I Cried When I Saw The California Coast
I have now been home from Southeast Asia for over a month. I have not been able to form any coherent thought about coming back to America. It is more of just a weird sensation in the pit of my gut. I can't seem to make sense of any of my experience, except the occasional, "Oh yeah, that happened." When asked about my time overseas, the most common question is this: How was your trip?
When asked this question, I feel the same emotions twirling around in my stomach and up to my heart each and every time. These include happiness, gratefulness, and extreme feeling of blessing knowing what I was able to be a part of. But the emotions that no one wants to talk about start to show their faces too. These feelings of sadness, anger, confusion, and extreme sense of loneliness.
I am so happy I was given the opportunity to serve with 9 other amazing women of God for three months in Thailand and Cambodia. In those months, I was transformed by the love of God and those around me, coming home a completely new creation made in the image of my Father in Heaven. I no longer look at myself as a voiceless little girl, but instead a strong, independent, almighty woman of Christ. Beloved. His beloved. I share these stories with the people in church, and with my family members, and with those reaching out wondering about my mission across the globe.
But those parts no one talks about? About coming home, about keeping your new found confidence God has made in you? About the constant anger and bitterness you feel towards your situation at home, towards strangers, and to those you used to call your friends. It's a harsh reality, and it is one I have come to know very well in the past 49 days of being back in the United States.
When asked how my "trip" was, I first get annoyed and angry. I want to scream and tell people to stop referring to it like it was a vacation, like I went for fun. I do not look at those three months as a trip, because I lived in community so closely with these people. In Cambodia we lived with a Khmer family in a small village in Kampong Cham, eating what they ate, doing what they did, loving who they loved, and shared with them everything. We were with orphans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a whole month. We grew with these kids, we became friends with villagers, and joined them in prayer. By the time we left Cambodia, I felt my heart had no more love to give. I did not want to leave, and there will never come a day when I think the morning we left and I had to tell my friends goodbye and not have tears fill my eyes. Watching them wave in the rear view mirror will forever be etched in my mind, and I sometimes wonder if I will ever not be sad about that day.
Words still fail me when asked about my time in Chiang Rai, Thailand also. This is one that I don't know if I will ever be able to put how I feel and what I know into words, because there is no way people can understand what I am getting at. "Did you love it?" I feel myself holding back rolling my eyes. Yes, I had fun. So much fun. "What did you miss most about America?" This one really gets me. Simply for the fact that I really did not miss anything at all about America. I did not miss the busy-ness, the entitlement, or culture. And no, I didn't miss the food, really. No, I swear, I love Thai food! Yes, really. I find myself answering that I missed cheese if I had to pick something, because God forbid I like Thailand more than the land of the free.
"So will you go back?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Well, I don't really know right now."
"Well when do you think?"
"I have no idea."
"When do you want to go back?"
"Well I would really love to hop on a plane right now, Sally. Really just too escape this conversation. And if that plane happens to land in Thailand, that would be great. If not, at least I would be away from you and your soul sucking questions. God bless you and your ministry."
Okay, so maybe the conversation doesn't go exactly like that, but you get the point. Then add in the part where they ask how I know I will go back, and me saying God just made it clear to me, and you have yourself a whole other deal going on. The feeling of no one taking my seriously, and everyone kind of looking at me like a sad little puppy who misses a fun little time in a cool country. (You should see their faces when I tell them I'm going to work on a farm. It's really something.)
When I left for three months, I changed completely. Inside and out, I am a different person than when I left on September 1st for training camp in Gainesville, GA. But the hardest part about that is that when I came home, no one else had changed. I arrived back in Daphne, AL and time did not transform everyone else as it did so to me. People kept living their lives whether I was there or not. Me leaving and changing did not automatically make everyone understand me and my beliefs, nor did it mean that I was no longer a candidate for calamity upon my returning home. If anything, it made me a front-runner for such events.
So I am learning. Everyday, I wake up and pray for new grace and understanding for those around me even when they do not seem to have the same qualities. It is hard, and there are more days filled with hushed tears in the darkness of my bedroom then not. There are days when I want to scream and yell at God for breaking my heart in such a big way and not showing me my next steps as he showed me my last. Days when I question what kind of God would take me so far and teach me such magnificent brilliance only to drop me back in my hometown of 19 years and not tell me what to do next. I am in the Word everyday, because I know that is where I will find my answers. I am in prayer and conversation with the Lord everyday, thanking him even when it feels like it could burn a hole in my throat. I am learning patience, my hardest lesson yet. I will continue to praise for what my Father has done in me and what he will continue to do for myself and those around me, even in time when I feel terribly alone.
All the love,
Margo
When asked this question, I feel the same emotions twirling around in my stomach and up to my heart each and every time. These include happiness, gratefulness, and extreme feeling of blessing knowing what I was able to be a part of. But the emotions that no one wants to talk about start to show their faces too. These feelings of sadness, anger, confusion, and extreme sense of loneliness.
I am so happy I was given the opportunity to serve with 9 other amazing women of God for three months in Thailand and Cambodia. In those months, I was transformed by the love of God and those around me, coming home a completely new creation made in the image of my Father in Heaven. I no longer look at myself as a voiceless little girl, but instead a strong, independent, almighty woman of Christ. Beloved. His beloved. I share these stories with the people in church, and with my family members, and with those reaching out wondering about my mission across the globe.
But those parts no one talks about? About coming home, about keeping your new found confidence God has made in you? About the constant anger and bitterness you feel towards your situation at home, towards strangers, and to those you used to call your friends. It's a harsh reality, and it is one I have come to know very well in the past 49 days of being back in the United States.
When asked how my "trip" was, I first get annoyed and angry. I want to scream and tell people to stop referring to it like it was a vacation, like I went for fun. I do not look at those three months as a trip, because I lived in community so closely with these people. In Cambodia we lived with a Khmer family in a small village in Kampong Cham, eating what they ate, doing what they did, loving who they loved, and shared with them everything. We were with orphans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a whole month. We grew with these kids, we became friends with villagers, and joined them in prayer. By the time we left Cambodia, I felt my heart had no more love to give. I did not want to leave, and there will never come a day when I think the morning we left and I had to tell my friends goodbye and not have tears fill my eyes. Watching them wave in the rear view mirror will forever be etched in my mind, and I sometimes wonder if I will ever not be sad about that day.
Words still fail me when asked about my time in Chiang Rai, Thailand also. This is one that I don't know if I will ever be able to put how I feel and what I know into words, because there is no way people can understand what I am getting at. "Did you love it?" I feel myself holding back rolling my eyes. Yes, I had fun. So much fun. "What did you miss most about America?" This one really gets me. Simply for the fact that I really did not miss anything at all about America. I did not miss the busy-ness, the entitlement, or culture. And no, I didn't miss the food, really. No, I swear, I love Thai food! Yes, really. I find myself answering that I missed cheese if I had to pick something, because God forbid I like Thailand more than the land of the free.
"So will you go back?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Well, I don't really know right now."
"Well when do you think?"
"I have no idea."
"When do you want to go back?"
"Well I would really love to hop on a plane right now, Sally. Really just too escape this conversation. And if that plane happens to land in Thailand, that would be great. If not, at least I would be away from you and your soul sucking questions. God bless you and your ministry."
Okay, so maybe the conversation doesn't go exactly like that, but you get the point. Then add in the part where they ask how I know I will go back, and me saying God just made it clear to me, and you have yourself a whole other deal going on. The feeling of no one taking my seriously, and everyone kind of looking at me like a sad little puppy who misses a fun little time in a cool country. (You should see their faces when I tell them I'm going to work on a farm. It's really something.)
When I left for three months, I changed completely. Inside and out, I am a different person than when I left on September 1st for training camp in Gainesville, GA. But the hardest part about that is that when I came home, no one else had changed. I arrived back in Daphne, AL and time did not transform everyone else as it did so to me. People kept living their lives whether I was there or not. Me leaving and changing did not automatically make everyone understand me and my beliefs, nor did it mean that I was no longer a candidate for calamity upon my returning home. If anything, it made me a front-runner for such events.
So I am learning. Everyday, I wake up and pray for new grace and understanding for those around me even when they do not seem to have the same qualities. It is hard, and there are more days filled with hushed tears in the darkness of my bedroom then not. There are days when I want to scream and yell at God for breaking my heart in such a big way and not showing me my next steps as he showed me my last. Days when I question what kind of God would take me so far and teach me such magnificent brilliance only to drop me back in my hometown of 19 years and not tell me what to do next. I am in the Word everyday, because I know that is where I will find my answers. I am in prayer and conversation with the Lord everyday, thanking him even when it feels like it could burn a hole in my throat. I am learning patience, my hardest lesson yet. I will continue to praise for what my Father has done in me and what he will continue to do for myself and those around me, even in time when I feel terribly alone.
All the love,
Margo
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