I am not married.
(Just in case that wasn't apparent.)
Not only am I not married, but I really am no closer to being married than I was when I was 15 and harbored (what I thought was) a secret crush on the lead trumpet player in band. Nor have I really been particularly closer at any point in the 13 year interim between then and now. Sometimes I am ok with this. Sometimes I am not. As I get older, the 'not ok' moments seem to increase in quantity and intensity. Sometimes I question myself and wonder: Am I doing something wrong? Am I not 'trying' hard enough? Sometimes I am impatient, frustrated, and angry with God for what seems like an inexplicable 'withholding' of something others seem to find quite easily. Sometimes I despair, and sometimes I trust. So I just try to trust Jesus even when I don't trust him.
I'll get back to this in a moment.
Today I reflect on three amazing things that have happened in the last week. Today marks my one year anniversary of moving to DC. I love it here. I can't fully express how much I love this city, how I have never been happier in any other place I have lived. I miss my friends and family back home, and love them deeply, but leaving them has never been easier in any of my other adventures. I love school and my program that is perfect for me. I have made good friends here. I love walking, and I love taking public transportation. I love the city at night and am filled with indescribable gratitude every time I am walking outside on a beautiful evening. I am healthier here--physically, mentally, spiritually, socially--than I have been in a long time. I could not have imagined feeling so at home in a place that is not (really) home. So today I reflect on God's goodness in bringing me to this place, in his time.
On Tuesday, Aizada arrived in America, and on Thursday, I drove up to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania to surprise her with a visit after leaving her in the tiny village of Jon-Aryk, Talas, almost two years ago. After a long hug and several 'Kudai ai!"s (oh my god), the first thing she did was go into her new room and bring out the card I had made for her before I left, in which I had written the things Gloria & I had prayed for her. She brought it out and said, "Look, Miss Lisa!" pointing to the line that said, "Gloria and I have prayed that God will give you an opportunity to study in America." Did you just get chills? She also brought me a letter from my sweet sweet Ainura, another of my precious Kyrgyz girls, whom I love with a depth somehow different from the other girls. In the middle of the two page letter, she wrote, "Miss Lisa, maybe to this world you are only a person, but for me, you are like a world." Being with Aizada as her dream of coming to America--realized by no one else in her village--came true, and feeling Ainura's words pierce my heart caused me to reflect on God's sovereign goodness in taking me--just one person--to seven girls in a remote village in a remote region of a remote country and allowing me to bless and be blessed in a way that is having ripple effects I could not have planned, nor imagined.
On Thursday, before heading to Elizabethtown, I finished my summer internship with the Peacebuilding Team of World Vision International. Internships are basically accepted as a 'necessary evil' in this city, that hopefully will provide at least some useful learning experiences or some good networking contacts. They aren't really expected to be particularly enjoyable. I can safely say that I cannot fathom a way in which my internship could have been any better. First of all, it was full-time AND I got paid. That never happens. Secondly, I actually got to make a significant contribution to the team's work, and I loved my assignments. Thirdly, I loved the people I worked with. They were professional, smart, devoted to excellence, funny, balanced, and built confidence in me. I told my supervisor I would work with him anywhere, doing anything. Fourth, they loved me! They actually seemed sincerely and consistently impressed with my work. My supervisor told me more than once that he only wished they had a position to offer me. I told him it was ok, I don't need a job for another year ;-). Fifth, they treated me so well. The respect I was given as an intern was astounding. They treated me as a valuable team member. My last week, I was taken out to lunch, given flowers, and given an ice cream party in the office in my honor. I don't think these are normal parting gifts for interns. Sixth, my experience with the team has opened the door to keep working with the team this year, as I've decided to do my Masters Thesis on some of the team's work, and they have asked me to continue working with them as they prepare to present some of the work I did at the International Studies Association conference in February. In short, I could not have asked for a better, richer, more productive or beneficial internship experience, or even known that I could ask for something like this. So I reflect on God's goodness in bringing all these pieces together in a way I never could have imagined.
Wow. What can I be but in awe of how God has provided in ways I did not expect and opened doors I did not ask to be opened? This is what it means that the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want... I have been learning that I can trust God to take care of others, but I realized I still mostly trust myself to take care of me. Or I trust God to show me how to take care of me contingent upon the fact that I seek him and listen. Seeking and listening are good and important, but God is showing me that he is the shepherd of my soul and takes care of me on his own. He tends to me with more diligence than even I do or could. I am so thankful to be loved and cared for so well:
Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance (Psalm 16:5-6).
and
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless (Psalm 84:11).
I am not married. (See, I told you I would get back to this. You didn't believe me, did you?)
God has made me no promises, has not told me if or when I will get married. But reflecting on these three amazing things does more for me than just make me grateful for the good things God has done in my life. It gives me hope. Hope that as God has brought me to a city I love, sent me to an unknown country to love seven girls known and loved deeply by him, and provided an internship experience that was so much more than an internship--all beyond my wildest imaginations--he can bring a man into my life in a time and way and of a caliber of which I could not even think to ask. This hope has brought me a measure of peace:
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:19).
God has made me no promises. But when I get impatient and frustrated and angry that I am still single, and I can feel my soul start to float up in my chest in a frantic flurry of worry and despair, I remember God's sovereign goodness, and this hope is an anchor, weighing my soul back down to a place of rest and peace.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Ephesians 3:20)
