Yesterday I was driving around and around the city. Driving
to a meeting, to stop by our church, to the office, to pick up the kids, around
and around. It was a spectacular day and as I drove up and down and around the
city, the volcanoes ringing San Salvador could clearly be seen. Tall and green and so beautiful that they broke my heart.
My heart broke at the beauty and the majesty of the
volcanoes and hills that surround a city that I have come to love because the people I love are struggling on those beautiful slopes. That is the great paradox of
our call. We are called to admire and love and yearn for those we serve, but
our heart can be broken in the process.
As I drove through the city streets, Jeremiah 29:7 stepped
into my mind:
“Seek the peace and
prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord
for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
These words were written long ago to God’s people far from
home. We may have willingly embraced the call to fling ourselves far from all
that is familiar and safe, but God’s exiled people had no choice. Some days we can
imagine what it feels like to be exiled strangers in a strange land.
But we are called to more than mere habitation in a city. We
are called to dig deep into the places where God has called us, to work there, to
make it our home, and to tie ourselves in tight to the future of those cities.
We don’t work for peace in our lands simply because that is our
mission. We work for peace in our lands because that is our home. Our future
becomes inseparable from that of the place we serve, and our prosperity and
hope comes from a peace that we are part of creating.
Peace is not easy, and we labor for it, and we pray for it.
We question if it is even possible, and we wonder if our part will even matter.
We stumble through a new language, and relearn systems, and face new fears. We
feel like foreigners and have days where we feel like we can’t fathom ever
prospering in this place.
And then a miracle happens, a transformation of sorts. Maybe
it takes many days, or maybe it is a growing realization. We wake up one day
and find that we are home. Of course we still have our foreign moments, we
don’t conjugate correctly, and we don’t always fit in. But we feel like we have
become part of this land, and like it has become part of us. In those moments
we know that God has called us here to love, and be loved. He has called us to help build, and to be
built ourselves.
We are digging in deep and working for this future, and our
future, and something new is happening as we find our prosperity cannot be
pulled out and separated. We find that we will not have peace until there is
peace here and that is something worth living for. In His goodness, He has written us right into
the story and we know it is the very best place that we can be.
What about you? Do you feel like you are home in the country where you serve? What kind of process did you walk through to get to that point?
I love this post, Danielle, and how you share how the Lord has tied your heart to your foreign home. I too feel very much home where we serve (Russia), and my heart aches for the people and desires good for them. Our country has had many struggles throughout history and even currently, and i recently heard from a Russian friend that "to live with suffering is innate to the Russian soul." Currently there is a huge financial crisis, which is just one example of hardship. I went to a toy store today to replace my daughter's broken doll stroller, and ended up with a new stroller still marked with the price from last week. The new price today was 30% higher. The kind checker looked embarrassed at the situation and since she was a manager gave me a 30% discount off of the new price so it would be like the old one. We had a little chat about these hard times and I could see in her face how much it she is affected by it. There is much uncertainty, and though right now it doesn't affect us as Americans as much since the dollar is currently so strong against the ruble, my heart aches for the Russian people, my Russian friends, most of which have nothing to do with the situation that they're finding themselves in of having to pay 30% more for the things that they need (obviously not talking about toys, but grocery prices are skyrocketing). Life is hard here and though I know I am a foreigner, my heart is here and intertwined with the people and what they go through, a portion of which I endure as well.
ReplyDeleteYes! This is very much my home. Especially now, praying for peace while our country is torn by violence. There's a post that has been going around on Facebook this week about "What does it mean to be a Ukrainian right now?" and it is exactly what we've been feeling.
ReplyDelete(And Ashley, I even feel the Russian side of it, too, so I'm just torn in pieces in all directions.)