As I re-read my journal entries from March 2012, I can almost hear my foot tapping with impatience. Our first semester of language classes involved trying to meet basic needs such as securing decent food and housing. In March 2012, in the thick of our second semester, we were setting our sites on the future.
God, I pray too for guidance about how to serve you past language studies this summer...I miss going to theological conferences and taking leadership, Lord....You know I have that desire in my heart, Lord. Please respond to it as you see fit (March 19, 2012).
I'd made a deal with God before we moved to China: Brian and I would study Mandarin full-time for a year, then God would tell us our plans after that. Brian and I had upheld our end of the bargain. We'd diligently applied ourselves to language learning, and were proactive in gaining exposure to theological and legal undercurrents in the Middle Kingdom. As summer approached, however, and the end of our language year was looming with no clear pathway beyond that, I was starting to suspect God wasn't going to pony up.
It’s another kick in the pants that we feel rather lost and unsure here. Yes, I praise you for providing for our basic needs—I am so glad we have a better apartment, have access to better food, and have made more relationships here. Thank you for that, and it’s humbling it’s taken 7 months to even get to that stage. Yet we want to know what’s next...I don’t know how many different ways to say it. We are wondering how we are supposed to proceed. How active versus how passive should we be? We know you are a good and faithful and loving God. Please Lord, speak to us. Hold us in your hands. Provide for our needs. We want to be faithful to your name, so please make it clear in what capacity we are called to serve you here (March 23, 2012).
Do you hear that, dear reader? That's the sound of my presuppositions and false expectations crumbling. Even as God had been faithful in providing food, housing, and mercy in unexpected places, I was learning that our life in China would not unfold how I initially expected. In fact, I didn't even know I HAD expectations for our future in China until they were not met. I thought I'd made a deal with God, but I was learning that maybe God had never agreed to my deal in the first place.
The first weekend in March, Brian and I had attended an excellent conference in Shanghai on marketplace ministry. We enjoyed two days of solid teaching on God's work in the world, and the ways the Lord calls us to respond in kind. Yet I realized only after the conference finished uneventfully that I'd assumed God would drop a letter from heaven, telling me what to do next. Our disappointment was compounded with the first of many doors that supernaturally shut for potential work for Brian, work we assumed was a shoo-in:
Jesus, you know both Brian and I are deeply disappointed about the rejection from the [potential] position in Beijing. It seemed like a perfect fit for him, and it seemed Providential...but I must admit it seems really cruel to Brian to have such a seemingly perfect job get slammed shut in his face (March 23, 2012).
The Chinese have many words and phrases for "worry, be anxious" (at least 39, according to my smartphone dictionary). I admittedly only mastered the use of two of them: 担心 (dan xin) and 着急 (zhao ji). 着急 is used specifically when one is worried about a lack of time. For example, " I 着急 I will be late." Or, "don't 着急, you'll finish the test in time." 担心 literally means "to carry one's heart on the shoulder." Examples of 担心 include "don't 担心, I'll be careful when I return home this evening." Or "I 担心 about her health, because she seems rather sick lately." In March 2012, I was exhibiting both forms of worry. I was 担心 and I was 着急.*
In hindsight, I see that God was already answering my prayers for me to take on leadership and to serve. HICF, our church in Hangzhou, asked me to lead their Easter service that April. It was a huge honor, yet a huge responsibility as I organized the largest ministry event of the church. Brian and I were also planning to host Brian's parents in China in May, our first guests to visit us from the US, and a test of our Chinese tour guide skills. I see now that God was forming us step by step, and shaping us day by day.
In March 2012, however, I was only beginning to understand the liberating and terrifying truth of 2 Peter 3:8, which says, "do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." My false expectations, my false self, and my false timeline had to die before I could understand God's truth for me. My journal entries in March 2012 reflect the first stages of that grief. God had certainly made a deal with me, but not one I expected; I was beginning the wild ride of relinquishing my own terms, and accepting divine ones.
*I was 着急 so much that I became quite sick in early March, finding myself battling my fear of illness versus my fear of contending with the Chinese medical system. My fear of Chinese hospitals ultimately won out, so I don't know exactly what I had because I never found a doctor. Whatever it was, it left me puking, feverish, chilled, and bedridden for a week.
God, I pray too for guidance about how to serve you past language studies this summer...I miss going to theological conferences and taking leadership, Lord....You know I have that desire in my heart, Lord. Please respond to it as you see fit (March 19, 2012).
I'd made a deal with God before we moved to China: Brian and I would study Mandarin full-time for a year, then God would tell us our plans after that. Brian and I had upheld our end of the bargain. We'd diligently applied ourselves to language learning, and were proactive in gaining exposure to theological and legal undercurrents in the Middle Kingdom. As summer approached, however, and the end of our language year was looming with no clear pathway beyond that, I was starting to suspect God wasn't going to pony up.
It’s another kick in the pants that we feel rather lost and unsure here. Yes, I praise you for providing for our basic needs—I am so glad we have a better apartment, have access to better food, and have made more relationships here. Thank you for that, and it’s humbling it’s taken 7 months to even get to that stage. Yet we want to know what’s next...I don’t know how many different ways to say it. We are wondering how we are supposed to proceed. How active versus how passive should we be? We know you are a good and faithful and loving God. Please Lord, speak to us. Hold us in your hands. Provide for our needs. We want to be faithful to your name, so please make it clear in what capacity we are called to serve you here (March 23, 2012).
Do you hear that, dear reader? That's the sound of my presuppositions and false expectations crumbling. Even as God had been faithful in providing food, housing, and mercy in unexpected places, I was learning that our life in China would not unfold how I initially expected. In fact, I didn't even know I HAD expectations for our future in China until they were not met. I thought I'd made a deal with God, but I was learning that maybe God had never agreed to my deal in the first place.
The first weekend in March, Brian and I had attended an excellent conference in Shanghai on marketplace ministry. We enjoyed two days of solid teaching on God's work in the world, and the ways the Lord calls us to respond in kind. Yet I realized only after the conference finished uneventfully that I'd assumed God would drop a letter from heaven, telling me what to do next. Our disappointment was compounded with the first of many doors that supernaturally shut for potential work for Brian, work we assumed was a shoo-in:
Jesus, you know both Brian and I are deeply disappointed about the rejection from the [potential] position in Beijing. It seemed like a perfect fit for him, and it seemed Providential...but I must admit it seems really cruel to Brian to have such a seemingly perfect job get slammed shut in his face (March 23, 2012).
The Chinese have many words and phrases for "worry, be anxious" (at least 39, according to my smartphone dictionary). I admittedly only mastered the use of two of them: 担心 (dan xin) and 着急 (zhao ji). 着急 is used specifically when one is worried about a lack of time. For example, " I 着急 I will be late." Or, "don't 着急, you'll finish the test in time." 担心 literally means "to carry one's heart on the shoulder." Examples of 担心 include "don't 担心, I'll be careful when I return home this evening." Or "I 担心 about her health, because she seems rather sick lately." In March 2012, I was exhibiting both forms of worry. I was 担心 and I was 着急.*
In hindsight, I see that God was already answering my prayers for me to take on leadership and to serve. HICF, our church in Hangzhou, asked me to lead their Easter service that April. It was a huge honor, yet a huge responsibility as I organized the largest ministry event of the church. Brian and I were also planning to host Brian's parents in China in May, our first guests to visit us from the US, and a test of our Chinese tour guide skills. I see now that God was forming us step by step, and shaping us day by day.
In March 2012, however, I was only beginning to understand the liberating and terrifying truth of 2 Peter 3:8, which says, "do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." My false expectations, my false self, and my false timeline had to die before I could understand God's truth for me. My journal entries in March 2012 reflect the first stages of that grief. God had certainly made a deal with me, but not one I expected; I was beginning the wild ride of relinquishing my own terms, and accepting divine ones.
*I was 着急 so much that I became quite sick in early March, finding myself battling my fear of illness versus my fear of contending with the Chinese medical system. My fear of Chinese hospitals ultimately won out, so I don't know exactly what I had because I never found a doctor. Whatever it was, it left me puking, feverish, chilled, and bedridden for a week.