Dear Family…
This is my life:
Mike wrote me an email not too long ago. In it he said, “Any vision or ministry you attempt has to first die if it’s going to succeed. It has to die so that God (and God alone) can resurrect the vision according to His purposes and His shaping. So if it feels like your vision is dying…it means that God is getting you ready to lay down your plans and listen to what He’s got in store.”
As if that wasn’t thought provoking enough, I was talking to Amy a few days later, telling her how, for the first time in my life, I’m just absolutely unsure about what to do with myself. I have no direction for my life. The future is blank. I’m at an end, completely, of my own resources. She laughed, “God has had to bring you through a lot to accomplish that.”
And I think she’s right. They’re both right. I have nothing left to give; there is nothing I can do. I can’t speak Korean, I can’t evangelize, I can’t disciple, I don’t even have the energy to walk through a normal day without becoming exhausted, for goodness sake!
So yesterday I decided that I’m done. I will go home in March and attempt to live my life day by day loving people as best I can. God knows that my heart is still willing – if He wants me to go to China, fine. If He wants me to stay here, fine. But I am done trying to make it happen. I don’t even know what live I hope to have, but I do know what life I don’t want: a life lived based upon my own resources and ingenuity. I can’t do it any longer.
Yesterday was a sad day to walk through. Not sad in a bad way, exactly, just sad in a “good-bye” sort of way. I cried for a little while in the morning, while I was praying, because giving this – my vision for NK – up is like giving a part of myself up. Missions is my identity; it has been since I can remember. I’ve always had a direction, I’ve always known what I was going to do and who I was going to be. And now … I have nothing.
It’s hard, too, because I’ve given so much for this. These last three years have been such arduous ones, bought with tears and sweat. But I’ve given them to God. He may use them someday, if He wants to. But I never will. I lived them because I loved God, and now I leave them for the same reason. I still study Korean, because this is where I am, but I no longer plan on using it, so a great pressure is removed. And when I return to America in two months, I will leave things wrapped up here, because I don’t plan on coming back. If this isn’t pleasing to God, if this is merely giving up when He wants me to press forward – well, my life is His. I trust Him to keep me on the right path.
I don’t know how I’ll explain all this to family and church, but I care very little how they respond. I’m done trying to meet other people’s expectations. I’m done trying to meet my own expectations. From today, the only One Whom I will attempt to satisfy is Christ. If He is pleased with my life, I will be content.
So that’s my story. I’m very sad, and the smallest things make me cry…I’m crying while I write this. But I have so much peace. I really believe that this is where God has been bring me, all this time: to an end of myself and a beginning of Him.
I love you, and I wish that one of you could be here with me right now…
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Settling In
Hi,
I don’t think this is going to be a very long letter. I just wanted to let you all know how I’m doing, before too much more time passes. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before now. My life has been a little bit unsettled, and to be quite honest, I don’t like to write when I’m having a difficult time.
Coming back to Korea this time has been different from the others. Usually I’m thrust headlong into the fast lane, with hardly a chance to get my feet under me. This time, life recommenced at a much slower pace. The day after I flew in, snow began to fall. It continued to fall until the city shut down. It was the worst snow fall that Seoul has seen in 103 years, and it brought the city to an abrupt halt. Since transportation was in a deadlock, and since the house of the friend with whom I was camping out is near the top of a steep, icy mountain, I was pretty much confined to the indoors for the first week. In some ways that was nice; it was good to take it easy and give myself a chance to recover from jet lag. On the other hand, though, I wanted to be able to get out to look for a place to live. After nearly two weeks of inactivity, I’m getting stir crazy and beginning to feel a little down.
I’d really appreciate your prayers for me to be able to settle back into life here. It’s been hard to re-engage, because there’s no way for me to pick up where I left off. It’s been particularly difficult while I’ve been homeless, because I have no place to settle down in. I can’t unpack, I can’t go shopping (my diet was really limited the first week; it’s stretching the truth to say that I got two square meals a day), and for a while I couldn’t even get my cell phone re-registered, so I had no way to be in touch with friends here.
However, as of today, I finally have my phone, and my housing situation worked out. That’s a huge load off my shoulders. As it turns out, You can ignore my facebook status. I won’t be living in a 2x2 goshiwon. After finding that place, I came back to the house of the girl I was temporarily staying with to tell her that I would be moving out the next day. She was surprised that I’d found a place so soon, and apparently displeased to be losing her roommate. Long and short of it was that she asked me to continue to live with her, while I’m in Korea. That took us a couple of days to settle (I can’t begin to express how slowly things can sometimes take to solve themselves over here), and this afternoon the arrangements were finally sealed. I’ll be living with Becky for the next two and a half months.
So having passed those two mile markers, I feel a lot more optimistic about life. Honestly, though, coming back here this time has been a really hard transition. I was busy and happy at home, and really making a difference in the lives of my family. I had a finger in every pie, and had invested a lot in the younger girls particularly, but in others as well. I left at a really good time, where I was seeing a lot of fruit and answered prayer in the lives of the people around me, and came back to Korea where I feel I have nothing to give. I have a lot of friends, whom I mostly bum off of, but no one really needs me here, and my life is mostly idle and pointless, in contrast to what it was two weeks ago. So I ask myself why I’m here. And I have no answer.
I’m taking an online writing class, as well, which I really enjoy. It’s a little bit time consuming, but I’m learning a lot, and am glad that I signed up for it before heading over here.
Because of the ambiguous housing/phone situation, I haven’t been able to get together with any one for language exchange. Now, though, I should find myself some people to study with before long, and I’m sure that once I’m more regularly employed I’ll have better attitude about everything. Meanwhile, though, I’d really appreciate your prayers that God will bring someone or something my way for me to do.
And, again, thanks for your patience with my lack of communication. Like I said, it’s really hard for me to write when I’m down.
I miss you guys,
Elisabeth
I don’t think this is going to be a very long letter. I just wanted to let you all know how I’m doing, before too much more time passes. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before now. My life has been a little bit unsettled, and to be quite honest, I don’t like to write when I’m having a difficult time.
Coming back to Korea this time has been different from the others. Usually I’m thrust headlong into the fast lane, with hardly a chance to get my feet under me. This time, life recommenced at a much slower pace. The day after I flew in, snow began to fall. It continued to fall until the city shut down. It was the worst snow fall that Seoul has seen in 103 years, and it brought the city to an abrupt halt. Since transportation was in a deadlock, and since the house of the friend with whom I was camping out is near the top of a steep, icy mountain, I was pretty much confined to the indoors for the first week. In some ways that was nice; it was good to take it easy and give myself a chance to recover from jet lag. On the other hand, though, I wanted to be able to get out to look for a place to live. After nearly two weeks of inactivity, I’m getting stir crazy and beginning to feel a little down.
I’d really appreciate your prayers for me to be able to settle back into life here. It’s been hard to re-engage, because there’s no way for me to pick up where I left off. It’s been particularly difficult while I’ve been homeless, because I have no place to settle down in. I can’t unpack, I can’t go shopping (my diet was really limited the first week; it’s stretching the truth to say that I got two square meals a day), and for a while I couldn’t even get my cell phone re-registered, so I had no way to be in touch with friends here.
However, as of today, I finally have my phone, and my housing situation worked out. That’s a huge load off my shoulders. As it turns out, You can ignore my facebook status. I won’t be living in a 2x2 goshiwon. After finding that place, I came back to the house of the girl I was temporarily staying with to tell her that I would be moving out the next day. She was surprised that I’d found a place so soon, and apparently displeased to be losing her roommate. Long and short of it was that she asked me to continue to live with her, while I’m in Korea. That took us a couple of days to settle (I can’t begin to express how slowly things can sometimes take to solve themselves over here), and this afternoon the arrangements were finally sealed. I’ll be living with Becky for the next two and a half months.
So having passed those two mile markers, I feel a lot more optimistic about life. Honestly, though, coming back here this time has been a really hard transition. I was busy and happy at home, and really making a difference in the lives of my family. I had a finger in every pie, and had invested a lot in the younger girls particularly, but in others as well. I left at a really good time, where I was seeing a lot of fruit and answered prayer in the lives of the people around me, and came back to Korea where I feel I have nothing to give. I have a lot of friends, whom I mostly bum off of, but no one really needs me here, and my life is mostly idle and pointless, in contrast to what it was two weeks ago. So I ask myself why I’m here. And I have no answer.
I’m taking an online writing class, as well, which I really enjoy. It’s a little bit time consuming, but I’m learning a lot, and am glad that I signed up for it before heading over here.
Because of the ambiguous housing/phone situation, I haven’t been able to get together with any one for language exchange. Now, though, I should find myself some people to study with before long, and I’m sure that once I’m more regularly employed I’ll have better attitude about everything. Meanwhile, though, I’d really appreciate your prayers that God will bring someone or something my way for me to do.
And, again, thanks for your patience with my lack of communication. Like I said, it’s really hard for me to write when I’m down.
I miss you guys,
Elisabeth
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