Lucinda Lavalie

I'd returned on a Saturday evening.  Sunday morning, I attended church at Crossroads Christian in Newburgh, IN as I'd done many times before but this Sunday was different.  The 3 short weeks in Sierra Leone, Africa had left a strong mark and in less than 24 hours since returning I was very aware that mixing these two worlds wasn't going over well for me emotionally.

At one point during the worship, my US laden body and my African covered heart lead me straight to the front of the church where I remember saying, "I don't know what to do with all this Lord, and I'm leaving it here with you."  I can't tell you how many times I've revisited that moment and reminded the Lord, that trip is yours to bring fruit from.

I had an epiphany last nite regarding a visual that has come to me many times since that trip 11 years ago.  It was from a chat I had in one of the small rooms we stayed in.  I in one chair and Lucinda in another.  Lucinda is a beautiful young girl with dreams of being a nurse and her desire was to return to the states.  My honest thought at the time, which I never voiced b/c she had not seen my world, but I'd seen hers was, "The states just have their own set of different problems.  She'd be trading one upset for another."  It wasn't even something I thought much about, having her come back with me, don't even know if that would have been possible b/c I gave it little consideration as a solution.

Bear with me on the thought process here...
I laid in bed last nite.  The thought began by remembering a friend from earlier that morning that I'd connected with on facebook.  She and I taught at the same school in Florida.  Then, without effort, my thoughts went to the students I'd taught there and then came the ones that have friended me on facebook and do you know one just got married last year!  Hello! - and it touched me so as I remember so often walking into my classroom, or standing at the front of the class teaching, or watching their 7-8 yr old selves playing on the playground and believing God to bless them all with loving spouses.  It was just a cry of my heart for them and still is!

And all this to get to my epiphany (from last nite).  God, as he's done many times, took that altar prayer from 2002 and used it.  Lucinda's ache for America, that I've seen multiple times in my head since actually witnessing it... is not much different than an ache I've carried.  Her new and better ground was life in America.  My new and better ground has many times been a marriage that wasn't broken.   I don't think I had many expectations when I got married in regards to what it would look like, so as the brokenness has been revealed in both Chad and I it has been an infuser of doubt in my heart.   God's grace during seasons of pain has been palpable but in the aftermath I struggle with doubt and a heart that longs for the mystical foreign land of perfection.

Just tonite, C and I were watching American Idol and Angie Miller sang a song where Keith Urban highlighted the lyric... It's ok to not be ok.  And those words mirror the epiphany from last nite.  I pridefully try so hard to redeem my own mess.  Forgetting that this Redeemer lovingly chose just the right broken path for my feet to tread and if that is truth than it is ok to not be ok.

I wonder if Lucinda, a God-loving amazing woman has heard God whisper the same epipany to her...  even what broke you was uniquely chosen.  Your crushings, my creating.  Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can fully share its joy. ~ Proverbs 14:10

Put a song up on the right top of the blog - Unredeemed by Selah... such a great lyric