Instead I sat. One arm rested in the white metal arms of the chair... One hand scribbling in my journal, putting down all my emotions. I can't remember what I wrote. I am sure I could find it if I looked back through the stack of old journals piled on top of my bookshelf.
But I remember what I felt. I remember being absolutely terrified. I remember earnestly questioning the near $4,000 spent on various plane tickets. I remember the Hail Mary type prayer I threw in the air as I ran my thumb over the plane tickets in my hand.
This is all for You, God. So please show up for me. Please carry me through. Please be here. Make something of the next 8 months. Take my hands and take my all, just show up. Please don't leave me. Please, oh please, Lord, don't leave me. Don't abandon me as I abandon it all for You.
I think I must have repeated that prayer, or a very similar one, dozens of times.
But I remember sitting in those chairs, looking like a crazy person and pleading with God for all of it to be real. For all of it to mean something. My faith was unwavering in the fact that this is what He had for me. My faith was shaking in the fact that He would actually show up.
I was looking for Him, you see. I was searching for Him and waiting for Him to show up in some big and overwhelming way. I wanted Him to show up for me in the same measure that I felt I was showing up for Him. So, on all 25 flights I took over the course of those 8 months, I prayed the same sort of prayer.
Just show up.
Only now, only today, only in this very moment, sitting just five chairs from where this whole trek began do I finally see that He did. He did show up.
Not in the ways I expected, of course- I mean, does He ever work like we expect? And looking back, no, I cannot see His hand in everything. I don't know if I'll ever be clear on where He was in the nights I cried myself to sleep and sobbed into my pillow about poverty and orphans. I will forever remain unclear about where He was when my 51 kindergarteners were jumping on desks and eating each other's notebooks, when He could have struck them with a lightning bolt of terror and obedience.
But I can say this, undoubtedly. I can say that as I sit here once again, tears brimming in my eyes, I can see Him. Maybe not clearly, maybe not in every moment or in the darkest of nights. But I can see that He showed up. Because I am here. I am living and breathing. I am back with family. I am okay. And for me to be here, He must have been there. In those countries. On those lonely nights. In the questions I asked and the toddlers I taught. If I am standing and living and breathing, He must have showed up. He must have carried me. Because there is NO chance that I could have possibly, possibly survived it all on my own. There is no way I could even survive a single day in this world alone. So He must have been there and He must be here now, even in moments of doubting. Even when I don't understand.
I am so bad at representing my Saviour most days. But let this fact alone stand- I cannot even breathe without Him. And neither can you. He holds our very lives in His hands.
So when you can't see Him and you don't understand, be assured of this- if you are living and breathing, He is still there.
He is still here, beloved.