you paint it well, but not so right

this past weekend, ethan and i watched black hawk down.  it was my first time seeing it and for a million reasons, it shook me to the core.  firstly, because i know ethan may face the same possibilities, risks, dangers that those men faced.  and no matter how much training you do, one wrong step, one "wrong place, wrong time" moment can occur and that's it.  all over.  that affected me.

but that is a whole different topic all together.  what really affected me was africa itself...the people and the lives they lead.  almost barbaric, really.  5-year-olds toting around guns and women and children living without water and food and never experiencing anything without fear.



a few nights ago, i read a chapter in cold tangerines called "broken bottles."  it was about africa.  the author talked about when she visited there.  about how it "unraveled" her.  how her faith was bent beneath the weight of what she saw and experienced there.  about how she wasn't, and couldn't have been, ready for it.



i prayed for a long time that night.  because her words rang out true and loud in my ears.



you see, i've wanted to go to africa for a couple years now.  i didn't used to want to go.  not like a lot of people who grow up dreaming of africa.  but just a couple years ago, africa crept into my heart.  i saw movies, like blood diamond, that shifted and changed my perspective of life in africa versus life here--my life.  last november, i went to the holocaust museum in washington d.c. where they had an exhibit on genocide in the world today.  and i saw pictures, videos, faces of those suffering in sudan and rwanda and congo.  it broke my heart.



last night, i Googled "conflicts in Africa."  and country after African country was listed.  a continent of beauty and devastation.  and the more time passes, the more i realize the depth of that devastation.



in that cold tangerines chapter, "broken bottles", shauna writes about that devastation: "i wanted to invest myself in the healing, in some small way." 



and that punched me right square in the heart when i read that.  nearly knocked the wind outta me because i so badly needed to hear someone say they feel the same way i do.



ever since i was 9 years old and decided i wanted to be a missionary, i've had that same idea, that same train of thought.  that maybe i could contribute something...something crucial.  that somehow a smile or a conversation or a hug could surely bandage up someone's wound somewhere.  and when i thought of africa, i had this idea of sitting down with people.  of hugging them and loving them and being able to offer them food and drink. and all of a sudden, the whole world would shift and things would somehow be right again.



i didn't realize that's really how i thought until now.  i had no idea how naive i was and a big part of that hurts.  because that night when i was 9, i saw a video of missionaries baptizing lepers.  i watched footage of people with no arms and no legs...people that glowed because of the change they had experienced in Jesus.  and i knew i wanted to be a part of that.  i wanted to help give people the same thing i saw on those videos.  to this day, i will never forget how i felt that night.  nor will i forget their faces.  never.





and somehow, between then and now, i have conjured up this idea that maybe i could bind up all the wounds of the world.  africa, included.  just a few band-aids here and some gauze over there and everything will be fine. a little diplomacy, a little love, and ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing...world peace?

i am seeing now that it doesn't work like that.  i can't become a diplomat and fix africa anymore than i can love Jesus and make someone else know His love the same way.  acknowledging that makes my heart ache and even more, makes me feel a bit lost.



but something i know for sure is that my God is a funny God.  because while i was working all of this out in my mind, i opened up the chapter after "broken bottles" and read the chapter "prayer and yoga":



"I had a plan and the plan is gone.  I did it right, in my own made-up system, and it all came out wrong.  All my logic and contingincies and smoke alarms and insurance didn't see this coming and now my life has changed.  I'm off the plan.  And I loved the plan.  I believed in the plan, secretly, way more devoutly than I believed in the mysterious work of God.  So now...I'm back to prayer...because I couldn't make my life work without it."

ahh, the plan.  the plan to be a 20-year-old missionary and be a 23-year-old wife and a 25-year-old mother.  the plan where i would somehow make a living out of traveling across the world and living in orphanages and loving on impoverished children.  the plan where, when i would come home to the states, it wouldn't be to california, but maybe somewhere in the carolinas.  the plan where i would finally pick up that southern accent i've always wanted and drive an old, beat-up truck and live near beer-drinking, Bible thumpers like me.



there is this song i listen to sometimes called "we are."  and the second verse goes something like, "do you have your picture down?  you paint it well, but not so right."  and that is what i'm reminded of.  that it's a good plan, but maybe not His plan.  and i so wish it was.  after this whole africa thing came to light in my heart, i cried in the dark of my bedroom. and told God that i just want to go.  i just want to help and i don't understand why i can't.  but shauna wrote in "broken bottles" that she wasn't ready for africa.  that when she got there she just wanted to leave.  and maybe God knows i'm not ready for Africa.  i'm not ready.  i'm not ready.



and so, i continued on with "prayer and yoga": "To pray is to say that there is more than i can see and more than i can do."



i am not The One who Catches Tears.  nor The One who Binds Up Wounds.  i am just a little person.  and while my dreams are big, they are not Bigger than Him.  and even though i'm not quite the missionary i'd like to be, that doesn't mean i have to forget.  so in the meantime, i have all the time in the world to pray.  for India.  for Africa.  for all those nations and peoples that have wedged themselves into all the crevices of my heart.



and that is where faith comes in.  that letting go.  that believing that He will catch the tears and bind up the wounds and carry the Unloved back home to Him.  and the knowing that that's a job He does much better than i ever could.