5 years ago this week, I flew into Myanmar thinking it would be my forever home. It had been my dream, my goal for 9 years prior to that. In fact, to the exact date that only God could have timed. A lot of life, conflict, highlights and lowlights happened the following 2 years. Completely shattered dreams. And I no longer wanted to be there.
I came home too raw to think straight. If I would tell myself (and you if you are raw) what to do different after "raw," I would say, "chill for a while, and don't rush into anything because you don't want to perpetrate more pain on yourself or anyone else."
Post Asia, I didn't chill and almost immediately entered into the hell of a few people's lives this side of the pond while trying to sort out my own 2 years of harsh life experience. Some pain was mine, but a bunch wasn't. As we enter into their lives, if you are like me, you don't expect to pay the extravagant cost of feeling their pain as well. I'm still trying to sort this out, but I think it is freeing to acknowledge how hard this burden can be when you lump all of a community's issues together. Vicarious trauma is a thing. In the myriad of global pain, we can learn so many things. They from us, and us from them. This could take so many directions in this universal pain, but let's allow it to be our teacher.
It was the pain of it all that which brought me to see life from a very different angle. I remember the day when I came to God and said "I am not coming to You to intercede for any ethnic groups. I'm coming cause I need help." My direction and purpose has changed an unfathomable amount since then. (in a good way) When life is going well, we don't ask for help. We obliviously might need assistance, but pain is what opens our eyes to seeing the need.
I never dreamed that I would be living in Florida, working in a hotel as a housekeeper of all things 5 years later. I had other work plans when I moved here, but it turned out different. I don't think it matters. See when life simply doesn't turn out the way we thought, we have a choice: believe that the Bible is true when God says His ways are higher than ours, or not. We also have the choice of how we respond to the pain of life turning out differently than we thought.
Pain has a way of spelling out what some really foundational truths are for our hearts to understand. For example, my identity as God sees me doesn't depend on what I do. I can be a housekeeper instead of an English teacher and He loves me just the same. My right to Salvation is not any different.
Pain also can open doors for opportunities you would never have otherwise as Levi Lusko says. He has some great thoughts in his book, 'Take back your life.' If you are processing pain, read this guy's stuff. If you have not been there yourself, it's hard to speak into something in someone's life.
I remember wanting to shoot the lady who said that some day this whole crazy Asia story was going to be a gold mine for me. It was simply too painful at that moment. But I understand what cross cultural workers face like I didn't before. And I have a completely different outlook on conflict because of it. It ain't all bad, just saying. Your pain is also where you can go mining for more of God. It changed my heart direction in life. So yes, she spoke truth. We learn more through hard times then through the good ones. And we can offer hope to others coming through similar trails because we've been there.
While I never want to relive it, it's my Noah's Flood. There was the before, the during and the after. God got me through it so that is my Ark. It changed everything just like the Flood so nothing was "old normal" anymore. You probably have some experience kinda like Noah's story yourself. This process could be called character development. Let the process of pain happen so you grow from it. You'll find a rainbow after the struggle and say the journey was worth it.
I've also become excruciatingly aware of the coping mechanisms that I turn to because of the pain. Have you ever thought about how absurd it is to turn to anything outside of God? If it wasn't for pain, I may not have turned to these things, but neither would I have realized how easily I can be deceived. Pain has woken me up to see how hell bent I can be. Ouch. Think about it for yourself. Pain is what opens our eyes to better options then self destructing.
One last thing. God wastes nothing. People can judge me for this move to Florida, but I get the feeling that there's a far greater story going on here. Burnout, pain and bad choices of the past may have led me here, but I can't reveal the things yet that are amazing small but important details that so easily could hugely impact my future right in the middle of current circumstances. What if pain leads us to the future vision we want? I'm intrigued to say the least by stuff I didn't see coming. And I think God can do the same for you in whatever crazy unplanned circumstances you find yourself in. Your pain will not be wasted for sure.
So if you are tempted to quit, don't. Your pain has a purpose.
