I first scribbled down this post in my Moleskin journal one morning when I was stuck in Trento, Italy on April 25, 2017. The time I wrote down these thoughts was a quiet moment bookended by heartbreak and adventure. My mom and are were road tripping from Munich, Germany to Rome, Italy. Our rental car broke down in Northern Italy and it was awful, but it also was a good to have this moment of pause.
When I think about the word ‘stay’ feel some rebellious NO rise up in me. I equivocate the word ‘stay’ more with the word ‘stuck’. In the times I’m told by God to stay it makes me want to run.
These last four years I’ve chosen to stay in this place called Cheney, WA. It’s a desert land in Eastern Washington, 400 miles from my home. I’ve staying at this crazy-hard job as a social worker in the foster care system. I’ve lived in a basement apartment in a 3-stoplight town. Countless times I’ve considered packing my bags, jumping in the car, and leaving.
By God’s grace, I’ve stayed.
Why you might ask? It’s been far from easy, but staying in Cheney, WA has been God’s intention for me and the season I am meant to experience. I’ve shared life with sweet neighbors, I’ve gotten to help many families reunite and strengthen and help kids find their way home. I’ve walked through fire as a social worker, struggling for justice, holding babies in the ER, talking hysterical kids through the Wendy’s drive thur for frosties, spoken harsh words and comforting words to scared parents and foster parents. Not one day has been easy. Most days I’ve wanted to bolt for the nearest exit. But I haven’t.
After all this staying I am now preparing to go. It’s strange how something you wrestle against and refuse to love becomes comfortable, normal, and okay. Just last week I actually started to like it. As I think about leaving to go on the Race my little world is turned upside down. I am terrified to go. The loss of the friends and home made here in the desert of Eastern, WA is a huge loss.
Part of the Art of Staying is investing deep. When I moved to eastern Washington all I could see was an ugly desert far from the ocean, friends, and mountains I loved. I was adamant I would leave the moment I graduated. (I moved over to do graduate school and my practicum with Child Protective Services in Spokane, WA.) I was in a stupor of desolation when I first landed here and I had to make a concerted effort to love the parts about this new place. I went on a lot of walks trying to look with new eyes and identify the beauty. I gave myself over to friendship complete with vulnerability, laughter, and a lot of coffee. To invest deep I let the hard work I was doing with families make an impression on who I am.
What’s more, as I prepare to go I am also reminded about the value of staying because you learn so much. The vehicle for this learning is a sort of prolonged discomfort. It means getting up in the morning, suiting up, and going into the arena. The arena where I am currently is called Child Protective Services and it goes a little like this: you don’t know which directions the punches are going to be coming from. The punches come from children and families, their fierce anger, sadness, and pain. They come from your internal administration when they are driven by liability and not by love. And they come from your own trauma the most brutal opponent of all because it beats you down from behind your suit of armor. But the Art of Staying in the discomfort, when the blows come from in front, behind, and within is you discover who you are.
David, you know from the story of David in Goliath, he knew this concept. Way before the infamous showdown with Goliath, David knew the Art of Staying in a place of prolonged discomfort. Even before slinging a few stones at Goliath David was a lowly shepherd, a younger son so underestimated his father didn’t invite him initially to the event he was destined to be anointed by God as the next king of Israel. The prophet Samuel had to ask Jesse, “hey do you have any other sons? Because none of these other ones are it.” As an afterthought David is summoned from the fields. The moment where David defats the Giant Goliath is more like some epic foreshadowing of the rest of David’s life. Because after the event with Goliath David become’s King Saul’s armor bearer. David become’s the harp player to calm Saul’s spells of anger. Saul tries to kill David on numerous occasions while David is living under his roof. David is called to stay and minister to the man who is plotting to kill him and who will eventually chase him down. If David’s experience isn’t prolonged discomfort, I don’t know what is! But David stays. And what’s more important, he stays the course God has him on.
So often when I feel like life is completely insane I turn to the Psalms. The same way music ministers to our soul beyond words, the Psalms connect with that emotion frustrated part of me. And some of the Psalms which have spoken the loudest are the ones where David is crying out to God in his moments of being called to stay the course. Psalm 142 was a prayer written by David when he is on the run from Saul in a cave. David dramatically and passion pleads for God to remove him from the situation. He talks about his enemies who are gaining on him and setting traps on the path ahead. David is tired and afraid. He is just done. In one of the most powerful lines David cries out, “Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name!” This cave was as much as a refugee as it was a prison. At this point David has experienced the cost of staying and fleeing but staying the course.
On a such a smaller scale I’ve felt this.
I’ve cried out to God and asked for rescue. I’ve cried out in great need saying like David, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Translation, “God you are all I have. I can’t do this anymore, and you are all that keeps me going in this place.”
The Art of Staying has taught me courage and perseverance. By staying these last four years I’ve only become more aware of how imperfect and needy I am! I need God badly because His Spirit that gives me everything needed to stay and to move forward.
I’ve learned choosing integrity means so much more than not taking the easy way out, it means facing down real pain, and it means staying!!! In my time here I’ve made hard decisions and I’ve had to live in those choices. I’ve had to learn what I’m made of. Integrity, beyond “who you are when know one is watching” also means “what your made of.” When you think of the integrity of the bolts that hold your wheels on your car you rely on those bolts. The decisions I made and stayed with and endured were there same. And no matter how right I know they were it didn’t stop the beat down both the external from people who were furious around me and the internal shame and doubt.
I’ve learned if you want to help people it’s not hard work, its sacrifice of your pride, your expectations, your time, and your reputation. I think going on the Race is going to reteach me these things again, but knowing me, I’ll need the re-education.
The Art of Staying has taught me to fight anxiety with bravery. And not only to fight it once, but to fight it over and over and over again. Anxiety is better described as in-action. When we do nothing where we are something creeps up on us and gets us. We must learn on guard from these pesky fears and doubts and battle them away.
It is the Art of Staying for which is my basis in knowing how to go, and to go boldly. And I am scared to go. I am so scared. I am crying out to God, sending dramatic texts to my friends, maybe losing a little sleep. But I will stay. I will stay on this path God has me on.
