A few weeks ago, my family attempted to enjoy a weekend at our favorite getaway alongside the Nile. I was hoping it would be a soothing balm after a chaotic few months, but, instead, my husband celebrated his fortieth birthday with another bout of malaria. I had previously arranged for a bookbinding workshop for my kids the following day, so while my husband stayed at the cabins to rest, we met with a local artisan willing to show us his craft.
We listened intently as our teacher described the process of leather work. We marveled at our chosen images forever imprinted by hand on the rich, coffee-colored leather covers. Carefully, he gathered each section of blank paper and modeled how to thread the needle through premade holes. I watched as my children gingerly began to hand stitch their own journals together, bit by bit. It didn’t take long for each journal to be bound up, offering the gift of possibility—with pages upon pages waiting to be filled.
When we moved to Northern Uganda nearly ten years ago, life was full of possibility! However, the need to surrender has been a reoccurring theme as I’ve learned to embrace the cost of living a life overseas. Over the years, there has been a stripping away of everything. The weight of homesickness, raging bushfires, the uncertainty of Covid-19, canceled trips, saying goodbyes, overwhelming corruption, Ebola outbreaks, theft, cultural fatigue, and the inability to leave our host country for furlough has been a lot.
Yet, where I see a mess, he has a plan and purpose.
Where I feel despair, he is my comfort.
Where I taste the bitter, he offers goodness.
Where I hear discouragement, he whispers his truth.
Where I smell fires burning wildly, he stands with me in the ashes.
Though it hasn’t been easy, it has brought me to the end of myself—where the Lord has been waiting. Ready to take hold of my hand and lead me the way he wants me to go (or stay where I’ve been asked to remain). Yet, as I still linger in such a defining season of my life, I’m asking the Lord to help me to savor the remaining pressing. I can’t help but feel the weight of the cost bearing down. The years spent wondering, the chaos that has ensued, the struggle to persevere when all seemed hopeless, and stripping away of all things not built on truth.
I have learned to hold both.
The pain and the promise of an ending made good by a good God for his glory—a purpose that may not be the same as mine. Romans 8:28 has been such a great encouragement in my own seasons of uncertainty: “And we know that in all this God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Even in the crushing.
Even in the sacrifice.
Even in the surrender.
Even in the bleeding of one hard season as it’s sewn into another.
And another.
And another.
Oh, how I long to be like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and allowing my tears to spill out before him. As she poured out her precious oil, anointing his feet, she didn’t know the heaviness of the cost he was carrying.
There will always be a cost to following the Lord. Yet, even in the weightiness of the cost, there is an undeniable sweetness to be found only in him. In the most painful and heart wrenching moments of our lives, he has not abandoned us. He has engraved us in the very palms of his nail-scarred hands. The same hands he is using to write the stories of our beautiful and complicated lives.
Each of my children have a particular thing in mind for their handcrafted journals. One has destined his to be a songwriting book, another as a nature journal, and my daughter is using hers to write little poems.
And the Lord has redemption in store for us. He takes the scattered and broken pieces of our lives, binding our chapters together. His faithfulness is woven through every part of our story and our lives. There is a framed quote by Ann Voskamp that sits on the corner of my desk that reads “God is the Word, the Author of our story, and He keeps writing the story until the last line is good.”
I’m beginning to see the barren wastelands of waiting blossom in a super bloom of the promises of God. I’m feeling the years of sacrifice and surrender transition into an offering—a fragrance smelling sweeter by the day, as we wait here a little longer until his timing is made perfect. Yet, even as I write these words, we’ve just received information that all travel of non-US citizens to the USA is being paused due to an Ebola outbreak in the country. This will likely halt our first chance at a furlough since moving abroad ten years ago.
Yes, there is a cost to this life, and it is very real. May each drop of this pressing in our lives be made pleasing unto the Lord and the goodness he offers, even in the harshness of the wilderness. May it flourish into full bloom even as we wait for him to finish writing the very last line.
What is the hardest chapter of your story? Perhaps hardship or discouragement has been a thread throughout many. What crushing have you experienced over the years, and can you release it as an offering—to the One who is still writing his redemption into your story?
