remembering

some days, when i think of africa, when i think of living there, i can feel the weight of the northern hemisphere pushing down on me as i lie there in the middle of the earth.  it's hard.  preparing to uproot it all, to take half a lifetime and relocate it to the other side of the world.  to start again.  to replant.  to root.  some days, like yesterday, it seems crazy- like full on crazy. 

so while the weight was pushing on me, while i'm trying to clean the house for another showing so i can sell all and move away, while i'm fighting the tired of getting up too early to do that, there are my children finding themselves. the thing about children is: they grow if you feed them and let them sleep.  but they need so much more than that.  these days i feel like i'm not helping grow their little souls.

yesterday, i cried a little because i'm tired.  i vented a little, OK a lot, because i'm tired.  i said things like- i'm done- i'm sick of it- this is too hard- maybe we're crazy.  i said we are working so hard to end up somewhere dangerous and lonely and risky and different.  i said we're working so hard to own nothing and be somewhere with dirty water and malaria mosquitoes and none of the conveniences we take for granted.  mike told me we don't need to go to africa. that we can stay.  but he reminded me that we won't be where we think we should be. he reminded me that our desire to teach in africa, to make an impression in uganda, to bring the things we've spent 20 years learning, won't go away and that it will never get any easier.  he told me this wearing his day old white scruff and his soulful eyes and his baseball hat, knowing that's what i needed to hear.  it's so funny, our roles.  i'm the doer- the intense one- the sprinter- the talker- the impassioned one. but i'm also the one who sinks- who gets defeated- who wears herself out.  he is steady, even, paced- long distance.  and it makes for a good balance.

today the sermon was about greed.  about how the focus on money - can lead to badness.  it's not even the money itself- but the focus.  i thought about my focus- my anxiety around what needs to get accomplished, what funds need to be gathered, what needs to be sold before we can move.  i thought about my focus on our move itself- my over-focus on the hardships as a way to prepare- to protect against the surprise of third world living.  i thought about how it takes away from my joy and connection and relationships.

i thought about the in-between times that tend to be so hard for me.  but this is a season, itself, it needs to stand alone. we're not just waiting, or doing and waiting.  we are preparing.

i thought about the beginnings and endings of life.  breath taking and leaving, souls entering and exiting, nakedness, the presence of others- nothing else.  we come with nothing. we leave with nothing.  that is universal. but so much of what occupies us is the stuffing.

i thought back to my children- to their character, their souls, their being.  i thought about what really matters- the growing of their hearts- the living out of what we are called into- trusting God.

and i remembered.

i remembered the first time i was in kenya in 1988- the spicy smell of the dark carved wooden animals, the burning smell of the dusty roads, the hills of tea bushes, the feeling of being different but the desire to be there anyway.  i remembered the clinic in uganda, the hushed voices of the patients, the colored fabric of their clothes, the dirt floors, the fungating masses, the old water bottles holding differently colored morphine strengths, walking between house and drainage ditch- and feeling alive- knowing, i'd found why i was here- i'd found purpose.  knowing that i am who i am and i'm OK with mosquito nets and filtering water and risk- i'm OK with dirt, and not going to Target.  i remembered that what we're supposed to do here on this earth is love.  love God.  love each other.  and really, nothing else matters. 

but i needed permission to say 'no' to it.  i needed to remember it's a choice, i needed to be reminded of our longing for this- of the years behind it. 

so the weight, it lifted.  the focus, it shifted. my head cleared, and my heart got soft and plump- back to where it had been- back to knowing where it's going.

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