I recently received a very generous donation from a very amazing couple. At seeing the notification of this, I gasped and then began to cry. My crying went from being full of gratefulness, to a full on panic attack. I cried myself to sleep, asking God why I would feel so much guilt for someone supporting me.
I spent all day today thinking and praying and contemplating this. You know what I realized?
I am afraid to accept love. I only accept love from people when I feel as though I have something to offer them, a way to prove my value.
I have done this in every relationship I have ever had, even with my family and dearest friends. I always have had some way to make their lives better, to help them in some way. But I have nothing to offer this couple, they live in another country and there is nothing I can do to repay them. They gave with nothing to be gained.
That is a beautiful thing, a love that gives expecting nothing in return. Some would say that is the love of God.
All my life I have been trying to prove myself to... to my parents, to my god, to everyone around me. I have always been told that God loves us regardless of what we have to offer, because we are in God and God is in us. I am just now beginning to see this. As with so many other things lately, the ideas I always said I believed are finally starting to take form and be the reality in my heart.
I am learning that we are meant to love and value our neighbors as ourselves. Not instead of ourselves or above ourselves, but as ourselves. We are all spiritual beings, we all have God within us. Call me new age-y, but I believe that firmly. It's time I start living it out for myself as I do for others. Honestly, I cannot say that I love and value myself now. But hopefully one day soon, I will be able to say it and mean it.
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my moving to Cambodia. To celebrate, I took the day off any and all work. I decided I would like to get a massage, go on a riverboat tour, and finish the night off on a sky bar overlooking the city. My roommate came with me for a lovely massage and as we were in our Tuk Tuk driving to the riverside for the boat tour, the rain began to come down. Now I'm talking Cambodia-style rain, full on flooding and winds and chaos. This meant no river tour as planned. My roommate and I ducked from the Tuk Tuk into a restaurant to avoid being completely drenched.
And as we sat in this restaurant and talked about the experiences of the past year, there was not even a hint of sadness or anger for the changed plans. Because that is the beauty I have come to find in Cambodia, it is that nothing is ever set in stone. In this country, you could plan your little heart out, and still there is no way of knowing what the actual outcome will be. Any plan you have is turned completely upside down, and instead you are left with something even better.
I had so many fears and expectations when I came here. And honestly, most of them haven't come to fruition. I say that in complete joy, because I have gotten so much more than I ever could have expected. More friendship, more growth, more love than I anticipated.
This has been a year of discovery, about myself and others. When I left everything I had ever known, I was only left with myself. For the first time, I was able to take a good, hard look at myself and recognize my desires and capabilities. I was able to see people without my usual biases and expectations, to see friendship and relationship in new ways. I could go on for ages, each month here has brought on new lessons to be learned and love to be experienced.
But it all boils down to this; In Cambodia I have learned to love. As cheesy as it sounds, this is the place where I have found myself. And I am so terribly excited for all that is still to come in this amazing country.
More than 350 times. The Bible says "Do not be afraid" or "Fear not"- literally hundreds of times. It's as if there is this common refrain from start to finish of releasing ourselves from fear, a constant push toward freedom.
Yet we live in fear so often. I know I certainly do. I am afraid that I am not enough. I am afraid of how others see me, I am afraid they will think I am selfish. I am afraid that I can only be loved when I have something to offer. I am afraid I will never be known.
I have come to believe that fear is the root of all evil. We hoard money and things because we are afraid of going without. We fall into pride and shame because we are afraid we aren't worthy of love. We hurt others because we are afraid they will hurt us. The people who do the most disgusting things in this world are simply scared children, afraid they will lose if they stop fighting.
That is the beautiful thing about this Christ story. The idea is that Love came to get down and dirty with us, to get into all our messed up parts. And that Love was so perfect that it drove out the fear. We cannot simultaneously be driven by love and fear, there can only be one. When we choose to let love be the thing that runs our lives, fear can no longer hold the reins.
I have a big decision to make soon about my time in Cambodia and what the rest of that will look like. Truth be told, I am afraid. I am afraid that I will make a choice that leaves other people hurt and angry. But if I can draw closer to the love, I think I can make a decision that brings the most healing, both to myself and others.
I am currently co-leading a team with Steps of Justice. At the beginning of these trips we take everyone to S-21, a school turned into a torture chamber during the mass genocide 40 years ago. I didn't go in, as I have done it before and knew it would destroy me for at least a few days.
As I was sitting in the coffee shop across the street I watched the Khmer people as they lived and worked around this huge historical building. A man near me asked what we were doing there and I said our team was in the museum, when I asked him if he had ever been to the museum he sort of nodded. Something struck me though, he absolutely refused to look at the building. As I looked around, I realized that was everyone. These people worked on the same street as this massive building and yet they refused to actually see it. They averted their eyes, they focussed on something else, they always stopped short of really taking it in.
It made me think about how we as people deal with traumatic experiences. Whether it be a genocide or divorce, abuse or loneliness, we all have our pain. We are all a lot more similar than we realize.
I have my own museum of pain, the memories of trauma and abandonment. I tell myself that because I have wrapped it up nicely and let people in that I have overcome it, that it is in the past and doesn't affect me anymore. But the reality is that I refuse to look at it. Like the Cambodians at S21, my life is run by this thing that I am unwilling to see. Because if I really see it, I know I will live it all again.
I'm sick of living this way, I hate pretending that the past doesn't matter when it is informing all my decisions. I want to learn to see my past for the beautiful parts and the painful parts. Then I want to live my life based on the Ultimate Truth behind it all. I don't know how I'll get there, but I know that is a life worth living.
When I was about 9 years old I had a huge growth spurt. Each night I would wake up in tears because of intense cramps in my legs. I was growing so quickly that my body could not keep up with it and would ache terribly. Each night I would come to my parents crying because it hurt so badly, and almost every night for months they would draw a warm bath for me to soak my sore muscles in. Over time those growing pains came less often, and before I knew it I was hardly looking like a child anymore!
I am going to be honest with you guys, I am in a period with intense growing pains right now. On more nights than I like to admit, I cry myself to sleep because my spirit and my mind ache from the changes. It's not that I hate my life, quite the opposite actually. I love what I'm doing, who I'm working with, and the culture in which I'm living. Every day my heart is filled by the wonderful life I'm having the opportunity to take part in, and almost every night my heart aches from the walls being spread so thin. I am growing. I am learning. I am becoming.
I am learning that my value does not solely lie in what I can achieve or who I can help.
I am learning to not cling so tightly to a specific circumstance or season.
I am learning I cannot change others, I can only honor where they are.
I am learning that success is not only in my hands, but a team effort.
I am learning to honor the journey over the destination.
I am learning that it is okay to ask for help.
I am learning how to say no sometimes.
I am learning that I need people.
I am learning how to rest.
Each time I look ahead at one of these learning experiences I am knocked down by my inability to overcome. Each time I look back at one of these experiences I am amazed at how much more I have become. Like with my yoga practice, I am frequently sore and achy, but always astonished by how much stronger I am than I was the day before.
I thank this country for all I am experiencing here. I love this place because I am happy and sad and whole and broken and growing.
I have always been a bit of an over achiever. As a child in Sunday school I wanted to be the one remembering the most verses, saying the most prayers. In high school I couldn't have above-average grades, I needed to have straight As. When I began working full time I couldn't work 40 hours a week, I had to work 60, 70, or even 80 hours.
When I was young there were some crazy events that happened in my family. It was a very difficult time, and my father gave up everything he had to keep me and my siblings safe. He lost his home, his friends, and nearly his business. Without realizing it, I lived my life to prove that his sacrifice was worth it. I never touched drugs or alcohol and instead grabbed all of the "success" I could. I swore that I would show him the sacrifices were worth it, that he didn't waste his efforts on me.
My dad never asked for all of this though. I distinctly remember him telling me when I was a young teenage girl, "I am proud of you for your good grades, but those are not important to me. I would rather you come home failing every class but loving the people around you." Still, I continued to work to prove my value to him.
I recently realized that this need of mine didn't only apply to my dad, but that I also put this on my god. My god was a lot like my dad, he was protective and cared deeply for me, the only difference being that god was more judgmental and less talkative. I proved myself to god through endless fasting and prayer and religious studies.
Look god, I have pored over your sacred text dozens of times, do you love me yet? Look god, I am giving up my college education to take care of people, do you love me yet? Look god, I can move myself across the world for you. Do you love me yet?
And so it goes.
But in the last year or two, I have found a very different God. A Force that draws me toward happiness not only for others, but opens me up to the scandal of being happy myself. A kind
Stranger that says, "I want you to love and to be and to be love!".
It was recently revealed to me that my time in Cambodia is only meant to be a season for now, only a short chapter in my story. I'm not leaving any time soon, but I also have found that I won't be here for the next 10 years either. This has been a tough pill to swallow, because I love this country and people more than I could ever say. In the background there is this voice that asks, will I still be lovable if I'm not out here risking it all? Will I still be enough?
You know what though? Love is not a transaction, it is not affection traded for hard work. Love is wanting someone when they have nothing to offer you. I think that's why there is so much focus on the power of the Christian God- not so this power can be lorded over people but to show that this God loves with nothing to be gained. In this light, verses I used to see as petty take on an entirely new meaning. It is not a god that needs me to feel good about himself, but a Divine Pull that loves so deeply with nothing to be gained but love itself.
I'm not totally fixed. I'm still a perfectionist at times and need to work on my desire to please. I am growing though, I am learning to be without expectation and to realize that can be enough. I am learning to love and be loved in a way that is not to be traded and analyzed, but in a way that is all-consuming and unshakable. I am done working to be loved.
In this past week I have been doing a lot of thinking about living and dying. The Jesus story is so very full of death. The death of Jesus, the death of Lazarus, the death of an entire system. But in each of those events, there is new life that can only be found on the other side. Our culture is so afraid of death, both emotionally and physically. Yes, we are afraid of passing from this world. But we are also afraid in every other sense- the death of a relationship or the death of parts of ourselves. We are afraid of the small deaths that come from each ending of a chapter.
But the reality is that without death there can be no new life. Each year we must come to winter, it is only after the cold of the end that we can make way for the beauty and new life found in spring.
I have died here in Cambodia. I have lost everything I use to define myself, I have lost friends and comfort, I have lost myself. At times I have cried out to God, asking why I would be sent here if it meant losing all that I was?
Because the best is yet to come, and I will confess I am only beginning to see the Light at the end of the tunnel.
I have been a "Christian" my whole life. At 6 years old I could have told you what it meant to be "born again". But I have only known what is it to be born again in this year. Because to be born again, you must first die. The old self must be removed, like a snake shedding its skin, to reveal the new life underneath. It is a painful, beautiful process; a process I hope to continue going through for the rest of my days.
So Happy Easter to all of you, I wish you all a year of new life.
