I broke down in my friend Victoria's apartment in Newberg, Oregon on Tuesday afternoon.
Physically, my head was congested from cabin pressure and a sinus infection. Mentally, I was overcome with anxiety. Emotionally...well, let's just say I haven't really stopped crying for a week.
I wouldn't consider myself a very outwardly emotional person. On a small group retreat a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to contribute a few tears of my own to the watery group sessions, but I felt so detached from what was going on inside of me that I couldn't muster a genuine cry.
And what was going through my head, as people offered well-wishes and donations and hugs? I kept telling myself these six months away would be similar to my semester abroad in England, that if I could live across the Atlantic for three months I could surely live across the United States for longer. But there was something so disorienting about stepping off the plane in PDX.
I felt untethered and alone.
In what I would like to deem an act of divine intervention, my best friend from Lee University--Victoria--was able to pick me up from the airport, as the couple from YWAM couldn't arrive until several hours later when another student's flight arrived. It was an out-of-body experience, sliding into Victoria's passenger seat and riding along Highway 55. Am I really doing this? Is this actually happening? Why am I here? What's going to happen? What if people don't like me? What if I make a terrible first impression? What if this was all a colossal mistake?
I've always been so sure of myself, a natural-born adventurer with a great moral compass instilled in me by my parents. And if I'm being honest, I had been patting myself on the back for my composure in the months leading up to YWAM. I wasn't nervous, fundraising was going so well, and, as I was unemployed, I had the flexibility to say all my goodbyes to friends and family in Cleveland and Knoxville.
And yet, there I was in Oregon, falling apart. "Maybe this is God's way of humbling you," Victoria gently offered. "His way of revealing to you that you need Him all the time, not just when it's easy."
I knew she was right because it was the very truth I had been avoiding for a month. As much as I wanted to believe I could handle being stripped from my comfort zone for six months, surrounded by strangers from all around the world, I was terrified I would fail.
As we waited in the airport for a student from Germany to go through customs, I shared my anxiety struggles with Kari, one of my DTS leaders. "It's very normal," she assured me. "But it makes sense, you know? You've said goodbye to so many different things this year."
I said goodbye to the United States for three months in January.
I said goodbye to England for the foreseeable future in April.
I said goodbye to Lee University forever in May.
I said goodbye to Cleveland for right now in August.
And on September 20, I said goodbye to my friends and family in Tennessee for six months.
That is heavy.
I didn't realize I was carrying all this sorrow inside me from this year, and I didn't know my heart was even capable of aching for so many different places at once.
As I reached for tissue after tissue, my tears soaking Victoria's couch, I think I was lamenting the wonderful life I had this year. I was mourning my old self, as it slowly withered. I was beginning to grasp what means to die to the self.
The experiences I had this year abroad were completely magnificent and unique and a true blessing from God. But what I'm doing here in Oregon, with YWAM? This is something different altogether. I already feel stronger, being surrounded by so many people living on faith and willing to do whatever God asks of them. My mind feels quieter, the anxieties of yesterday relenting. I feel invigorated and inspired, surrounded by such breathtaking nature and community and encouragement and new faces.
And yet, I have been uncomfortable since landing in Oregon three days ago. I've been stripped of all that is comfortable and familiar. How could I feel such peace and be at such ease meeting new faces, sleeping in an unfamiliar place, and walking the trails of a foreign environment?
It's Jesus.
He's here despite my discomfort; of course, He always was here. Perhaps I'm just more aware of His Presence in the uncomfortable than I was in my comfort zone.
In a strange way, this discomfort is easy because I am so confident that He has brought me here in this time and place and with these people for a purpose beyond my momentary understanding.
I've been turning to the liturgies of Every Moment Holy recently, finding comfort in the words of another when I feel my own falling short. In "A Liturgy for Those Fearing Failure," Douglas McKelvey writes,
Then let my fears of failure drive me, O Lord,
to collapse here upon your strong shoulders, and
here to rest, reminded again that I and
all of your children are always utterly
dependent upon you to bring to completion,
in and through us, the good works which
you have prepared beforehand for us to do.
It is not my own work that is before me now, but yours!
The liturgy is written in the form of a conversation between two believers. The other participant responds in encouragement:
But consider now:
Might your tender Father use even your failures
and weaknesses to make you more humble
and more sympathetic to the failures and failings of others,
thereby shaping your heart into a nearer likeness
of the heart of Christ?
If your greatest good is to bear in fuller measure
the image of your Lord, then might not his greatest
and most holy good to you come cloaked
in guise of defeat and dismay?
I love that. Perhaps my feelings of inadequacy should not be met with empty platitudes like, "You can do this!" Because truthfully, I cannot. I am not capable of navigating these waters on my own.
And perhaps stumbling along in little failures are the holiest offering I can give to God.
Until next time,
Hannah Rose Rob
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