"I will give you hidden treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name." Isaiah 45:3 I love this verse because it shows how God has gone before us and in every dark moment or painful circumstance has buried a treasure or stored a secret. The only way we can find the treasure or learn the secret is to pass through that darkness. Some things cannot be learned in the light.
This concept is something I have come to understand more and more in the past few weeks. Moving to Minnesota has been very hard on me, and I have gone through a grieving process....grieving my loss of culture, community, family and familiarity. However, as I have processed this grief and pain, I am grasping the treasures and secrets God has stored for me - treasures I could have only have found after passing through the darkness.
I know there is darkness ahead, and as a result more secrets to be found, but here are a few I have unearthed in this process.
1) Normal
The other day I was talking with a friend and she paused for a moment and said to me, " Amy, you are going through your worst nightmare. You have few who mean anything to you and who care. You are going through a painful journey. That needs to be validated. This is hard, and what you are experiencing is normal of anyone who has done what you are doing." I pretty much just broke down in tears. It was the first time I realized that I wasn't crazy, weak or pathetic. Other people who have had massive transition, had experienced the same thing. Realizing this, and allowing Gods grace to pour over me, really released the following four treasures to be unearthed. I know I am strong, but I can validate that my emotions and grief are real and ok - normal.
.....I have realized too that what I am learning enables me to one day have the capacity, compassion and insight to encourage someone going through a similar time. I have had loving and well-meant words of 'advice' from people, that has really wounded me. Not that they meant it at all, but their lack of experience and understanding further enforced my false beliefs that we were not in Gods will, that I was failing/weak that I was changing into a worse person. I am changing, but for the better. I will be a different person after this, and I hope to be!
2) Strength comes in the strive
Oswald Chambers wrote, "God does not give us overcoming life: He give us LIFE as we OVERCOME. The strain is the strength. If there is no strain, there is no strength. Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot unless you accept the strain. Immediately when you face the strain you will get the strength!!"
Some days asking God for life and joy seems dumb. However, I realize when I ask for this I get strength to face the day (strain) which results in new found life and joy. I am discovering that contests like these are the ones that yield much fruit of character, and bring a deep sense that God can sustain us. I am working hard at gaining peace, I hope one day God will show me how to be at peace with myself, with him and with my role in the divine order of things. I tend to strive, and trust my own ability before God's.
3) Focusing on the day at hand
Anybody who knows me well knows I have dreams - lots of them! Dreams about where God is taking Noah and I, what my future holds, the difference I want to make in the world. However, some of these dreams (being in NZ, community, study etc) I was holding on to so tightly that it made my grief even harder to bear. All I could think about was that the next two years being here was going to be miserable. Something I have (and am) learning is to focus on THIS day.God gives us one day, and we follow the journey of that day. I may be missing the diamonds and treasures that God has in the day - through Noah, the staff I work with and the patients I care for on a daily basis. Being in tune to this helps give me purpose and meaning, in a time that feels meaningless. Noah reminded me the other day that I literally care for widows at my work. I would say that is purposeful :)
I may not be running my own NGO, saving babies in Africa, speaking in lectures and training up local midwives but I have realized even the smallest blessings to my patients - a five minute hand massage, listening to their concerns, crying with them and loving them - is meaningful and matters. I don't think Jesus measures us by the greatness of our actions, but by the ( ) of our hearts. And how we use the time and opportunities we are given (Thanks Monica).
4) Its hard, but that doesn't mean its wrong
My cousin Brennan shared this message with me from Dr. Michael Youssef (paraphrased.) Sometimes when God moves you through a door there is much adversity and so you think you are no longer in His will. You then pray for a door to be opened and He does and you move through and there is joy and order and so you now think you are in the middle of His will because things are going well.
However, God had to get your through the first door before the second, and that first door was His will. I do not know where this 'first door' will take me, but I know that it is preparing me for the second door - a different season. We are in Gods will for us, even though it is painful, heart wrenching and messy at times.
5) Marriage
Even though these past eight months have been hard, oh so hard, they have been fabulous for our marriage. Noah and I have seen each other in our worst, most vulnerable moments. Times of ugliness, flesh and selfishness. But that is the privilege and intimacy of marriage - I know Noah has seen me as raw as raw can be, and yet he has loved me, accepted me and encouraged me (and we are still married!) And I have done likewise for him. How beautiful is that? To be known, in all of ones weakness, by another and be loved. What a wonderful picture of Christs love and forgiveness for us. Nobody else in the world has seen me like Noah, and that has bonded us together in a special way. Moving to Minnesota, and my grief, has placed us in a pressure cooker of emotions and stress. By all means, we have not processed this perfectly and its been really stinking hard, but I am grateful for it. Noah has learned that he is not responsible for my happiness - my grief is not at him and he can't control it. All he can do is help me on my journey towards 'happiness.'
**Even if all I come out with is the ability to better relate to others in times of pain and transition, then I will be enormously better off. Its like our walks with Christ - We can believe so many things about God, that he loves us and forgives us. But the transformation comes in EXPERIENCING these things. If we do not truly know what it is to be loved and forgiven, we can never truly love and forgive others - in a way that is transformational. So it is with experiencing suffering, pain and huge transition.
