Unexpected Comfort

The church

For the past three weeks while staying in Kenya, I have visited a church each Sunday. Having no churches on the island, I saw this as a great opportunity to witness the African church at work. This Sunday we had made plans to stay after service for most of the afternoon, to share lunch and get to know one another better. Quite frankly, I was not looking forward to it. I was feeling low and the thought of making small talk all afternoon filled me with dread.

As I was sitting in my chair during the sermon, I flipped through the Word and I came across Psalms 69. Reading verses 16-20 felt like King David had peered into my soul and cried out to God that of which I did not have the strength, will or words.

“Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies!

You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you. Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.”

Many things had conspired to bring me to this low point: from the things I am learning in this seminar—the hard truths of life in Africa, the hurtful words and actions of friends, my own interpersonal failures, to the growing concerns of the Ebola epidemic, in a place I once called home, where I still have many friends. Add to this the consuming loneliness of always being in a crowd of people but never being known. Of being surrounded by couples and families, constantly reminding me of what I lack.

Useless. Unwanted. Overwhelmed. Inadequate. Unimportant.

My soul felt battered from all sides. I swam in a bitter sea of self-pity. That’s where the Lord found me yesterday morning when He showed me David’s cry. He understands. And with the reassurance of his understanding, I thought he would be content to leave me to my wallowing. I wrote the Psalm in my journal and sat back in my seat preparing myself for a very long day.

But thank God, He does not leave us in our distress. He answers prayers that may not have even been uttered.

Me and Agnes

Following the sermon we were invited to the front of the church to receive gifts. I had attended church with a couple and a family with two kids. The family was presented their gifts and “appreciated” by a church family, the couple by a couple, and a single lady who I’d seen sing in front of the church on several occasions came to “appreciate” me. Her name was Agnes.

In much of Africa names are very important. Among some Kenya tribes, grandparents insist that their grandchildren be named after them so that when they die a part of them lives on, whether they believe it is symbolic or that their spirit actually remains alive in that grandchild. Names and naming ceremonies are incredibly significant.

Agnes was the name of my maternal grandmother. When it came my turn to thank the congregation I told them that I now know I will always have family in their midst, because my grandmother is among them. At these words, applause and shouting erupted. They were pleased and I felt myself beaming for the first time in days.

Following the service, I stood in the receiving line shaking the hands of all 220 members as they filed out of the church. Little girls crowded around me; they struggled over who would hold the hand I wasn’t shaking with. My hair, which I’d worn down, was being combed through by curious little fingers. I remained focused on greeting those streaming out of the church as my curls were being bounced from behind. And it felt wonderful. The words in my mind started to change.

Valued. Appreciated. Important. Wanted. Loved.

The afternoon passed quickly. We ate a wonderfully authentic meal cooked by the women’s leadership. We learned some of the choreography to a dance the choir performed during worship that day. We relaxed and played with the children.

Who would have thought that this small church in the middle of a slum in Kenya would be able to pull me out of a deepening depression? God knew what He was doing as he always does.

Before going to bed last night I received this text from my new friend Agnes: “Once, all the villagers decided to pray for the rain. On the day of prayer, all people gathered and only one boy came with an umbrella—that is FAITH. When you throw a one-year child in the air, he laughs because he knows you will catch him. That is TRUST. Every night we go to bed, we have no assurance that we will awaken the next morning but still we have plans for tomorrow. That is HOPE. May the Lord enrich you with FAITH, TRUST and HOPE.”

Amen.

Can I Ask You a Personal Question?

Last night I visited my friend Lilly at her shop. I met her several months ago when I was looking to buy a toy for one of the children in my host family. I had wandered past her shop several times on the way to my teammates’ house and seen a myriad of plastic toys displayed outside, from miniature cooking sets to little cars and planes. When I walked into her shop, she said, “Hello, what do you want?” in English. And thus began our friendship.

Lilly and her husband, Sam, both speak English well by island standards. He studied English while at university abroad and she uses it when she travels abroad to buy merchandise for her shop. They spend their evenings at their shop, usually together, but their days are spent working in different government offices. So once again, by island standards, they are quite well off. Lilly even has her own car!

I enjoy sitting on the porch of their shop in the evenings. We speak a strange mixture of local language, French and English. We discuss everything from politics to religion. Islanders do not have the same conversational rules that we in the West are used to. No topic is off limits. Arguments are frequent but they are never heated.

Single ladies at the celebration

It had been several weeks since I had seen Lilly. Two days ago I missed three calls from her. I was at a neighborhood celebration and had not heard her calls. I thought she was calling to see if I was going to English Club in the capital that evening. We had been going together every week, but I had missed the last two weeks because of my dengue and her husband won’t allow her to be out that late alone. This was the third week I would miss but I felt my presence was more necessary at the celebration. Yesterday, I texted Lilly to apologize and explained where I was the evening before. She said she just wanted to give back some books she’d taken from my leader’s English book library but she would be traveling this week to pick up new merchandise for her shop. I agreed that I would go to her shop that evening to pick up the books. And so I began to prepare, in my mind, the speech in local language I would give her when I saw her.

A visiting neighbor

You see, Lilly knew I had been sick. The first day of my fever I’d texted her that I couldn’t attend English Club because I was too sick. She texted back her apologies and wishes for my quick recovery. Week two, while I no longer had a fever, I was still very weak and most nights I was asleep by 8pm when English Club began, so once again, I begged off due to my illness. And yet, she never visited me. If you remember my previous post, throughout the life of my fever, every neighbor and friend i have came to visit me. They came with their advice on how I could get better, which was annoying- but they came! Lilly didn’t come. And while visiting a sick person at their home is not a cultural norm where I’m from, it is here and my island persona was somewhat hurt by my friend’s absence.

When I arrived at her shop, I walked up the stairs and blurted out: I need to talk to you. You didn’t visit me when I was sick. Why? I was sick for a week! I thought I would die (exaggeration) with dengue fever but you didn’t come.

It pushed the limits of my language ability but I said it all in local language and she understood and responded likewise, telling me that she hadn’t realized I had dengue. She thought I just had the normal adjustment sickness- a little fever, a little upset stomach, some fatigue- that all foreigners get when they come to the island. If she had but known, of course she would have visited. So I was appeased and we began discussing how sick I’d been and all the gritty details. She sprinkled in advice for what I should have done and what I should do next time I have dengue, God forbid! Then she stopped, grabbed my arm and said, “I need to ask you a personal question. It’s none of my business. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” I told her to continue, “You are alone here. You don’t have a husband to take care of you when you are sick. Do you want to live like that? Don’t you want someone special in your life?”

I starred at her. Little did she know how her words reflected almost exactly my own sentiments. On February 22^nd, the first day of illness, my Facebook status read, “It’s times like these that I really wish I had that special someone. With a 103 fever and headache/bodyache extraordinaire- it would be nice to have someone whose job it is to take care of me.”

It was a little eerie, actually. I’d pushed these thoughts away after wallowing in self-pity for several days. And here they were again, spoken by an island friend who had no idea how close she was to the truth.

As I sat in her shop, I had over an hour to think about an answer because right after she asked a customer interrupted us and then another and so on. But at the end of the evening, when they were about to close, she sat next to me and said, “You never answered my question.” I took a deep breath and told her that it was difficult. I knew coming here in the first place that it would be difficult. I’d wrestled with the reality of being one of two singles on our team. I’d written about the topic before leaving the comforts of my American home. It’d had been my top concern in accepting a position here. And the differences between having a spouse and not have been most manifest during illnesses. Yes, I admitted, it can be very hard.

BUT, I knew the sacrifice I was making before I came. It has not come as a surprise. While my single friends at home continue to date, get engaged and get married (one friend has gotten engaged and two friends have gotten married in the four months I’ve been gone), I know that my place is here. God has a plan for my life and it wasn’t to stay in Atlanta, GA and surf for dates on match.com. That empty place in my heart will never be filled by a human relationship that is outside of His will. And right now His will is that I live a single life on a speck of volcanic rock in the middle of the ocean. It is an infinitesimally more fulfilling life than I could create or chose for myself, single or not.

There will always be hard times. We have never been promised a fairy tale life, free of pain and loneliness. I will get lonely (especially when I have dengue!). But our loving Father is full of mercy and compassion and He is the one who gives meaning to my life- no earthly relationship can compare.

Lilly, wide-eyed, nodded her head at me. I’m not sure what answer she was looking for but she certainly got more than she bargained for.

 

Day 3: Happily Ever After

Tonight I listened to a 22-year-old pour her heart out. Three months ago she broke up with her boyfriend of two years. He is now dating someone else; someone who, in her words, could be a top model. She spoke of a damaged self-image and not being good enough. She’d stayed with him for so long, despite bad treatment because who else could love her? And now she’s left alone.

In a room full of married women, they were quick to jump in and give her hope. Everyone has a similar story about the boy they dated that they weren’t meant for. And then they found Mr. Right. And while it’s not quite happily ever after, it’s exactly what she wants to hear. She smiles a teary-eyed smile and realizes that could be her too. Mr. Right could be at the next Bible study or at the next job; who knows, maybe she’ll meet him at the grocery store tomorrow or bump into him on the church steps this Sunday.

As the oldest single in the room, I listened. Like I said, everyone has a similar story. I could have been her 4 years ago. A two-year relationship ended. And basically my life was over. I stayed strong on the outside to anyone who asked. But I was broken inside. That was probably my only shot at happiness- gone. And I didn’t stop thinking about him two months later or even two years later. Every sappy song, every romance movie brought up what could have been.

So I sat and listened to the married women give hope to the single, young woman and I remained silent. I did not have the words that she wanted to hear. I am the portrait of what she does not want to become. I am a reminder that not all journeys have a storybook happily ever after with Prince Charming on his knee at age 22 or 25 or 27.

But if I were to speak with her, this is what I would say.  I know you’re afraid to end up alone. So am I. But God is bigger than our fears and He is there to comfort us in our pain, broken-heartedness and anguish. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalms 34:18.

And then I would tell her that no one should bring someone in to share their life if they do not know who they are with Jesus alone. Todd Wagner, pastor of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, puts it this way, “Any relationship is only as healthy as the least healthy person in it. […]Some people are single and God’s grace is sufficient for them. Some people are single because God is gracious to others.[i]” So often I see my friends go from relationship to relationship. They are serial daters and the lucky (or maybe not so) get married. They do not know what it’s like to be alone, to depend on God alone. They may need validation, or constant attention or someone to nurture or change. I pity them.

God still has things in store for me before/if He decides to bring someone else in to add to the picture. I am wholly invested in becoming who He wants me to be in the meantime and following His path for my life even if I must follow that path with His company alone.  

Sometimes I feel lonely. Sometimes I want to have someone to call my own, to do their laundry and make them sandwiches. I desire to have someone depend on me and love me as I am. But ultimately, this will never satisfy my deepest desire to be known and loved by God and to love him in return. The prayer of my heart is clearly spoken of in Psalms 63:

You, God, are my God,

earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
    my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
    where there is no water.

Because your love is better than life,
    my lips will glorify you.

On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night.
Because you are my help,
    I sing in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you;
    your right hand upholds me.

 

It is still hard but God’s grace is sufficient for me. And it can be for you too. Even without  the traditional happily ever after. That’s what I would tell her.

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[i] http://wordsfromwags.com/why-am-i-still-single/