliant new way. Especially here in my aloneness. His loving, all powerful, never-running-out grace is enveloping my days. Filling me. Soothing me.
"He gives more grace" James 4:6 NKJV
He gives just-for-me grace.
"to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it" Ephesians 4:7 NIV
If obedience is the iron structure of which I am standing upon, then grace is my safety net, here in my grief and hope tightrope walk.
Grief and hope holding my hands.
This physical aloneness has been forcing me to stop and face these tightrope emotions. Teetering from one side and then back again to the other. As if we three are in some sort of synchronized dance together, leaving me feeling like I am tripping over my feet.
Thankfully this time alone is doled out in small little bursts. The bursts that exist between working, laundry, cooking, and doing life from scratch here in PNG. Here in those empty spaces of less busy times I am forced to rest in my new reality.
Grief is so weird. It comes and goes. Yanking and pulling me off balance. Grief is sneaky and seemingly pops up when it isn't expected or invited.
But when it hits. BAM.
While grief does like to jump up and bite me in the butt, hope is consistent and steady. Waiting and ready to be taken notice of. Subdued and patient until focused on.
Hope lingers.
In those bursts of time spent alone, you will most likely find me here in my little home with often what seems like only the cool Ukarumpa breeze for company. A breeze that blows curtains across cool wooden floors, rustles banana leaves against a barbed wire fence on our property line and sweeps the clean laundry back and forth too close for comfort against the lush green carpet we call grass. This afternoon the wind is the thing to keep me company in between those busier missionary-mom moments. Much like the clean linens wafting in the breeze in my back yard so are my emotions controlled by something unseen. Swaying this way and that without ability to be stifled, stilled or mastered. Excitement for the future and holy-moly hope for things to come and still yet simultaneously paired with utter heartbrokenness from the separation of half of the globe from my Liberty beauties.
Swaying. Shifting. Swaying.
Grief and hope are here holding my hands.
Two words are on repeat in my mind as I tightrope walk through my new reality. Obedience. And Grace.
You guys!!!!! I am so freaking excited about what God is doing and going to do through our second term here in Ukarumpa. That holy-moly hope for future things and job roles is all up in my face. That hope is alive for what is to come only because we followed His will for our lives in obedience. Obedience. Y'all, He is the only one who could ask me to remove myself from those girls. Not the people of PNG that I love. Not the desire to see, know and experience the world. Not serving to further the amazing work of Bible translation. None. Of. It. None of these things, people or places. Nothing that this world has to offer me could tear me apart me from my girls. Only obedience born of love and devotion to my Lord.
"if you love Me, obey" John 14:15 NLT
In the black and white those words appear to be rather simple. He said "go" to our hearts and so here we are.
But my loving Father is not the One to just say "because I said so". He hasn't left me emotionally stranded here in my obedience.
Grace.
Not demand for perfection. Nope. Instead grace. Unmerited favor. Nothing earned by what I can or can't do.
Grace and I are tight. Grace has met me in a brilliant new way. Especially here in my aloneness. His loving, all powerful, never-running-out grace is enveloping my days. Filling me. Soothing me.
"He gives more grace" James 4:6 NKJV
He gives just-for-me grace.
"to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it" Ephesians 4:7 NIV
If obedience is the iron structure of which I am standing upon, then grace is my safety net, here in my grief and hope tightrope walk.
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