In the summer of 2007 I felt a heaviness on my life. I wasn’t sure what it was but I felt it. Looking back on journals I saw that I was asking the Lord for direction. What that would look like, I didn’t know, but I asked to serve and help my generation, and at that time, specifically women.

God’s plan looks very different than my own.

In 2007 I had been directing marriage conferences for over two years with my parents who speak and write on marriage. Most of the people attending the events were probably somewhere between 35 and 60.

Not necessarily “my crowd.”

This past Sunday I was taken back to 2007 in a flash as my church had a guest speaker who spoke on Psalm 25. Memories came flooding back to me of a cold November.

November 4, 2007 was the day I sat in the Denver airport with who I thought was the love of my life and heard him say, “What do you want to do, Joy?” And I replied, “I just can’t keep doing this.”

Our relationship had unraveled as quickly and dramatically as it had begun and both of our hearts were broken, stunned, and tired.

The circumstances that led to our break up were anything but normal, but that is our story.

Needless to say, the intensity was so strong and so destructive that I knew I couldn’t be in the same city with him, at least for a while. So after being affirmed by those who knew the situation, I left my life to be alone overseas. I was scared to leave, but more fearful of staying.

That was the only thing that got me on the plane.

Right before I left, my friend Brittinee emailed me and said to read Psalm 25.

When I arrived to my destination, I was depressed, puffy eyed and tired…and privately stayed that way for the duration of my trip. I remembered my father telling me, “Joy, when you feel like you can’t go on, that is when you need to serve.”

The thought came back, “Remember you wanted to serve women, Joy.”

Ugh.

I was in a chalet in Switzerland at a place called L’Abri with a large group of other people trying to find their way in life. I didn’t want to reach out or talk to any of them. I wanted to stay in my bunk and be depressed. But I told the Lord I was willing.

However, He was going to have to show up, because I was hopeless and empty.

During that time I clung to Psalm 25.

It spoke so deeply to me in ways I can’t describe. I wrote it out and taped it above my bed so I was forced to read it daily. I also had downloaded a version of the Psalms being read on my iPod. Different actors recited each chapter and Psalm 25 just happened to be read by one of my favorite actors. It was like having a friend speak it to me over…and over. I clung to that recording. Especially when the Psalmist says this:

“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and free my from my anguish.”

I have this recurring daydream that always gives me a small panic attack. It’s usually at the end of a really long international flight, but it’s where I imagine myself as Bill Murray in Ground Hog’s Day and right when I am landing after a gazillion hours of flying, I have this thought… “What if this journey home started over right as I landed?” Immediately I start feeling nauseous from fatigue at the thought.

I’m a masochistic daydreamer…what can I say?

After the sermon this Sunday I reflected on the Summer of 2007 leading into that relationship and then that harsh November. I can’t imagine, knowing now what I’ve gone through, if I could do it again. Call me dramatic, but I know how I felt, and still feel at times, and if I had to go back, I think I would rather just call it quits.

“Do we want God to show up, or do we want Him to be what we wanted, something less than what God is?”

That line on Sunday convicted me.

Because the last two years have been emotionally and physically incomparable…do I assume that God is not working to His full capacity?

I know I asked God in the summer of 2007 to use me, grow me and give me wisdom and compassion for my generation, I just didn’t know how much there was to learn.

That first week in Switzerland I broke my ankle and was confined to my bed. Slowly one by one, women started to come by my room to check on me. In keeping with my personality, it was the most natural way for me to build relationships. I don’t know if I made any impact, but they impacted me, and I had an environment where all I could do was think, pray, read, talk, cry tears, and cry out to the Lord for strength.

It was forced learning, and learning I couldn’t have done anywhere else with fully functional ankles. I am now convinced that an inability to walk can be the mind’s greatest Miracle Gro!

In that forced solitude, my compassion and empathy for hurting women grew as I understood my own pain more and as I heard the stories of all the unique women in that small village on the side of one big beautiful Alp.  My ankle was broken, I was broken, and I saw brokenness all around me.

Yet in the midst of it, I had hope in the unseen.

I can’t imagine getting on a flight that would start that trip back to Switzerland in 2007, but I also don’t think God is a sick God who wants us to suffer. And so, if He asked, I would buckle up again, because I choose to trust in a God that shows up in His way, in His time.

I can only see in hindsight the way He seemed silent, but was slowly moving because He knew my travel time better than I did. I look forward with hope and peace for more of the unseen journeys, knowing He hears the cries of my heart in longing and in tears.

Questions

Do we want God to show up, or do we want Him to be what we wanted, something less than what God is?

Can you name the actor that I love, reading the Psalm??