Looking back now, I realize there are many things people
never told me. Some days I wonder what I will see when I look back on me 30
years from now. What will I know then that I wish I knew now? As I sit here in
the now, I think about the future, but I ponder the past. No one told me that
going overseas would change so much of me. That after being in Rwanda,
countless nights later I would close my eyes and still hear those stories, see
their faces and feel their pain. That little girl I passed in India? The one I’ve talked about before, whose eyes
were blinded intentionally so she could beg more effectively. I walked passed
her and I remembered watching Slumdog Millionaire, only this time it was real
and she was right there in front of me, close enough to touch.
Here I sit, 3 weeks home from Uganda. Somehow coming home
this time is different from the times before. I’m reminded to become a hunter
of beauty, to find wonder in small places where no one else does. And somehow,
sometimes, I find myself succeeding. I ski through the woods and my dog Wilson
looks up at me with a mischievous grin. I love her wild. And then the joy, that
untamed joy and thankfulness is followed by guilt as I think about the
challenges of where I just was and I miss my friends there deeply. How do I
bridge the gap of where I am and where I just was?
How do I become that person God intends me to be? I realize
that sometimes His plans are different from mine. I certainly didn’t think I
would still be single by this point in my life. One day as I was complaining to
one of my good friends about my seemingly perpetual singleness, she looked me
deep in the eyes and told me never to let being married get in the way of the
way I love people, or the things I do overseas. That day she challenged me, she
made me realize that whether I get married or not I can be one of those people
who gets up and lets God open the hands and hold my heart. As one of my
favourite songs says I can learn to stand with arms high and heart abandoned. I
can learn, am learning, how to be called to holiness, yet to still love people
in a way that says I can listen and accept who they are fully and completely
without judgment. To let people know that even though our life experience may
be vastly different, I still know and understand what it means to be human. All
this, it will take all of life to learn, because I know I will fall and have to
find my way back up time and time again. And so I look forward, challenged to
keep finding joy, to fight for peace and to learn how to live fully present to
those around me even when parts of me live across the ocean even still.
God Speed,
Jaimee
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