We See Light

I was 20 years old with a heart full of ambition to meet the lost, lonely, and brokenhearted and to share the love of Jesus with those closest to his heart. I took off on a plane with 4 strangers I had met a few times leading up to the month long mission trip, ready to see the country where my Grandmother Delores began her nursing career and thus inspired me to do what she did. It wasn't her idea to head to West Africa in the 1950's, though being born to a coal-miner of 13 children in Danville, IL (where she graduated high school with Dick Van Dyke's brother, Jerry!) she had great ambition and calling to get out of her poverty stricken life and to make something meaningful of herself. One of her oldest sisters paid her way through nursing school in Chicago. She was completing a shift at the hospital one day when she met a man who was bent over the drinking fountain outside one of her patient's rooms for far too long, waiting on the "prettiest nurse he had ever seen" to come out of the room where he was planning to visit a congregation member as a young pastor. Grandma wasn't interested in Grandpa Jack at that time, and even had a different date planned that weekend, but Grandpa persisted and took her out on a day date lasting long enough that she never made it to the other date she had planned. The rest was history. The young pastor who was called to the mission field took his new bride and headed across the Atlantic by ship to their new home in Sierra Leone where they would have two children, run a nursing clinic, train up pastors, enjoy Coco, my Mom's pet monkey, experience great loss and tragedy with their people, and would generously and lavishly spread the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ right there in the center of the in-escapable pain of so many. And, they would experience deep joy, deep peace, and many modern day miracles. Like the time my Grandma gave birth to my Mom in a clinic in the middle of nowhere, and as she told it, my Mom came out blue, not breathing, while my Grandma cried, prayed, told my Grandpa that she was changing her name (doesn't every exhausted post-partum mother own the right to change their child's name?) helped resuscitate her own baby girl, and nursed her baby to health with limited supplies and an unlimited all-powerful God.

It's hard to grow up hearing stories this powerful and not want to participate in all of that. So my plan from a pretty young age was to live in Africa and work in an orphanage. I told everyone who asked me "what do you want to be when you grow up?" this exact plan from the time I was around age 5. Well, I was either going to be a Missionary to an African Orphanage, an Astronaut, a Pediatric Oncologist, Heart Surgeon, or Labor and Delivery Nurse (that last one found it's way into my life's journey for a period of time).

I was so sure one of those careers would work out, but always knew that somehow my training in any field needed to be used to advocate for children without families and for people in the margins. (Surely God could use Astronaut skills somehow on the mission field, right?).

Spoiler alert, life turned out differently as it so often does. I long for Geographical places and spaces where people have no earthly treasure but where those without earthly treasure teach those of us who are willing to spend time with them what it means to live well. And yet, I've found a God who isn't limited by my location or my circumstances, and who simply says "take my light, hold on tight, there are some dark spaces right where you are here and now. I have people waiting for your willingness to share my light."

Back to that plane with 4 strangers. Naively I thought I was going to share God's love with kids and people in Sierra Leone who needed to know the love of God, while also shoveling out layers of soot from a local school so they could get up and running again after fires had left the school unusable for the past decade. I thought I would spend some time helping give medications in the nursing clinic my Grandmother had once worked in and that I would bless those I was going to serve. The work happened, but instead of me teaching people about God's love for them on that trip, I received lessons in God's love in ways I couldn't process for months afterwards. I met family after family that summer who had been torn apart in ways more horrific than my mind can comprehend by the Diamond Wars of the 1990s that killed tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans (around 75,000 to be more specific) and forced hundreds of thousands to become refugees. Rebel armies had stolen children to drug them and use them in their army, committed painful crimes to women and young girls in front of their families, and had murdered parents in front of their kids. As we met family after family and were privileged to hear story after heart-stopping story, I heard about how death did not overcome, how darkness did not stop love, how God was their sustaining power, provider, peacekeeper, and friend. I saw bright eyes, bright hearts, eager young people with missing arms and missing legs from the bombings, and "missing pieces of their broken hearts" as I would later write down in a song while trying to let the God of the Universe know that this extensive pain his kids had suffered was not OK; was not ever going to be OK.

I witnessed stories of the deepest pain told with smiles and hands raised loudly, joyfully praising Jesus. These people rejoiced from deep within that they were still alive and had "everything that they needed." Their smiles were somehow tied to their souls and brought unshakable warmth to my insides. I could not ever be the same again. How does a person live through worst nightmares and praise a good God? How does my good God exist while such darkness is all around us? That hot July of 2004 God showed me the sweetest truth after a season spent desperately searching for how to reconcile the goodness of God with the stories I had heard from these precious people. The truth God showed me was that there is darkness all around us, but when we remain close to Him, His light will shine. We can walk through the darkest moments, seasons, and situations while remaining in the light. There is light even in the midst of the darkness. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)

I imagine myself wrapping my arms around Jesus, holding on tight, and remaining as close to him as possible while he steps down into dark situations with me. The closer I get to him, the more I can see his view, and the more of his light there is, present in my line of vision. "In His light, we see light." (Psalm 36:9)

This truth that darkness will exist but that God's light will not be overcome by it, and that I can attach myself to Him even in ugly situations, would go on to sustain me and draw me as close as I could get to God. This truth would go on to guide me as I would process the traumatic experiences of children coming to our family through Foster Care, and as I would begin to navigate what it means to help my biological kids process secondary trauma. I know this truth has the power to sustain you through every high and every low that comes after it because it has done that for me. This truth has the power to give your feet steps when your whole body is frozen in fleshly feelings of defeat and you're not sure you can lift your weary spirit out of the bed. This truth has the power to defeat the enemy when he tries to shut you down and convince you that you have no calling, no place in making a difference, no ability and no gifting. This truth has the power to draw us as close as possible to the God who can do all things and it has the power to push us to press on in passionately pursuing people who need this light that outshines the darkness.

For me, this truth of a safe refuge in the midst of any level of suffering or pain, reminds me that when evil actively pursues my marriage, my children or other children that I love, my family members, my friends, friendships, or my purpose, it's worth every ounce of every struggle on every level to keep fighting the good fight for my marriage, for my children and every child in my life, for my friendships, and for my purpose, because there is the hope of an unextinguishable light we can anchor ourselves and our children to that is untouchable by any level of darkness.

When we get close to Jesus, we see light. When we see light, we hold on tight, living free of fear that wants to bind us, and living the full life God so generously offers, right smack dab in the middle of the darkness that swirls around us just like my friends in Sierra Leone chose to do under circumstances that could have stolen their light. They held on tight to Jesus and in his light, they saw light.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10.

"For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light." Psalm 36:9