In Which I Lost It & See His Kingdom Coming

I had a moment today. A moment in which I absolutely, positively lost it. It was hot today, more so then what is normal during this rainy season. I kept sweating and itching. And I was wearing a nice dress, for a change. Everyone was staring. At first, it’s just funny. But after weeks, I just want to give them the show they’re looking for.

But I restrain myself, thank goodness. [Let’s just be clear though—I could totally entertain them.] While “mom” was picking the veggies out at the market, I took a photo of the police officer and he wasn’t too happy about it, to say the least. I felt even more like a piece of meat as he tried to force us into giving him a bribe to leave us alone. The corruption is overwhelming. A few days ago, I talked about eating the cow in a Hindi home [they don’t eat the cow here; they worship it].  Sometimes, I have no filter.

When we drove home, there was a woman with her face covered in black lines. I asked why and mom explained to me. Many years ago when the British took over this region, the white men would rape the young girls. Desperate for a way out, the women decided if they could make themselves look uglier, perhaps the men would no longer desire them. Thus, they tattooed (probably in an incredibly painful method) black lines across their entire faces and heads. Mom explains that the women in their 60s and 70s with the lines, are the ones that didn’t get raped. And the ones without the lines, well they weren’t as fortunate, she tells me.

The topic changes but my mind remains fixed on the woman covered in black lines.

We ride back into town and get caught in the parade. We are stuck and the car is turned off and the sweat is—well, it’s everywhere. The police make me feel self-conscious and the people around the car are captivated by our white skin, as usual. I feel suddenly as though I am in a cage to be sold, a commodity and I remember the woman with the lines and my mind says jump out the back and run. Then mom says, “Let’s play a game,” offering up a deck of cards in her hand. I laugh?

Then the cart comes. Twenty or thirty grown men at least, pulling and pushing this huge float with men standing atop, even a little boy. They are worshipping the idol and I see it all fading so fast. All men will fall to hell or their faces and only God will remain lifted high. Thousands line this one little street in the middle of no where India all to worship these men on this cart and in light of how it all ends, well, I just don’t know what to do with the weight of it all.

It’s afternoon and I cannot name a place on my body where there is not some sort of bump that itches. Like a funny joke, they all start up at once. Kids are everywhere as it is a day off of school [and their energy levels seem to expand the closer we get to bedtime] and our lunch company lingers well into the evening. There are to-do lists everywhere, some correction of the ones I have completed, adding to those too and I feel the room getting hotter. There is no rest and I am feeling suffocated. The kids get louder and most of what I know is back with the mascara that I must have forgotten alongside the bathroom sink.  

I jump up in the middle of conversation and run upstairs at which point all the building up floods out onto the pillow now lending support to my head. It’s too much, I decide. There is no way I can do this every single day, after day after day after day. I plead with the Lord because I love the people, I really, really love them. I splash cool water on my face and breathe in and out. I smile to the mirror because I am learning joy that so far exceeds my feelings and I don’t know how else to remember. And the trials, those too, I am learning to count as joy. There is a steadfastness lacking in the ever-wondering of my heart and I desire to see it come while the eternal wait continues.

And here, I find it because God meets me in this place of the itchy, sweaty, unorganized and underprivileged land they call India, the same one which God is teaching me to love outside of myself.

I go downstairs and we leave to visit several homes. I look into the eyes of these brothers and sisters filling my cup and stomach, and of myself I am seeping onto the couch beneath me. I am a selfish brat most days here, and it builds up. Until the holy spirit at His finest breathes the body to life right in front of my eyes and there is no denying His work in this place and the yearning He is growing inside of me to be apart of it. 

They are my family, these ones sitting around me and that is undeniable in spite of me, myself and I.

We pray for them and my life verse is plastered on the wall across from the couch where I sit, duh. Well, of course it is? I think to myself. “His power is made perfect in thee.” The translation, I have no clue, but He is reminding me to boast in these weaknesses that His power might be magnified in my weakness and so I write to boast tonight.

I have no words as I see the itching, lizards, and to-do lists fade so quickly in light of the glory of Christ and his spirit at work in these people and this place. This is real, you know? 

It’s the eternal that sheds light on what is fading. And truly, I do not think lizards will be an issue when every knee bows and every tongue confesses.

Who’s Kingdom are you yearning for, my daughter? Whose are you furthering?

Mine is here and to come. Open your eyes to see beyond yourself and see my bride preparing, glorious and longing for hope too.

We leave one week from today [for the city] and the thought is painful already. We are both wrestling today, with the Lord and this place is changing us in ways neither of us saw coming. They expect us back here, and soon. Please join us in praying for us to know what the next step is, and for deeper focus on relationship in our final week here.

A girls night is in the works for Sunday. Pray for that too.

By lizards and His glorious grace,
Courtney 

When All I Have Is Love

We sat in that little living room for hours, it had to have been. This was the first home we had visited where the conversation was fluent, minor a few snags in pronunciation of course. He is the dad to two boys attending the school where we teach, and his own duties of research and school inspection and teaching English qualify him to communicate well. His dreams of studying in America came to life in our midst, and upon the discovery Syd’s dad is indeed a teacher his grin could not stretch itself far enough. It won’t surprise me when he calls Sydney’s dad, asking for the job.

They fed us salty cake and when we’d had our fill, more cake appeared. We drank sprite and later on some Chai. We laughed a lot. And yet there was a grieving stirred inside too. This day off for us from teaching at the school was a celebration of just one of the millions of God’s worshiped by our Hindi friends; and this family had been completely sold into the deception with no glance back.

As he gawked at us, mouth open wide, when we explained that our parents are not married, our moms are re-married, our siblings are also a more complicated web to explain than English meeting Hindi can make sense of. 

Does your dad love you, sister? He kept asking, as he couldn’t reconcile the love of a man defined by leaving our moms and not supporting us completely until marriage. And in the moment, we assured him of our parents love for us, despite brokenness. But I won't forget his words. We told him that we hope to offer a different legacy to our future kids. We explained that because of Christ in our lives, there is much love we hope to offer. He nodded and smiled, yes sister, I think you will. 

We don’t agree on much spiritually and my prayers for this family have remained from a year ago when I met them. I love them, you know. Their youngest we nick-name ‘roly poly’ as it is a far too perfect description of his build with his small round glasses,  and endless prayers for God to relieve him of his asthma. He is precious and I often catch myself laughing simply at his sight.

He carried out the cake to us and hid a piece behind his back to eat too. We could not stop laughing. It was hilarious. I love how the joy of the Lord is not bound by income, nation, or language.

I left in awe of God’s grace in my life. Thankful for it. This man, he seemed so broken to hear testimony of our American lives. Perhaps his version of the American dream fleshed out through us sitting in his living room was crushed too.

You pay how much for your rent? Your phone bill costs what?! You do not live with your parents? How could your dad not love you enough to stay with your mom and support your family? All legitimate questions to which I know the only way out is Christ.

Even as he hopes with all his might in the opportunities afforded to him through studying in the US, I watch him wrestle with the disappointing truth we share. I think it is often in the brokenness welcomed when idols are crushed that we look out of the pit and see only Christ. I pray even such a simple conversation would strike some hope lost in that of the U.S. and the world of academia in his heart.

I took out my phone to show photos of my life and within minutes his boys had it in their grip, uttering gibberish and laughing. Life is funny this way. In those moments when I took those photos, I never thought these eyes would see them. If only we will live life this way too—always accountable and never unguarded for the day of the Lord is coming!

And that’s just it—the day of the Lord IS coming. And unfortunately this family won’t be there apart from Christ’s holy sprit drawing them to Himself. And when you hear about the 33 million gods and the 1.4 billion people worshipping them, well it’s sad but you continue living life of course. 

Until you get here and the numbers become faces that you love on every day and the gods become the cart parading down the street in front of you and the sacrifices offered behind the curtains of the markets in which you eat and it’s just so very real.

Suddenly the old testament law becomes applicable and God’s grace is displayed through it more in my heart then I ever imagined.

This man loves his family more. He desperately desires to see his boys succeed and find happiness. The compassion he shares for his wife’s illnesses and beauty are humbling. And yet, apart from Christ where is eternity? Even for the boys that spend hours listening to me teach everyday?

It’s a wrestling happening here more and more regularly. A debt I wish I could pay for him. For all four of them. But I can’t. All I an do is love more like Christ. 

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 1 Corinthians 1:17

Psalm 71 reminds us as well, that God is a rock of refuge, to which  may continually come; HE has given the command to save ME (and others!) for He i the rock and fortress. ONLY God can save, no matter how desperately we desire to see a brother or sister come to faith in Him. 

And at the end of the day I toss and turn deep into the night, knowing my lack of ability to convict with wise words is indeed surrendered to the magnification of Christ in all of His glory and yet—I so desperately want them to get it.

Christ is the same with us I think, as He begs us to not befriend the world. To the extent as such, that doing so is indeed enmity with Him. He tells us how He yearns jealously over the Holy Spirit He placed inside of us and then promises grace to be more and more.

I don’t understand it and I can’t live outside of it. Oh grace, how sweet the sound. Please fall upon my brothers and sisters here as their idols leave them severed from hope eternal, found ONLY in you oh precious Lord and Savior. Friends, please join me in praying for this mom, dad, and two boys.