on trust

Trust has always been a challenge for me. After my husband had a long-term affair with my friend, and then decided to leave... well, let's just say my trust issues multiplied. Exponentially.

When sharing with a friend about how hard it is to bounce back from that, and to learn to trust again, she said, "Remember the people you can trust and focus on them."

Solid words.

BUT...

Five years ago, I thought I could trust my husband. And I did.

See, my problem with trust isn't when it's misused by people I know I can't trust to begin with. My problem is when those I believe I can trust, end up abusing it.

So I find myself living in this tension of the desire to dig deep, live all-in, and trust those closest to me, with the reality that all of us are fallible and anyone can fall. Myself included.

I'm not really sure where it leaves me, except in a place of wrestling with who and how I should trust. What does healthy trust look like? How do I keep putting my heart out there after it's been trampled by the untrustworthiness of those who should have been trustworthy?

As always, I have more questions than answers...

Have you dealt with this in your own life? How do you navigate trust after it's been broken?

Originally posted on A Deeper Story. Read the comments there >

healing in the heartache

I flew to Africa over the weekend... I'm here for 5 weeks. I am spending a month in Maun, Botswana—the place that stole my heart for Southern Africa when I was only 15—to help Love Botswana Outreach Mission develop communications policies and strategies. Then I'm heading down to Cape Town for a week to work with Bridge for Hope on some project development possibilities.

That's what I'm doing now.

I consult with non-profits, assisting with communications and development—translating my 13 years of leading a ministry in Africa into ways I can strategically help other growing non-profits.

It feels like a natural fit and like I'm in way over my head all at the same time. But I am beyond grateful for the chance I have to do this, and the opportunities I have to still be involved with what God is doing through ministries around the world. Such a tremendous gift.

Bittersweet at times, but still a priceless gift...

I forced myself to find words for what's going on in my heart being back in Africa again. About the unbelievable timing of this trip. About healing in the heartache.

And I'm sharing them over at Deeper Story today.

... ... ...

Fourteen years to the day since I first moved to South Africa, I arrived there again. On Saturday. My first time to return since I had to close our ministry and move back to the States.

Fourteen years.

To. The. Day.

The irony coincidence full-circle timing is unavoidable.

As if I didn't already have a kaleidoscope of emotions wrapped up in this first-trip-back, I go and do it on my Africaversary.

A big hot mess.

That's what I've been. For weeks now, leading up to the trip. On the entire (ungodly-long) flight over. And since my feet touched the ground.

The landscape of my life looks incomprehensibly different than it did 14 years ago. I'm no longer 19, chasing a dream, following a call... heart brimming with hope, expectation, and excitement.

Instead I'm exhausted inside and out... broken... still trying to locate and pick up the shattered fragments of my life... bearing what feels like a permanent scarlet letter... returning to a place that was home for so long, but doesn't feel like home any longer.

In fact—and I'm only realizing this now, as I'm typing it—it doesn't just feel like Africa is no longer home. It feels like she's betrayed me. Cheated on me. Hurt me.

But I know it wasn't her. I know I can't blame her for the heartache my ex-husband caused. And yet, there is heartache here nonetheless.

And there is nothing to do but face it and feel it, and trust the Healer to heal it.

To heal me. Through her.

Because while I don't feel drawn to live in Africa full-time again, I know I will be here often. And no matter what, at some point there needed to be a first-trip-back again, the hardest trip yet.

So these next 5 weeks in Southern Africa will be filled with old and new memories, heavy and light moments, grief and restoration. And then there won't ever be another first-trip-back.

The hardest will be behind me.

That's the joy that's set before me right now. Not sure if that's good, bad, or otherwise, but that's what's helping me keep breathing and keep going.

While she no longer feels like home, Africa still has my heart. She captured it when I was 15, and she will have it for always. Firsts, lasts, and everything in between...

So I'm trusting asking Him for the courage to do it afraid, to seek the healing in the heartache, to show me parts of myself I've lost, and to reveal parts of Himself I've never seen.

Originally posted on Deeper Story. Read the comments there >

On Getting Tested for HIV

I was the all-American good girl growing up. I turned my homework in on time, studied for tests, and got straight A's. I never drank or smoke or did drugs. I went on mission trips. I never dated. (I was, after all, part of the "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" generation.) And I saved myself for marriage...

I never even kissed a guy till I met my husband.

We fell in love as missionaries in his home country of South Africa. We got married and pioneered a ministry in the poorest region of the country.

It was the thing of fairy-tales...

So I never in a million years expected I'd ever have to get tested for HIV.

But I did.

Because my husband was unfaithful. And because we lived in the country with the highest AIDS-infection rate in the world.

He was with her for over a year-and-a-half before the truth came out. And when it did, he chose her. Over me. Over the ministry. He walked away from it all, in pursuit of a new fairy-tale all his own.

With my life crumbling all around me, I was forced to face things I'd never imagined.

Like an HIV test.

I couldn't hold back the tears as vial after vial of blood was taken.

My heart hurt far more than my arm did. I sobbed over the fact that I even needed to get tested. And I wished I had someone there with me. To hold my hand, literally and metaphorically.

My HIV test came back negative (for which I was—and am— overwhelmingly grateful), and I was given some heavy-duty antibiotics to kick any possibility of STDs. So all is well.

Physically.

But, even two years later, I'm still trying to process the reality that someone who professed for-life love put me in this vulnerable position.

And I wrestle with feeling that saving myself for him was a waste. (Even when I know it wasn't.)

I wish there was a pill that could cure my heart of distrust, fear, and insecurities. But there's no quick remedy for broken trust, a violated heart, and a deep-seated fear of rejection.

All I can do is trust the Healer...

Even when it still hurts.

Originally a guest post on Prodigal Magazine. Read the comments there >

bittersweet

When people hear I got divorced after 10 years of marriage, the question is inevitable. "Do you have kids?" I usually purse my lips together and shake my head while I answer. "No... No kids."

And then I hold my breath.

Because nine times out of ten, the response is the same. And I catch myself bracing for it.

"That's good."

I keep my lips pressed tightly together, and slowly nod obligatorily.

I understand what they're saying. With as much as my life fell apart when my husband decided to leave with another woman, I am grateful there weren't children's hearts also so deeply wounded. So yes. That part is good.

But what most people don't realize is there is such a bittersweetness there.

I don't not have kids because I didn't want them.

I longed to have children, and we were finally at a place of attaining certain goals that would allow me to step back from working full-time so we could start a family. And the irony is that he began pushing for a baby right when he started his affair. And since I knew something was going on—even when I didn't know how bad it really was—I knew adding a baby into the mix wouldn't "fix" anything. So I'm the one who made the decision to wait. Because I needed to be sure we were okay.

And we weren't.

And we never had kids.

So while I'm glad there weren't little people dragged through the devastation of my past few years, and I'm beyond thankful I don't need to figure out an international custody arrangement, there is also a huge sense of loss for what could have been... and for what will never be.

It's an added layer of grief. Of mourning. Of letting go. Of uncertainty about ever having the opportunity again.

So yes. "That's good." But it also sucks.

Just think twice before you make a quick remark to someone. We never know the whole story. We can never comprehend the full situation. Don't presume. Don't preach. Ask.

Ask questions. Hear what the other person is thinking... feeling... saying... not saying...

Don't jump to conclusions.

Just ask.

And love.

Originally posted at Deeper Story. Read the comments there >

the beginning of the end

The past few years of my life have been filled with untold endings. The end of my marriage. The closing of my ministry. The loss of my home, job, community...

The endings can be so obvious that it's often easy for me to overlook the new beginnings. But they're there. When I take the time and make the choice to look for them — to dust for God's fingerprints — I see them. Plain as day.

The beginning of my heart re-awakening. The launch of a new journey. The start of a new home, job, community...

I am reminded once again that the new life of spring actually begins with the dying leaves of autumn.

And I'm brought back to The Beginning.

"There was evening, and there was morning—the first day."

While we usually picture our day starting with the sunrise, God created it to begin in the darkness of night. Though it seems like an ending, the night — with all its bleakness and uncertainty — is really just the beginning...

What endings are you experiencing right now where you need to dust for God's fingerprints of new life?

Originally posted at Deeper Story. Read the comments there >