This blog was supposed to be about my writing. It was going to be tiny stories that I wanted
to write. And I suppose it will be. But I don’t care about writing any more. Or being a good writer. I just have a need to share my story. My tiny story that may or may not be
interesting to anyone else. All I know
is that it is a story and I hope that it can encourage someone else.
It is rather ironic that I named this blog Tiny Stories when
in reality I was waiting for a big, exciting story to take place. This year I set out on an adventure. I left my home and country so that I might
travel and experience different places and different cultures. I felt fearless and excited setting out,
ready to take on the world and write a grand life story.
However instead of a grand story, I found everyday
life. This is honestly turning out to be
the toughest year of my life. To be far from your family and in a very cold and
exclusive culture and to know that there is no going back, you have to face
your time – it can honestly break your heart.
I know it has broken mine.
However, I know that I was called to such a time as this. Although I feel as if I made the biggest
mistake of my life in coming here, I know that I will look back and see that
this year has been for something glorious.
God never lets anything go to waste.
Even if it was my determination that got me here, He in fact brought me
here and is doing something much more wonderful than I could ever imagine.
Many a day I sit and cry. I no longer have shame who sees
me, I cry on the subway and in the library and in the park and as I boil pasta
for the children’s dinner. At first I
did not understand all these tears. It
is not as if anything terrible has happened or that my situation is awful. Telling myself that did not help though, it
just made me cry more for feeling guilty about crying.
A wise man once said that hope deferred makes the heart sick. And I can honestly say that my heart is sick.
I had pinned my hopes on a dream. I
believed that I could do anything if I put my mind to it. I believed that I
could choose my life and decide how it should play out. My hope was in me and my abilities. And I have discovered the difficult truth
that you don’t get to make up most of your story - you get to make peace with
it (Ann Voskamp, aholyexperience.com).
God is so faithful.
He will not let us go. He will
not let us settle for less than Him and the goodness of Him. He will do whatever it takes to bring us
closer to Him. And although my heart has
experienced more loneliness and anguish than I sometimes think that I can bear,
I am grateful for it. This experience has
caused me to make Him my only hope, my only boast.
I can no longer boast in my cleverness or my standing in
society or my willpower to go for what I want in life. I have come to the end of myself. I have been broken. And that is what I want. I want my life to be eternal. I have seen
much of the world now and done many things that I always dreamed of and yet
have found it all to be meaningless. The one thing I know to be true, to be
worth investing your hope and beliefs in, is Christ.
So this is my tiny story.
It may be depressing, but it is in fact filled with hope because of the
marvelous Author who is writing it. He knows the end, and with Him, the end is
always a good one where everything works out.
He likes clichés like that.
