by erika haveman
Full disclosure: I rarely cried between ages birth through 19. Like maybe a handful of times. Then I met Jesus in a very real way at 19 in Australia in a room with threadbare green carpet and cheap curtains. I cried for weeks after that – every time I had a fresh revelation of who Jesus was or how He defined me I’d lose it. I will never forget one day when I was lamenting how I now cried all the time and someone said to me, “it’s because it’s real to you now.” It was a broad statement, but accurate. All of life was being illuminated because God was about to break my heart of stone and transform it to a heart of flesh. My problem came because I wasn’t taught how to maintain that emotional connection. I thought I could be teachable but only at my own discretion with what I wanted to learn. I was as fully surrendered as I knew how to be, but the funny thing about surrender is just when I think my hands are as extended as they can be God shows me just how closed they are.
The irony of growth is that we only grow as God moves things in our lives and hearts. I don’t look back at my life and see it as wasted time or existence or experiences because God was fully moving and working – I can look back at all of my blogs and recognize God was teaching me things. The beauty of growing is that we never stop and we need what has come before and we need everything that comes after.
It would be easy for me to look back and say I stunted my own growth. But for me to suggest that I stunted my own growth would be to suggest that I have any control over my life – which I don’t. Salvation is a paradox, remember? I give up all of my life to have all of it; I am not my own equates to freedom.
Somewhere in my 20s I stopped leaning into emotions. I can see how God was growing my relationship with Him in other ways, but emotionally I ignored pain. Every time I felt hurt I sucked it up and just got shit done (more on this in the upcoming weeks).
I felt deeply for the first time in years when I had to break up with a guy who, at the time, I thought was the most amazing, perfect guy. I was 25 and crazy about him – but he didn’t love Jesus, so I knew I couldn’t let him pursue me. And let me tell you it feels really awesome to be pursued. While for a season (literally) I felt all of the joy of being known, seen, cared for, beautiful – to name a few things – it was followed by a season of despair (again, literal season). I felt grief, loss, frustration, doubt like I had never felt before. I questioned the existence of God. Obviously He came through, proved Himself (as He does) and things fell back “in line” with my life eventually. But that time I didn’t continue leaning into emotions. When I felt tears coming I stopped them. I would consciously, still, harden my heart to get shit done.
Let me tell you, in case you do life that way, that is not the solution, and this time around I want things to be different.
Personally I’m at a crossroads and I am so aware I can either choose to harden my heart and make a choice without feeling or I can move slow, wait with Jesus, feel all the things and eventually come to a decision.
I leave YWAM in about a year and I’ve been discerning what to do next. I’ve talked with mentors and asked their advice. I’m considering pursuing possibly (redundancy intentional) going to school so I’ve talked with at least one Dean of Education. I’m considering studying health and fitness and getting my teachers certificate to be able to teach Phys. Ed and, hopefully, Bible/Religions at a Christian high school.
However as I think about this these are the things that go through my brain that cause me to feel:
- I’ll start school at 33. I’ll graduate at 38 if I do a Con-Ed program.
- What if meet someone? What if we get married? What if we try to have kids? What if God gives me the gift of pregnancy and carrying a child to full term and then safely into the world? What happens to my hard earned 5 year degree?
- What if I don’t meet someone? What if I’m still alone at 38?
- Can’t I just meet someone now and help him with his dream and care for him and try to be a good wife and, by some miracle, a mother?
- What if I’d rather spend the rest of my life writing than teaching? Can I still impact souls for eternity by writing novels?
- What if I do want to end up on the farm?
- What about my dream of running a bed and breakfast?
- How will I pay for everything?
In September I met an amazingly sweet woman who had recently retired from teaching Phys. Ed at a Christian high school. I wanted to adopt her. She was so kind, so witty, so driven – and so single. I happened to see an old photo of her, standing beside a beautiful big dog and she was probably in her mid 20s. She was a bombshell of a woman. How did she end up alone her whole life? I was overcome when I saw the photo: will I end up like her?
I mailed out my annual holiday cards in early December and it struck me: will this photo end up on my fridge and will someone, 30 years down the road, look at my photo and ask, “How did she end up alone her whole life?”
Without even realizing it I seem to be looking to follow in her footsteps (when I met her I was not at all considering studying health and fitness). Don’t get me wrong: it was obvious this woman had impacted a lot of lives\\\ and was living her best life. Yet I’m sure for all of her accomplishments she’s felt the pain of alone from time to time. But I’m learning where you feel your pain you also feel your joy.
God is in control. I’m as fully surrendered as I know how to be. I’m determined to not just harden my hard to get shit done but to feel my way through the hard things and watch God move. There is no promise I will ever be as fully known by another human being as you are when you are a wife. But there is a constant promise that I will be fully known by Jesus and I will know Him and myself more and more the more I let the tears fall when I feel them coming on. It’s in Him I place my hope. And hope has come.
the rambling missionary 