When I was a kid, John, Andie and I would constantly explore around our neighborhood. Our favorite time to explore was when it had rained. The creek that ran right next to our house would fill up and we would play in the water for hours, creating stories and playing make believe. The creek ran under the road through a metal tunnel carved out of the earth. I was never a fan of the tunnel and never had the guts to follow my siblings all the way through. Instead, I would back out and run across the road on top to meet them on the other side.
The tunnel was scary – it was dark and wet and you couldn’t see anything inside. I thought my brother and sister were crazy for willingly going through it each time. They did so with bravery and, despite my beliefs that the tunnel would be the end of them, they always came out on the other side, mostly unscathed.
We were stuck in Manila for three weeks just recently, and for those three weeks, I endured a really long and dark tunnel that didn’t seem to want to end. I got Typhoid, my Grandfather passed away, we weren’t able to get back to our Filipino home in Tacloban no matter how hard we tried, forcing us to spend Christmas and New Years in a strange place when we already had to be away from family and friends.
The tunnel the creek ran through at home suddenly seemed like a walk in a park.
I’ve never been truly sick before. My fevers have only ever been the product of holding the thermometer to a lamp while my parents were out of the room. At debrief we have “church” every night where the whole squad gathers together for worship and some sort of message and application. Second night, I started violently shivering. I headed to my room, called my dad, popped some meds, went to bed….and it only got worse from there. Typhoid. Great. Foreign country, doctors who don’t speak my language, family 7,000 miles away, I can’t keep anything down and I can’t even walk more than a few feet without having to sit down and catch my breath. It was a nightmare I just wanted to wake up from.
Sick in bed. I have little else to do so I check my snapchat, only to find a picture on Christopher’s story of my Gram and Grandfather holding hands with the caption, “until the very end”. Come to find out, my entire family was gathered at my house giving their final goodbyes to my beloved Grandfather. I called home in a panic, where they updated me on everything going on. I think my heart actually broke as it hit me harder than ever that I would not be there to tell him that I loved him one more time. Last day of debrief. I’m texting my dad about how I’m feeling and he doesn’t respond for a while. The next time he texts me, it simply states, “Grandfather just went to heaven”. The morning I was supposed to be packing to leave debrief, I sat on my bed with tears falling down my face and a hurt in my heart I couldn’t shake. He was gone. That was that. And I wasn’t there.
Home. A place I had to leave nearly 6 months ago, but it’s also a place that I’ve created around the world. My Filipino home has become the Lighthouse in Tacloban. I’ve fallen in love with the people and the ministry and just everything about it. I was ready to leave debrief and come back… Come to find out that the bus drivers went on strike, plane tickets were over budget and private vans weren’t willing to drive us that far. We were stuck in Manila, with no end in sight. We spent Christmas and New Years in a place we honestly really didn’t want to be. I was angry. For whatever reason, the Lord wanted me to stay in a place that held so many bad connotations for me and was still asking me to press in to Him and to the people around me. That’s exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do.
I wish I could say I held a positive outlook and that I chose joy in all circumstances. In reality, the prospect of going home had never been so appealing.
While we were in Manila, I visited a bookstore, which is my kind of heaven. I pulled out book after book after book, sat in the aisle and read. One particular book caught my attention. “Praying the Names of God”. The stickler I am about money, I didn’t buy it, but my friend Ciera (Chara) did, and I am forever grateful.
Every week, the book takes you through a different name of God mentioned in the original text of the Bible. It teaches you how to apply that name to your prayer life and opens up a new characteristic of God.
“El Roi” (el raw-ee)— the God who sees me.
In the story of Sarah and Abraham, Hagar, Sarah’s servant, is sometimes forgotten. She bore Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, because Sarah was convinced God’s promise couldn’t possibly apply to her in her old age. Before the baby came along, though, Hagar was sent away. While she was in the desert, an angel appeared to her and told her to go back to Sarah and submit, for her descendants would be many and be a great nation.
Hagar’s response? “I have seen the God who sees me.”
God saw Hagar in her anguish and pushed her to keep going, because she would be blessed for her obedience. The Lord showed Hagar the light at the end of her tunnel; the Lord showed Hagar that He was the light at the end of the tunnel.
My tunnel in Manila seemed a little hopeless at times. I struggled and cried and was angry more than I have been in an extremely long time. I didn’t understand any of what was going on and I surely didn’t understand the “why” behind any of it. I’m sure Hagar had those thoughts a time or two as she wandered in the desert: pregnant and alone.
The beauty of it, though, is that Hagar never really was alone. God always saw and He was always there. And what I’m starting to realize is that the Lord saw me too and He was always with me: in the hostel, in my hospital bed, in my anguish and in my tears… He was there.
None of this took Him by surprise. He knew I would get Typhoid and He knew my Grandfather would pass away and He knew we’d be stuck in Manila. He even knew that I wouldn’t be too thrilled about any of it.
However, He also knew that I would get well again. He knew that Grandfather would be in heaven. He knew that we would indeed end up back in Tacloban. And He knew that though I was angry and confused, it would ultimately lead to a better understanding of who my God actually is.
He’s my God who sees me.
He’s my shepherd who leads me.
He’s my light at the end of the tunnel.
