This morning a simple memory surfaced by way of a photograph. It was unposed, and none of the subjects in fact faced the camera. A gentle sun was shining and the spray of waves rose in the background. In the foreground, our then-five children were captured in various poses: one son balancing on his roller blades; two daughters standing close together and relaxed; our preschool duo each paused and holding the handlebars of his scooter. All looking at an adult family friend we happened to encounter on his bike ride home from work along the oceanfront path in Iquique called the "Costanera."
My first response was to smile and share the long-ago photo with this friend's wife. Then followed motherly nostalgia, as a decade has passed and the third of our once-little children is soon to leave our family nest. But nostalgia turned to sorrow, and sorrow to grief and loss. Not because time has moved on, which is bittersweet yet normal and good. Instead, because later events stole the innocence of that moment and many others from the hearts of at least two of my children. Today they cannot think of Iquique and their life there in the context of these special memories but rather with regret and loss.
When shock and sorrow overshadow, even sweet moments are swallowed by darkness.
For our children, our family's 2018-2022 term of service began with loss. We returned from furlough to a church plant that was begun during our absence and the expectation that we would lead it in replacement of another missionary family cycling back to the States for their own furlough. This meant not returning to the only church our children had previously known and the friends they had there. At the same time, their close friends and missionary "cousins" were those who were promptly saying goodbye.
Nonetheless, the first year back in Iquique also held some great and exciting things. We welcomed back-to-back ministry teams from the United States, including lots of teenagers that our kids loved getting to know. Family members as part of these teams came to visit us in Chile for the first time. We had brand-new experiences and visited new places. Our children engaged in ministry and practiced new musical instruments. We were joined by a new teammate from Canada. We traveled to a missionary team retreat in Peru where our kids had a blast with other MKs from Spanish-speaking South America.
But then the shock waves started and refused to recede.
First, a Chilean family we were personally very close to was shattered by the husband/father's abandonment. For those left behind this led to years of grief, financial hardship, suicide attempts and eating disorders for a teenage child, breakdowns in health, and children walking away from the faith. One of those children had previously been our child's best friend and that friendship was withdrawn - another irreparable loss, on top of the tragic loss of trust in a respected, purportedly Christian adult.
Next, the country itself imploded. Violent protests, unending marches, tires burning in the streets, vandalized businesses, armed military, nighttime curfews, helicopters flying overhead. For one of our children especially, this led to a loss of felt safety and the distortion of a country once dearly loved.
Then, Covid-19. Suddenly protestors toed the line of any and all government ordinances. Lockdowns, no leaving home except for adults twice a week for two hours at a time with police permissions verified by armed military. Fear-mongering propaganda. Loss of fellowship, community, freedom. Almost an entire year inside our homes and for Chilean students, two years of lost school.
In the middle of this, the loss of our family as we'd always known it because our oldest left home for the United States. So much easier said than done, with canceled flights upon canceled flights and so many unknowns and the distance between us so very far away.
One year later, still masked and continuing in the midst of a pandemic, our second child left home. In the meantime, two additional longtime missionary families also departed Chile. Both of our daughters left during chaotic times but we hoped for a sweet reunion as normalcy slowly recovered and Christmas break beckoned. It was not to be.
Just prior to their return, a wave of supersonic proportions broke upon our lives and ministry. Ugly truths long kept hidden burst out and overflowed their trauma upon all of us. Instead of enjoying our daughters' visit for the holidays, I was comforting someone sobbing and broken who had once been their mentor and friend, now fallen from that pedestal along with those tragically complicit in her heartbreak.
Loss of familiarity. Loss of friends. Loss of faith. Loss of freedom. Loss of safety. Loss of trust.
Loss upon loss upon loss upon loss.
In the animated film "Inside Out" there is a character called Joy and another called Sadness. They along with other emotions live inside the mind of Riley, a tween girl experiencing major life transition as her family moves away from the familiar to live in a new state and city. For the longest time, Riley's memories (depicted inside glass balls) reflected only the happy yellow of Joy. But when the happy memories are touched by Sadness, her blue color spreads to them instead. Eventually the emotions discover that some memories do include both and in fact, first experiencing sadness makes joy then taste more sweet.
What happens, though, when all the happy yellow memories turn completely blue? This is where some of my children find themselves in relation to Chile now. How can I as a parent with compassion acknowledge their hurt, help carry their pain, yet rescue the joyful memories from being lost? I am not okay with the Enemy stealing all that was good and beautiful from their childhood away from us. I don't want to return to the field still under a cloud, yet so much hard still awaits us. How do I prepare my own heart to refocus on blessings even while facing the fray?
I do not want to live in dread but in determination; not in chaos but in confidence;
not in heartache but in hope; not in fear but in faith.
The answer is, and always will be, Jesus. Jesus said to His disciples in John 16:33, "I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
We were never promised a loss-free life. Quite on the contrary, Jesus stated: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:37-39)
What we lose cannot compare with what have and will gain through Jesus. Freedom from sin. Reconciliation with God. Eternal life. A home in Heaven. The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8-11, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."
If I find more joy in the memories than in Jesus, my joy is misplaced. Only Jesus is worth the sacrifices and the shocks and the sorrows that overshadow because we currently live in a sin-sick world. Only Jesus can heal the hurts and the sadness. Only Jesus has overcome sin and death, and only Jesus is preparing a place for us in a perfect, sinless, eternal Home. Only Jesus holds me in tearful darkness, and only Jesus is my healing, brilliant Light.
I'm borrowing these final words from Ann Voskamp from her recent blog post:
"For too long we have lived a cheap faith, instead of a costly faithfulness.
[...]
We can say we pay allegiance to Jesus, but that is cheap talk; we aren’t paying allegiance to Jesus unless it costs us something.
Following Jesus means a cost will follow.
Following Jesus will mean a cost of comfort, cost of reputation, cost of relationship, cost of status, cost of self, cost of things near and dear, and though it may feel like a rendering in two, any cost for Jesus is only gain for now and all eternity. I’m betting the farm and staking my whole life on the cost of following Jesus is worth it because Jesus is worthy."
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