Clinging to hope, fighting to be courageous and tenacious

There I stood in the lovely, yet profoundly foreign, Taita Hills in southeastern Kenya. Dave and I had just completed our first day of the most demanding segment of our three-month orientation course. All we had learned during the first two months had been in preparation for this phase.

 

Everything around me was alien (except for my husband, of course). And I was dreadfully worn out. And I worried, wondering if I’d make a complete mess of the coming weeks. A lot was at stake. (Click on Tears turning to joy: Could I believe it? Would I believe it?)

 

I had wandered outside, leaned against The Pearl, and cried—just soft little tears trickling silently down my cheeks. I’m pretty sure the Mwakodis didn’t know I was crying, and I suspect Dave didn’t know, either.  

 

At such times, it’s important for us to cling to hope, no matter how bleak our situation looks.

 

“Hope is a decision we make, a choice to believe that God can take the adversity, the disappointment, the heartache, and the pain of our journeys and use these to accomplish God’s purposes,” writes Adam Hamilton.

 

“Sometimes God asks us to be with people we don’t want to be with,” Hamilton says, “to go to places we don’t want to go to, and to do things we don’t want to do.”

 

Hamilton nailed it.

 

I just wanted to be finished with the orientation course.

I wanted to get back to “civilization,”

back to working among people

who understood English,

who ate the kind of food I liked to eat.

I wanted to live in a house with running water

and a flush toilet.

And electricity.

 

But then Hamilton also offers this wise, helpful, and hopeful perspective: “. . . God is often most profoundly at work in those times when we’re confused, broken, or wounded.” (The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem)

 

We need to embrace that truth.

 

Henri Nouwen writes, “The ups and downs of our spiritual lives depend on our . . . attentive listening—to the movements of the Spirit of God within us. Without this listening our spiritual life . . . becomes subject to the windswept waves of our emotions” (Bread for the Journey).

 

We need to embrace that truth, too.

 

And that brings me back to my good old role model Habakkuk, who told God he was troubled over several things.

 

God replied,

 

“Look . . . and watch—and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something

that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

(Habakkuk 1:5)

 

And that dear Habakkuk chose to practice—was willing to practice—attentive listening, willing to wait and watch to see what God would do. He said:

 

“I’ll . . . keep watch . . .

I’ll wait to see what the Lord will say

and how He will answer me.”

(Habakkuk 2:1)

 

Okay, then, I had told myself

on that dusky Taita Hills evening.

I will do what Habakkuk did.

I will watch to see what God will do.

(from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 3)

 

I reminded myself I needed to follow Habakkuk’s example of “attentive listening” because God had work to do within my mind and heart and attitude. What an example, what an encourager, that beloved Habakkuk has been to me for decades now!

 

Now, looking back on that evening, I’m comforted when I read Chuck Swindoll’s words about endurance during trying times.

 

Chuck prays, “Lord, we all remember times of passing through the waters and going through the fire—overwhelming tests and furnace-like trials.

 

“And,” Swindoll continues, “we have the scars to prove it.”

 

He was referring to Isaiah 43:1-2 in which God said to the Israelites, “Don’t be afraid. . . . I have called you by name, and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you cross rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned, nor will the flames hurt you.” (NCV)

 

Swindoll continues, “How faithful You are, Lord, to meet us at every one of life’s contingencies. . . how caring and accepting, how full of grace and mercy. It is because of Your mercies that we are not consumed.”

 

“Now, Lord, do a work deep within our hearts.

Provide us with fortitude for the trials of life—

those we’re enduring and those on the horizon.

 

Help us come to terms with negative attitudes. . . .

 

Give us eyes of faith to see beyond the predictable,

beyond the facts and figures.

Open us to a whole world of possibilities

because You are the God of the impossible.

 

“Encourage us, Father, with thoughts

that send us into our future with hope and joy.”

(from The Prayers of Charles R. Swindoll)

 

“Our hope is in the Lord. He is our help, our shield to protect us. We rejoice in him because we trust his holy name. Lord, show your love to us as we put our hope in you” (Psalm 30:20-22, NCV).

 

Tears turning to joy: Could I believe it? Would I believe it?

The Pearl of Africa, a 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser, was perfect for travel in Africa. Our fellow orientees had voted my husband, Dave, as their point person during our final three weeks, so our director handed The Pearl’s keys to him.

In the two months leading up to that final phase, Brian, our orientation director, had taught us to drive The Pearl . . .

 

through deserts,

across rivers,

around potholes,

up and down mountainsides,

and across vast savannahs in search of lions and elephants.

 

Brian showed us how to change punctured tyres.

 

And how to push The Pearl through a stream. (At that time, little did I know how many times I’d have to push The Pearl.)

And so it was that on our first day high in the Taita Hills, Dave and I had loaded the Mwakodis into The Pearl and headed to their church’s service.

 

Back home that afternoon, we gave the congregation’s gift to us—four eggs and two bunches of Swiss chard—to Mama Mwakodi, who served them for dinner.

 

At the end of that first day, I walked outside at dusk. I leaned against The Pearl, listened to bush babies crying from the trees, and surprised myself.

 

I cried.

 

I didn’t know what triggered my tears, but probably a combination of things.

 

For a long time, I had dreaded this part of orientation. I knew it would be the hardest part. I felt nervous about living with strangers. Being an introvert hurts.

 

I had lived almost two and a half months in the bush, and it was beginning to catch up with me. I could feel the fatigue at the core of my being.

 

Physically speaking, I had left the desert and entered a land cloaked in luxuriant vegetation, but emotionally I had left a lush spot and entered a desert place.

 

I thought back to August when, on our way to Africa, Dave and I had spent a few days in England and Scotland, thanks to a money gift for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

 

At the Wycliffe Centre in Horsleys Green, England, we’d lived in an old World War II barracks. A poster in our dorm room displayed Psalm 126:5–6, “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping . . . will return with songs of joy.”

 

I pondered those words at length because I didn’t know what they meant for me, specifically, but I did understand about tears. I had shed tears on my way to Africa because I couldn’t see our children or parents for four long years and because I wondered if I could endure the orientation course.

 

But, what about those verses of God turning tears to joy?

 

Could I believe that was possible?

If so, would I believe it was possible?

Would I believe that God could turn my tears into joy?

 

I had thought about it for a couple of days and then, there in our dark little barracks room in England, I stood before that poster and told God I’d give Him time to turn my tears into songs of joy in Africa.

 

So, there I stood in the lovely, 

yet profoundly foreign, Taita Hills, 

leaning against The Pearl and shedding tears.

 

Good old Habakkuk came to mind, my friend from the Old Testament, a man troubled over various things. God told him,

 

“Look . . . and watch—and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something

that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

(Habakkuk 1:5)

 

Habakkuk, still upset, laid out his complaints to God and then said,

“I’ll . . . keep watch . . .

I’ll wait to see what the Lord will say

and how He will answer me.”

(Habakkuk 2:1)

 

Okay, then, I told myself

on that dusky Taita Hills evening.

I will do what Habakkuk did.

I will watch to see what God will do about both tears and joy.

(from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 3)

 

What about you? Are you shedding tears today?

 If so, be a Habakkuk: stand tall and watch!

Look and wait, in faith, for God to turn your tears to joy.

May He do something you wouldn’t believe, 

even if you were told.

May He leave you, like Habakkuk, utterly amazed!

 

“The rich became poor and the poor became rich.”

 

“We visited a village where the feeding program . . . operated a one-meal-a-day program. . . .  They don’t have the money to feed anyone over age 14 except expectant mothers. . . .”

 

Thus writes Beth Moore about a trip she and her husband took to Angola, Africa, to visit villages involved in, or in need of, feeding programs.

 

There the Moores had an experience almost identical to ours (if you missed my blog post, click on “I still tear up when I think of it—it seemed so wrong, so unnecessary.” It’s a must-read!)

Beth writes that when she and her husband prepared to leave,

 

"I was ushered before the head of the community and his wife. . . . Her white teeth gleamed in the African sun as she smiled ear to ear. She then proudly thrust a bowl toward me that rocked with small eggs. Eggs they needed and that I didn’t."

 

Remember what Beth said:

Those dear folks didn’t have enough money

to feed anyone over age 14 except expectant mothers—

yet they gave to Beth and her husband.

How humbling!

 

Beth continues:

 

"I was taken aback. I wanted to shake my head and insist she keep them, but she was so exuberant in her offering that I couldn’t. With untamed joy they gave a portion of exorbitant expense out of the portion God had given them."

 

Read that again: “With untamed joy they gave a portion of exorbitant expense out of the portion God had given them.”

 

Those dear Angolans were living, breathing, smiling examples of 2 Corinthians 9:7—they didn’t give reluctantly or under pressure, and indeed “God loves a cheerful giver!”

 

Beth admits that as they drove out of the village,

 

"I felt a deep and painful sense of my own poverty. I knew I was poor in my giving. Poor in my sacrificing. Poor in my daily expression of God’s giving heart and woefully rich in all things self.

 

"That day on the edge of the world’s nowhere, God wrote His signature on the sandy ground in the shape of a circular arrow.

 

"I was stricken by the absurdity of an unexpected turnabout. . .  . There before my eyes, the rich became poor and the poor became rich" (Beth Moore, Esther: It’s Tough Being a Woman).

 

Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar.

 

“If the Lord is indeed our shepherd,” writes Frederick Buechner, “then everything goes topsy-turvy. Losing becomes finding and crying becomes laughing. The last become first and the weak become strong” (The Clown in the Belfry).

 

If we pay attention, God gives you and me opportunities to examine our hearts and minds.  Sometimes He does that by upsetting the apple cart—by turning us upside down and inside out and giving us a good shaking in the same way He did for Beth Moore.

 

When He does, how do we respond?

 

“Most of us . . . confront a need for greater self-awareness,” writes Joan Anderson. “We reach a point when . . . the dreams of earlier times seem shallow and pointless. And then we find ourselves asking the tough questions: What am I meant to do now? What really matters? Who am I?” (Joan Anderson, The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself)