Compartmentalizing Mercy

Compartmentalization. I've often wondered if it is a strength or a shortcoming.

As one author writes, "compartmentalizing is not often a conscious effort, [but] they tend to become very skilled at it." I am the "they" - the TCK, Third Culture Kid, only now a "third culture" adult well into my fourth decade of life and still learning.

As a strength, it means I can often be fully present in a situation especially if it involves people. I am where I am, with whomever I am with, and I am focused on the here and now. Whether counseling clients for hours at our pregnancy center; meeting with other women over lunch or a very late "once;" traveling for a week away from husband and kids to care for aging parents; serving as tour guide to visitors from one of our two countries.

As a shortcoming, it creates tension when I feel unable to multitask and eventually must return to a towering to-do list alongside the needs and expectations of home and family and ministry.

This year of "furlough" has resembled a roller coaster of compartmentalization for me. With trips every six weeks to my parents for focused efforts to identify and resolve needs related to health and aging, my compartmentalization "strength" has served to accomplish much with God's help and the invaluable support of my husband at home. Weekend ministry assignments are compartmentalized as well, set apart from the week's school and sports schedules and carried out with a semblance of consistent rhythm from church to supporting church.

It's in the in between that for me tensions rise, as the arrhythmic array of responsibilities teeter over my head and threaten to topple my fictional control over circumstances and schedules. Paying bills between two countries, personal and parental and third party ministerial. Coordinating appointments, travel dates, children's commitments, speaking engagements, "down time" (what's that?) and looking towards an ever looming return trip with its transitions and emotions and decisions and even silly luggage limitations.

We are five months and counting, as my seven-year old who seems to love numbers reminded me at bedtime last night. Three of us still need to see the eye doctor and get glasses. Three boys still need to take driver's education, and one hopefully will obtain his license. A college decision must be made. Schooling for our return to the field is one ginormous question mark. All of us are years overdue for dental appointments with a professional we have yet to identify. Two young adult children ought to see specialists, but we're told they must first visit their as-yet non-existent, US-based "primary care" doctors. We are seeking one final weekend to travel ten hours each way to say farewell to a daughter we've seen only a handful of times over the course of this year. College-aged kids need summer jobs. The emotional needs of my children, especially those directly consequential to our calling, keep me up at night.

Yet the mercy of God meets me every morning.

The online thesaurus offers only negative suggestions as the opposite of "compartmentalize" but in this case there should be something powerful and positive and all-encompassing because it's a comfort to know His mercy is in all the compartments and every space in between. The lyrics say, "He will hold me fast" and He does no matter where I find myself on the roller coaster of furlough and of life. In His mercy, He multitasks for me to provide "every spiritual blessing in Christ." (Ephesians 1:3) And in His sovereignty, He knows just what we need, when we need it and how He has already planned to make it all happen. I can only echo another aching parent's words, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)