The other day a friend, who had recently left our floating home sent me an instant message asking how ship life was going for me. The tricky thing about instant messaging is that it forces you to summarize oceans of emotions together into brief, cohesive sentences. I had no problem.
“You know…..the same….amazingly wonderful and horribly challenging all at the same time”
It’s just how it is. The wonderful side tips the scales, obviously. I can think of nothing that I would rather be doing than living this life, doing what I am doing. It is overwhelmingly rewarding and downright incredible to spend the better part of all of my wakeful hours contributing to something in which I believe so strongly.
But, the challenge part of it all is just as existent, and I am beginning to think, just as important as the rest of it.
We are taught from such a young age that through trial, strength is developed. The preacher at church last Sunday morning reminded us that “…when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2-3). His words came as an insightful conclusion to a challenging, yet entertaining morning. Rainy season has arrived in Togo. When we woke up and saw the massive amounts of water streaming from the sky with intense determination, we briefly considered bailing on our plans to go to church. But that would have meant we missed the important part – the part where our group, plus about 25 of the members of the congregation bailed a foot of water out of the church, so that church could happen. As I looked around at the group, in probably what is their only set of church clothes, soaked head to toe, using buckets and serving bowls and towels to defend their church home from water damage, I couldn’t help but be touched by the devotion and determination displayed.
When you care about something, you work for it….sacrifice for it….put your heart into it. And if you have to work, sacrifice, and put your heart into something, you can’t help but end up caring deeply about it.
Our approach to adversity is peculiar really: despite the fact that it is entirely inevitable and most often, completely out of our control, we dread its presence. And because we are in the habit of convincing ourselves to believe in a standard of utopia, we feel slighted when it shows its unfortunate face. The thing is - there is not a single one among us who has been promised a life free of trouble. The Bible doesn’t say if you face troubles, but when.
As I reflect on these last couple of months, I wonder what has changed me the most…where I learned the most….what will stick with me and define who I become. O’brien, Aissa, Tani, Abel, O’brien’s mama, fat baby Marius, bartering for hours with vendors in markets, being squished in taxis with seven others, working in areas that aren’t my comfort zone, having to make “bunk beds” in the wards to fit all the patients in, eating foods that I didn’t think I would like, trying and failing at walking across Togo, failing miserably at communicating in French – small trials that forced me to grow and learning from people who have encountered much greater trials than I have yet to face.
As much as the anticipation of adversity can be overwhelming, I would argue that we are completely dependant on it. A life of perfection on this earth is, at best, a falsehood. Trials will come. They will hurt. They might leave scars. But they will make us people of substance who are intensely purpose-driven in their passions.