I got up at 2 AM to video chat my family back in the United States, as they were all gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving a few days early.
While the call lasted only thirty minutes, politics, my life choices, and football were all discussed, so it was kind of like being there for the whole dinner. I’m only joking! My family loves to have different opinions and loves to argue, so the messiness feels like home.
And yeah, I did a lot of crying during that thirty minutes too.
I held it together well for the first five, and then my mom went through the menu of what was going to be on the table. My mouth watered for the comfort foods I’ve enjoyed year after year and my heart turned bitter toward the white rice I’ve eaten nearly every day since leaving home.
And then the voice who loves to whisper lies to me began reminding me of all the discomfort and darkness I’m faced with daily. Thailand might claim to be the land of smiles, but for me, it’s also a land of darkness and hidden things; a land of hopelessness.
“Oh don’t cry what’s wrong?” My mom asked, her own tears pooling.
“I’m just really sick of rice.” I sobbed out, the only thing I could actually convey.
As I lay in bed after hanging up, I began to realize that most of my emotions and thoughts toward this month remaining largely inexplicable, especially to people back home.
How do I explain to people back home the woman at the bar so obviously drugged out of her mind, barely able to keep her eyes open as I try and talk to her? How hopelessness hung like a chain around her neck and any words I offered got brushed away?
How can I explain the way my heart physical hurts when the sweet little girls from the slums come and give me hugs, but all the while I know that when I leave for the day, they will be sent out to the bars to make money for their families?
And how do I tell about the fear I feel when one falls and scrapes her knee, for I must be extremely careful in how I clean it because many of the children suffer from AIDS?
How do I tell people back home about how I’ve seen demons watching me from around temple doors? Or that angels have asked me to pray for them? That I feel unseen eyes on my back constantly when I enter into places where darkness dwells?
How?
I haven’t had many words for the things I’ve seen because I start to doubt my experiences and feel a little bit crazy when I try and explain it all. I know that it’s folly to think I know the way the world works, because the longer I’m out in it, the more The Lord is shattering my understanding of e v e r y t h i n g. But yet, I struggle to talk about it because back home, I didn’t experience anything like this.
This month, I’ve learned to be humble and to accept his mighty, sovereign will on this Earth. However, I still struggle to release these inexplicable situations and emotions to Him and replace the imprints of darkness they leave behind with hope.
Accepting His hope means fighting for justice as He leads me to, but being willing to sit still when things are out of my control.
One morning, myself and two of my squadmates got up at 4:30 AM and hiked to the top of the Huay Kaew waterfall to see the sunrise. On the way up, we took the wrong path twice, had to backtrack, stumbled in the dark when our headlamps didn’t offer enough light, but somehow managed to scramble to a flat place above the tree line of the mountain.
We were in darkness. And even leaving behind the difficulty of the hike, we sat in the dark, waiting for an everyday miracle.
The sun rose slowly, inching to its rightful place in the sky. First, gray, then oranges and blues, and yellows and pinks. The sun itself sat hidden behind a mountain range opposite ours, but it bled a deep red into the sky. The red intensified each minute the sun remained hidden, growing in anticipation for what was to come.
Then, in her totally brilliance, the sun burst forth from behind the mountain range, shining down on Chiang Mai below, and sending the last vestiges of darkness away.
That’s God and that’s me. I wander in hopelessness, thinking that if I keep dwelling down on the dark path, I will eventually find something. But The Lord calls me to flat places where I can see things as He sees them, and if I’m willing to just sit still long enough, He burst forth His beauty in moments that completely dazzle me.
Like when I got to read the bible with my dear Buddhist monk friend, Yom. Or when I got to hold sweet six year old Abyia’s hand and teach her how to pray to the one true God. Or when I returned to a temple I’ve been praying at for a long while and instead of being met with darkness, I was met with a complete emptiness that gave me hope that kingdom has come.
There is hope. Even on the days when I don’t believe it, I declare it; THERE IS HOPE!
So I’m walking in that truth and daily choosing hope. He has called me a child of the light, and when did light ever, ever, ever allow darkness to steal from it?
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Currently: Sitting on a swing as I write, Chiang Mai, Thailand | 12:33 PM | 86% Funded | “Taking her by the hand he said to her, ‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise.'” Mark 5:41
