In Which I Am Utterly Exposed...

So it looks like Tim and I are taking a trip at the end of this month. To Indonesia. To do mission work.

(Please pick your jaw up off the ground and continue reading.)

I know. Everything that you are thinking I've probably already thought. And then over-thought. And analyzed. And then over-analyzed. And then beat to death.

It started out as a joke. Or rather, I took it as a joke. I was driving home from work one day late last month when I received a text message from my husband.

“You want to go to Indonesia in March?” he asked.

I either choked or laughed. I can’t remember.

My eloquent reply? “Ah, come again?”

“He must be joking,” I thought to myself. “That’s completely absurd.”

I didn't think too much about it after that. There was certainly no way we could pay our own way, regardless of the trip’s purpose, so it seemed utterly out of the question.

Apparently Jesus felt otherwise because Tim came home on fire (figuratively, not literally).

“Did you get my text about Indonesia?” he asked enthusiastically.

“I did. I nearly wrecked the car. Were you joking?” I asked cautiously.

“Nope! The church is going on a mission trip in March, and we've been asked to be a part of it! We can pay what we are able; the church will cover the rest! What do you think?”

He seemed ready to explode. I hesitated but briefly.

“Sure!” I returned carelessly. “I love traveling, and we’ll never have another opportunity to go to Indonesia if we don’t go now.”

Looking back on this exchange, I realize how horribly shallow my engagement and responses were to the questions I was being asked. I saw the trip as an opportunity to see a new place, a chance to get away from my otherwise mundane life for a few days. The thought of doing mission work—real, legitimate mission work—was very distant and vague for me.

Since that initial conversation, it’s as if my life has imploded. I've spent the last two weeks heavily preparing for a trip I initially took so lightly. I've been versed on what to say and what to avoid. How to dress and what to bring. What to eat and what to thankfully decline. I've spent hours of my life in a doctor’s waiting room watching a video about parasites, yellow fever, malaria, and typhoid. I've been vaccinated and coached.   

But mostly I've been scared.

And yet, through it all, God has been working. Working on my heart. Working on my mind. Preparing me in ways that I can neither see nor understand. Preparing me in ways that I cannot prepare myself. He has made it abundantly clear that this is part of His plan for me. But that has been the hardest realization. I am not a missionary. I've never claimed to be anything of the sort. My life is comparable to a bad version of an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem: “Lord, how do I fail thee? Let me count the ways…”

Who am I that He calls me to something so drastic, so dynamic? Who am I that He calls me to share His story with people who don't even recognize His name? I’m not especially patient or understanding. I failed Relationships With People: 101 in catastrophic fashion. I’m awkward and silly, and I always say the wrong thing. I’m not. I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.

I could go on. For days. The idea spectacularly defies logic.

But sometimes that’s just how God works: in a way that is spectacularly beyond my own understanding. Sometimes He asks radical things of us. Sometimes He calls us to be UNCOMFORTABLE.

I no longer see this trip as a vacation or an escape. Rather, I believe that this trip will force me to face fears, insecurities, and failures that I have so deeply buried for such a terribly long time. My vulnerabilities and weaknesses will be exposed.

I will be exposed. But I have also been chosen, and there is comfort there. 

And out of the wreckage that is my violently wounded soul, God will do something beautiful, something that is beyond my understanding.

J.