When I was a lot younger my parents and I went to a theme park. We must have spent the entire day there but all I remember of the entire day was what happened while my parents were packing the trunk of the car to leave. My mom was stung in the back of the neck by a bee. She shouted out in pain and my dad jumped into action immediately. He threw the rest of our things into the trunk, buckled me into my seat and returned to my mom to tend to her pain.
I remember looking out of the back window after shifting myself around in my seat and watching in horror as my mom cried. At that time I had never been stung by a bee but from what I could perceive from my Mom’s expression it was lethal. So I began to cry too. I cried the entire way home.
The idea of losing my mom was just too much. And in some ways it still is.
While she was still in the hospital all I could think about was that story—of that feeling of utter despair at the idea of losing her. She was my best friend, my confidant and my mother. God knew when He knitted the plans of our lives that we would need each other. She was one of the only constants in my life, growing up in a military family. She exemplified home to me. No matter where in the world I was whenever anyone asked me where my home was I saw her.
When my dad left us when I was 10 she took my shallow faith and taught me how to trust the Lord’s plans as well as His ability to sustain and restore our family. She showed me what it looked like to live out that once shallow faith—she showed me what it looked like to live with your eyes focused on Christ.
When we lived in California and I fell in “love” with a boy for the first time she would drive around Seaside and Monterey with me so that I could tell her about all the updates from the day. I would then listen to her sage advice and then we would head home. Then, when he broke my heart she sat with me and a tub of rocky road ice cream as I put all of the things he gave me into a box and duct taped it shut (because she told me that I might want to open it again someday to see those memories).
When we moved to Georgia the year I turned 16 she bought me two cakes even though I still didn’t know anyone. Then, because Georgia was a really hard place for me, she would pick me up from school every day for the first two weeks and spent time with me at Starbucks listening to me proclaim all the injustices of the school and state over a chai tea latté, hot chocolate and a chocolate cream cheese muffin.
When it came time for me to look at colleges I began to receive a lot of information from different Christian schools. I thought that it was a sign from God and did end up going to a Christian university but it wasn’t until a few years later that I found out that she had signed me up for them all.
When we found out about my little brother she fought for my dad and her to be able to go and meet him for the first time. Then, when I was able to save enough for us to all go she showed me what grace looked like in each hug and kind word she shared with our family in Honduras. Through experiencing her love for them, regardless of the situation that caused our connection, she showed me what it looked like to tangibly live out the love of Christ, to forgive like we have been forgiven by Christ.
My whole life she told me that I was going to be a missionary, that God had a call on my life because He told her. She told me that, medically, she wasn’t supposed to have been able to have me but that God had brought me into the world for something that He had planned for His glory. Even with her telling me those things my entire life she still cried when I told that I felt called to go on the World Race, not because she didn’t want me to go but because she was going to miss me.
I remember one night at our church in Hawaii, when I had first been accepted for the World Race, we were singing Oceans by Hillsong and she sat down, held my hand and cried. She told me that she had just felt God tell her that she wasn’t going to see me again and I just told her that the World Race was only eleven months long and there would be places with WiFi for Skype.
Before I left for the World Race my mom gave me a packet of eleven letters—one to open each month of the Race. Somehow she always spoke to something that I was experiencing but the card that I got in May hadn’t. It talked about brokenness and I hadn’t experienced that yet. She said, “Tina I couldn’t understand as you prepped for this the fear I heard in your voice and the focus on ‘brokenness’ until today as they shared about brokenness. How they hope that you are broken so that you can finally be dependent on God and that God can finally begin to use us in a very real way. I have to say that I too initially became nervous, apprehensive and then that still small voice said what about you and the coming year. The fear began to be replaced with excitement. Excitement for what God is going to do this coming year for you, for me, for those we know and for those we’ve yet to meet. I’m sorry we have to be broken to grow—to have our faith become our own. The good thing is we’ve both been through some of that ‘hard times’ that made us develop our own faith in Christ. All that to say don’t fear it, honey. You’ve already lived some of it God’s just gonna take us deeper. Perhaps you’ve already come to this point. Lean in God’s hands keep your eyes on Him so you can continue to walk on water.’
Then she added, “I will as the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever” John 14:16
I don’t think she ever could have known that she would be involved with my introduction to brokenness or that what God held for her this year was to finally see Him face to face.
When we come into the field we are told not to have expectations for what the Race will look like and I tried not to. I did, though, have expectations for the rest of my life. I expected things of introducing her to my future husband, having her cry at my wedding, showing her my first sonogram, calling her with every ‘first child’ fear and a million other things.
Right now I have a million questions for God and only one answer, “I know what I am doing, don’t worry, you haven’t fallen out of My hand.” And that is what I am operating out of, that He knows what He is doing and He knows what comes next.
