Freedom from Hustling—in Weddings and in Life

This morning I woke up with bobby pins in my hair and with eyes still heavy from sleep. When I was finally upright, I rubbed my eyes and was shocked when dirt came off onto my fingers.

Wait, that’s not dirt. It’s mascara. Whew. 

As the fog cleared from my mind, the events from the previous day came flooding back. 

Preparation. Decoration. Flowers. Makeup. Laughter. Pictures, pictures, and more pictures.

My sister’s wedding.

Stock photo from Pixabay.com

My sister Christina got married yesterday, and it was beautiful. Surprisingly, I had no urges to cry during the ceremony—not even when my dad walked Christina down the aisle in her stunning white dress.

While Christina read her vows, I realized I wasn’t emotional because I had already been treating her fiancé like my brother-in-law. It was a huge adjustment for me when they’d gotten engaged, but he had slowly won my heart as a new brother.

In contrast to my positive emotions the day of the wedding, stress and anxiety plagued me in the week leading up to the big day. Worries about the wedding flitted in and out of my head like gnats that follow you around on a hot summer evening, vanishing for a moment and then stubbornly returning.

Why am I so anxious? I wondered. I’m not even the one getting married!

I took an afternoon to pray and journal, and I finally realized why I was stressed. As maid of honor and sister of the bride, I was convincing myself I was responsible for ensuring the wedding weekend ran smoothly. 

The assumption that I was responsible for these things sounds appropriate unless you’re intimately familiar with weddings (and with my family). The days leading up to weddings are often chaotic and stressful and involve scores of last-minute details and last-minute conflicts.

To put it simply, weddings are unpredictable. No one can guarantee they will run smoothly—not even the best wedding coordinator in the world. We can do our best, but we cannot ensure perfection.

Though I was relieved to identify the source of the anxiety, I was also perplexed. If I wasn’t responsible for a smooth wedding process, who was?

Later that day I took a moment to breathe, and when I closed my eyes a picture formed in my head of God with open arms, a Father ready to care for my tired body and frazzled mind.

Peace flooded my soul as I accepted His invitation—not only to hold me but also to be ultimately responsible for the wedding weekend.

I flashed back to a time months before, when wedding planning was just beginning. My family talked about the key things everyone wanted for the wedding, and the list kept getting longer and longer.

As I sought the Lord’s guidance, I thought of Mary and Martha. Martha hurried about to prepare and was concerned with the details (two key parts in wedding prep). In modern-day language, I’d say she was hustling and busting her butt.

During this time, Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. Despite the chaos of unfinished projects and in the midst of the time crunch (two more common themes of wedding weeks), she sat still.

And Jesus said, “One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

One thing is necessary. 

Just one thing.

It’s not the wedding dress or the catered food or the vows or even the bride-to-be.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. This was the better portion.

If in the process of planning and preparing for the wedding we sat at Jesus’ feet—if we honored Him and came to know Him better through the process—all would be successful. Even if the wedding schedule was thrown off or the toasts were botched—even if the food was terrible or the rings didn’t fit—there would be no regrets.

Not if we knew Jesus more. Not if He was honored. Not if we were sitting at His feet.

One thing is necessary.

The evening before I traveled to meet my sister and help finish wedding projects, I realized just how crazy Mary was. Mary was the host of a giant party for Jesus (this was no small ordeal! He was the long-awaited Messiah, the actual incarnation of God), and she consciously chose to ignore what I would call bare necessities. 

The food. The seating. The cleanliness of the venue.

Some would call her irresponsible, a poor planner, a procrastinator, or lazy.

Jesus called her the one who chose the better portion. I’m so proud of my sister because I think she chose the better portion.

As I remembered Mary and Martha, I found I had been running from my spot at Jesus’ feet, convinced my hustling was necessary for a smooth wedding.

But there was my Father, arms open wide, beckoning me back to Him.

He was inviting me back to the place where I belong, the place where I can rest and trust He will take care of the details—the details that seem so important that no one else (not even God) can be trusted with them.

In impeccable timing, this song came out last week:

The arms of my Father
Are open to me
Here in your presence
Forever I am free

It’s no human’s responsibility to make sure a wedding runs perfectly, even if we take on the burden and label the task ours.

It’s no human’s responsibility to make sure a life runs smoothly, either.

It turns out that through this wedding process, I have indeed come to know my Savior more intimately. We’re free to trust Him with our weddings and with our lives.

Only one thing is necessary. If we choose the better portion, it will not be taken away from us.

Flashes of Lightning and Flashes of Clarity

One summer a few years ago I was in Cambodia with a team. Darkness had fallen, and we finished scarfing down fried rice for dinner so we could load up in the van and head back to the hotel. We were staying near the Vietnam-Cambodia border, and as we drove down the bumpy, pot-hole-filled route, enormous trucks full of imported goods from Vietnam would rumble by, shaking the whole road as they passed. Rain began to patter on the windshield. Everything was pitch black, but I knew the road sloped down on either side and morphed into acres and acres of muddy rice fields. As I stared out the windshield, two tiny dots of light slowly enlarged as the headlights of a vehicle approached: another gigantic truck full of imported goods.

Windshield view during the day

Side view of the road during the day

When we were about 100 meters from the oncoming truck, a flash of lightning suddenly illuminated the sky, the road, and everything around us.

In that split second, we could see everything. We could see the ditches alongside the road. We could see the miles of rice fields and the hills beyond them. We could see the long stretch of road ahead. And we could see the over-sized truck ahead of us. The truck was carrying an extra-wide load that stretched across nearly two-thirds of the road. We were heading straight for it.

One split second, and everything was dark again.

Stock photo from Pixabay.com

But one split second of clarity was all we needed. Our driver swerved to the side of the road as we passed the truck, thunder clapping in the distance and cement road vibrating under us. We all exhaled loudly.

We could have died. But God, in His mercy and in His sovereignty, placed a lightning bolt exactly where it needed to be, exactly when it needed to be there, and we were safe. This single moment of clarity had the power to change a van-full of young people's lives. When I think back on this experience, I marvel at the Lord's providence. I wonder at His power and His goodness. I realize again how a single moment of stark clarity can change a life. 

When I visited Cambodia in July and came back with the decision to quit nursing, I reached a pivot point. Though I didn't intend on resigning my nursing job when I left for Cambodia, my time there provided the right setting for the Lord to provide significant clarity.

Once again, a moment of clarity in Cambodia changed the my life. It wasn't a bolt of lightning, and it wasn't a literal swerving on a concrete road during a storm. It was, however, perhaps just as important a moment of clarity in my life. It eliminated guesswork, extra stress and anxiety about putting in my two weeks' notice. It was crystal clear I needed to reroute the direction of my life to avoid a major wreck.

As I'm following this new route, I'm learning each day that the change in direction isn't as much a switch from nursing to writing as it is a transition from prioritizing my reputation to building my life around the Lord. Each day, I learn a little more about trust.

Slowly, I'm learning to accept that I'm out of my comfort zone in this new line of work. I'm learning to let go of the pride that says, "I have to be the best in my field."

When it comes down to it, I could work in writing/editing for a couple years, and then this career could completely fizzle out. It could take a nosedive. It could explode. I have no idea what the outcome will be, and I'm learning to be okay with that.

Part of surrendering to the Lord and crafting my life around Him means trusting that what He has for me is better than the dreams of success I have for myself. I can't help but think this is the lesson He wants me to focus on over the lessons in marketing, gaining clients, and self-employment. Because no matter what career I land in, this truth remains: He is faithful, He is trustworthy, and He will take care of me. With flashes of lightning and flashes of clarity, He guides my path and protects my life. All I have to do is to keep my eyes open and say yes.

Reentry: the Beginning

It’s been almost three weeks. By the time you’re reading this, I’ll have spent time in five cities, two states, and two countries, and I'll have stayed in six different homes since I landed in Houston on June 8. What a ride it’s been! Here are my thoughts on reentry so far.

I’m holding it together on the outside (well, most of the time), but on the inside I’m still a mess. 

I still have existential crises over very simple things. For example, when I go for jogs in the morning it freaks me out thinking about how little I sweat during the day and how everywhere is air conditioned. Everywhere.

Example number two: I almost cried in a specialty craft store because everything in the building was just for fun. My Cambodian friends poked fun of us (Americans) because we do things “for fun.” No practical purpose. Not for food, not for money, not for resources. Just for pure enjoyment. We have entire stores in which everything sold is just for fun.

The change in culture, environment, and norms are huge. How does one make sense of it all?

It’s like I’m in information and sensory overload all the time.

My days haven’t been overbooked. In fact, they haven’t even been fully booked. I’ve visited with people and enjoyed their company, and I’ve had plenty of down time. Under normal circumstances, this schedule would be fine. However, I’ve found in this reentry process it’s easy to become overwhelmed because everything is taking twice as long to process.

So much change has taken place—from highway construction to friends’ relationship statuses—and it’s quite a task taking it all in. Again, how does one make sense of it all?

I’m still scared.

Recently I wrote in a post about how a friend asked about my fear.

I didn’t realize what a relief it was to talk about fear until she asked this question. In most conversations, I mention that living overseas is hard, and I may throw in a bit about loneliness. Yet somehow, I gloss over fear. I hit on this in my reentry confessions a few weeks ago, so I won’t delve into it here. The point is, I’m still terrified even though it may not show on the outside, and I'm still learning a lot about letting go of control.

I’m afraid my memories of Cambodia are losing accuracy.

In between the spurts of grief, life in Cambodia is starting to feel distant and far away. As I talk to friends and family about Cambodia, I find the same words coming out of my mouth again, and again, and again. I didn’t rehearse these lines, but they come out as though they’re rehearsed. I answer the same questions with the same answers and make the same lame jokes every time.

Rote answers scare me because it means I'm not actively remembering Cambodia and what it was like. I’m terrified I’m going to forget what life was really like—I’m afraid realistic memories will be swallowed up by rote answers. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my experiences.

Yet when I stop to think about life in Cambodia, I know I can’t possibly lose these memories. They’ve shaped me in ways too deep to be undone. I can’t un-remember the joy of riding on the back of a motorbike with the wind in my face, the serenity of writing blog posts at a restaurant in town, or the sweat dripping from my face all day long. No, I definitely cannot forget the sweat.

These experiences are forever a part of me, and so are the experiences learning to trust in God and witnessing His faithfulness over and over and over. I can’t un-remember this, and I can't un-trust Him. I’ve seen too much. I’ve been in too deep. With all my current fears and anxiety, I can’t stop believing Him and following Him. I guess that’s what happens when we say yes to His great invitation into His presence.

People may think I’m crazy for the way I live life (heck, I often think this whole thing is crazy), but today I’m clinging to this gift: I can’t un-see God’s goodness and faithfulness, and I can’t stop trusting and following Him. Fears, anxieties, transition messiness and all.