We begged and pleaded with Papa to allow us to go. For years we took classes in missiology and theology and how-to-do-this-life-well-ology, sold our home, gave away our things, found an army of loved ones to partner with us and circled this vision of reaching the lost in constant prayer. We knew Papa had called us to shine his Light in India, and we were shiny and determined to go.
So 2.5 years ago, we arrived in a cloud of yellow smog into the most polluted, populated, chaotic place we have ever been. Crazy how a plane ride can change a heart. On the plane we praised God that he had made a way for us to follow his leading – and when we landed into the hard reality, I started to pray that he would send us back home, or ANYWHERE OTHER THAN HERE.
Every day, for the last 2.5 years I have prayed for a way out, certain that I am not cut out for this life. I have stayed because of sheer grit-my-teeth-and-bear-it-OBEDIENCE. Not because I am brave or amazing or even a good cross-cultural worker. But because Papa was teaching me that obedience comes FIRST.
So we decided to be a people who read the Word, and do what it says. (As it turns out, that’s what Jesus says it means to follow and love him – do what he says! Huh! Who knew?!) And we learned that obedience, even when it’s hard-won, is worth it. And obedience is enough, even when I cannot force my stubborn heart to be fully in it.
A subtle shift took place in my culture-whiplashed heart after we landed on the plane whirlwind tour of North America. As we descended into the yellow smog again, I started to look for the escape hatch. So I pleaded and lamented and grieved and asked Papa to be released. But then something flat out crazy happened…Papa gave me permission to quit. When I was lamenting that this life was too hard and I needed a way out, I felt him say – “Okay love. You can leave. I will still love you the same. It won’t be failure. You can go back.”
Uhhhh….What?
“You can go.”
Ummmm…
When I realized we really had the freedom to pack up and head out, I started to question if that’s what I really wanted. I felt Papa gently press in… “You can go…but I want you to be a woman who stays.”
I have been obedient.
I have stayed put.
But I have not loved this place with my whole heart.
I have forced my body to stay here, but I have imagined running away more times than I would like to admit. And into this raw reality, again He gently speaks… “I want you to be a woman who stays.”
I had always seen the cross as defeat. I had seen that black and blue and bloody day as THE tragedy of our existence. (The victory came on Easter morning right?!) I had seen that day as painful obedience, void of power and mercy.
I didn’t really get it until I read to my babes…
In the Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones puts it this way:
“Jesus could have just climbed down.
Actually, he could have just said a word and made it all stop.
Like when he healed that little girl.
And stilled the storm.
And fed 5,000 people.
But Jesus stayed.
You see, they didn’t understand.
It wasn’t the nails that kept Jesus there.
It was love.”
Jesus stayed. He loved us too much to not to. The miracle of the day the sky turned black and the earth shook and the world turned upside down, was that he stayed. The victory was that he stayed. Without the staying, there would be no coming back to life, no victory of evil, no hearts rescued. First there was the staying that meant dying.
So if I am to walk in the impossible shoes of the One Who Set Me Free, I have to become a woman who stays – not only out of obedience, but because of Love that just will not give up.
I don’t always see it as a privilege to live and love in India. But these days, instead of begging for release, I am begging that Papa will wreck me with His UNFAILING LOVE…so that I will be a woman who stays.
[photo credit: Cate Gordon]
