Tongue-Tied

I am not usually at a loss for words, at least when it comes to writing. Yet in the past three weeks since stepping off the Piper plane onto the tarmac of the Lancaster Regional Airport, I’ve struggled knowing how to articulate, even in writing, an answer to the question, “So how does it feel to be home, Katelyn?”

It’s scary - how displaced and detached one can feel when it comes to reconciling the changes between the environment, the experiences, the culture, the responsibilities, and the people you were surrounded with just a short time ago with where you find yourself presently.

In Thailand, I had a role to fill, a job description, a schedule of responsibilities, a ministry I functioned under, a focus in what I was doing and who I was serving. To be certain, there were definitely those moments of unpredictability as well as the stressors of situations which never appeared in the staff manual under “Duties of the Ladies’ Dean.” Even in all that, I still had the encouragement and support of friends who became like family, and I felt a sense of belonging and purpose in where God had called me. There was something about all this which offered me more stability and security than I had realized, until life as I knew it for the greater part of the past two years disappeared from sight as the jet climbed higher into the inky darkness of the midnight skies.

It wasn’t until the first Korean flight, when I was the person in the window seat of Row 42, watching the lights of Chiang Mai until they faded into tiny pin pricks against the black shadows of the mountains, that this sense of aloneness and weakness overtook me. Grateful for the dimmed lights of the cabin, I let the tears fall.

The past year had been so fulfilling. God had taught more about His strength perfected in my nothingness, and I could testify that even in the difficulties, He had been faithful and He had been my Rock. The year had stretched me spiritually, emotionally, and at times, physically. Yet it had been a year so rich in experiences, and most of all, rich in relationships.

Now, once again, I had to uproot and move on. Three years ago, when the plane had lifted from the runway of the Chiang Mai airport and I said good-bye to Thailand for the first time, God impressed upon me the verse from Genesis 28:15, “Behold I am with you and will keep you…and will bring you back to this land.”  

This time, I struggled with feeling like that promise had been given and now had been fulfilled, so this must be it. That thought stirred an unwelcomed ache within my heart: what if this time I am leaving, never to return?

I believe that I am supposed to be here with my family in a community where traditions rooted in Pennsylvania German culture intersect with the multi-racial populations of expanding cities like Lancaster or Reading. But it is one thing to realize that this is where I am supposed to be for now, and yet that realization does not always ease the restless longing within for dreams that feel unfinished, visions that seem undone, and a place that is half-a-world away while still closely residing in my heart.

It’s humbling, admitting that I don’t have it all together. In the lyrics of Twila Paris, “Lately I’ve been winning battles left and right, but even soldiers can get wounded in the fight. People say that I’m amazing, strong beyond my years, but they don’t see the enemies who lay me at His feet. And they don’t know who picks me up when no one is around… I drop my sword and cry for just a while, ‘cause deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child.”

The sword feels heavy right now, and I am weary of fighting enemies that I thought had already been defeated once and for all. Re-entry is hard. Harder than I had thought, actually. Yet it is easy for me to use the adjustments of re-entry as a smoke screen for what lies at the root of the struggle.  Raw honesty leaves me no other option except to confess that I know that a lot of the numbness, discouragement and apathy that I am experiencing right now exist because I am struggling with surrender.  Over a year and a half ago, I had signed my name on the bottom of a blank sheet of paper, as a sign of commitment to God to say “Yes” to whatever He future plans He had for me, even before I knew what they were to be.

Today, I look at what He is writing on that page for me, and I don’t always like it. I want to take the pen, and somehow add some fine print at the bottom, a disclaimer or a subtle compromise to make this whole thing of “selling out” a little more comfortable.

But.

The commitment has already been made. I don’t want to put my hand to the plow and look back. I don’t want to regress to waving the flag of defeat in the Enemy’s territory and give up ground that was never meant for him to have. I don’t want to come to the end of this season of life and regret living it out of a sense of dutiful submission rather than joyful surrender.

Perhaps I’m not as tongue-tied as I thought. Or maybe, trying to define the struggle with words - as fragmented and imperfect as they are - is the first hesitant step to return to that Altar of Surrender.