Please Don't Call My Face Beautiful

I can't believe that I'm saying I don't want or need a boyfriend. I can't believe I'm saying I don't want romance!

Romance with guys that is. I don't want “guys.” I don't want to date, or have a boyfriend. And no matter how lonely I get, no matter how many times I look around and think how nice it would be to be like my sisters, I will not give in. Because I am not ready. I tell myself that everyday. I am not ready. My heart is desperate and yearning for love, but it doesn't want to believe my true Lover could be everything I need and desire. I honestly don't want to believe that Jesus could be the One for me. Because that's scary. It truly is. I've always been able to run away from that. Frankly, I haven't had a problem finding arms to hold me. I've never been somewhere that I didn't have at least one choice. Some may say I'm lucky, but I see it as my biggest challenge.

In spite of my parents no dating rules, I've had boyfriends. I haven't told the entire world that in such a public way, but I'm saying it now because I want to be set free from it. I've had boyfriends. Some relationships ended well, most didn't. I got hurt, but most often I hurt others. I realized there was a power in being a woman, there was a sway I could hold over people. I could make guys look at me and do anything for a glance from me. I could make heads turn when I walked down the street. And not just turn because I was a gringa, but turn because I stood out!

I don't say any of this stuff to boast, so please do not think I'm being conceited. This actually shames me, but I know I am free of it now. I don't have these regrets anymore, I don't have these wounds. They were washed away and I'm as pure as a pearl now. But something is telling me to write this. So I am. Bear with me.

Maybe it was just to be nice, maybe it was because I was the missionary kid, or maybe it was to make me feel better. But people have told me I was beautiful my whole life. I was pretty and witty, with my Dad's sense of humor (much to the horror of my mom sometimes). I never understood all those cliches you can read about a guy truly loving you if he calls you beautiful. Lots of people called me beautiful. I don't think that made them love me. And lots of guys called me beautiful too. It happened more once I moved to Jamaica... “Hey whitie, hey pretty girl! Come over beautiful, look at me pretty girl.” And again when I moved to Honduras. I heard it so often, I got sick of it. I'm still sick of it.

But before I got as repulsed as I am now, I loved it. I loved walking down the street and hearing whistles from the guys. If I didn't get a whistle I thought I didn't look good enough and I felt depressed. People told me I looked like a model, even random people I'd never met! And I stressed over that. I used to be the dorkiest kid around, but suddenly people were looking at me and talking about what I was wearing. I still looked in the mirror and saw the dork with glasses and her shirt tucked in with a belt, but other people saw something different. They told me they did anyways. And I started trying to be skinnier, I wanted to be tanner, I quit eating as much. When my back wasn't hurting too bad, I'd work out until I could hardly stand up. I wanted to deserve being called beautiful. I'd see my friends and I still thought they looked better than me. To this day I fumble with my make-up, I'm not very good at putting it on. They look flawless and put it on like a breeze. I never understood why I got talked to and they didn't.

But whatever the reason, I felt pressured because of it. I needed to look perfect, I needed to look like what people said I did. I guess I never stopped to think that maybe I already did. Most of the time changing meant pushing my parents limits. But no matter what boyfriend I had, or how much make-up or cute clothes I could get, I still felt awful. I remember several times I tried to kill myself when I seemed happy to others. I wasn't.

My experience with guys has been less than ideal. I've been emotionally abused and bruised. I've been stepped on and I've stepped on others. But it's for that reason that I'm now glad for my new freedom. I don't need a boyfriend! Although my absolute number one greatest fear in the entire world is being alone, I don't need a guy to fill that hole in my heart. It helps to drive away the night, knowing that someone is obsessed with me. But that same obsession makes me uneasy. Love should be about giving, fulfilling the other person and making them smile. But every relationship I have ever been in has made me feel weighed down and heavy hearted. After each failed relationship, I grew more and more discontent. I hated being called beautiful more and more. I wasn't beautiful, I was a terrible person and I hurt good people. Besides that, I don't want to be valued for my face! I realize it's romantic to be called beautiful, and I'm not saying I don't want to be complimented ever. But I'm so sick of being valued for my face, or my face being the only thing people know well enough to value. Know me! The real me. Know what I write, know what I think, know who I am. Compliment the Creator for the soul He put in my body, but don't see only the wrapping. The wrapping will fade and turn gray, if I'm only treasured for that then I'm doomed.

Getting into relationships the way I did was not the right way. I'm not bashing dating, but I was too inexperienced and desperate. Like a new driver on the freeway for the first time, I was swerving and jumping at the first opening I saw. It doesn't work like that. I am not the one who should be taking control. I'm starting to realize that now, and it's been a tough time. There's a reason God tells us not to awake our desires before their time, and I found out the hard way. I'm saying this and I hope I help someone else by doing so. I am shy, but I am also very convicted that if we all just be honest with each other we can be a true body of Christ once more.

In conclusion, I don't need romance right now and I know that for a fact. I don't need Mr Darcy to come sweep me off my feet. I don't need Aragorn to save the day and ride by my side. I just need my Jesus. I feel lonely, I feel so desperately lonely I just want to lay down at night with someone I love. But I know I'm not ready. Jesus is wreaking my heart and exposing the wounds I've buried deep within my soul, and He's telling me I need to let Him heal them first. After that, my future husband needs to ask Him for His permission to date me! :) I don't need romance, I only want fellowship and people to walk in faith with. I think that's what we call friends, isn't it?

To understand why I love Jesus so much, just listen to this song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-Nbt8lCJrk&list=PL02F01326F4680B54&index=1&feature=plpp_video

A New Perspective

When I was a kid I used to think "Christmas Is All in The Heart" was a silly song but it felt good to sing it, like we could pretend all we really cared about wasn't the presents under the tree. I would hear Christmas Shoes and think, wow! Well at least I don't have to count pennies and end up lacking this Christmas! So even if we didn't have a lot of money, I knew we were well off.

Now, I don't know where that spirit has gone. Because as I agonize and calculate every little purchase in my head, and count out exact change, it's easy to feel like I'm just scrapping by. It's easy to feel like I'm living the Christmas Shoes song. If I dwell on that thought, (which often happens), I feel so hopeless. I feel embarrassed and annoyed. Why does the time have to go so quickly? Why does everything not just fall into place with the heavens singing in the background? Why doesn't God just hand me a check to pay for YWAM if that's what He wants me to do??

I don't understand why He doesn't. I don't understand why this world has to be so hard. Or at least, I try to tell myself I don't. I try to tell myself it shouldn't be that way, and that God is just wrong and being cruel. It's so easy to say the proverbs about hard times when you're in the good times. I've always loved quotes, and if I hear a good one I have to write it down. A lot of times my favorite ones end up on my wall. Although I'm no artist, I have a sketch pad and sharpies just so I can write down those quotes colorfully. It's harder to live those quotes when the going gets rough.

If you read my first blog post, you've read how my story started. I think where I am right now is as much of a challenge as that was. Because when I was living in Honduras, I was in the rich percent. Now here in America, unemployed and living with my best friend's family, I'm in the poor percent. It's easy to look at myself that way. It's easy to just see the dollar amount.

But "Christmas Is All In The Heart" isn't a silly song written by a poor man. It's a realization that everyday here in America is a struggle, and no less during the holidays. It's a struggle to be content and joyful, to thank God and not be angry with Him. I could SO easy count all that I don't have, but I want to count all that I do. I have a house to live in that I don't have to pay for, food every meal that I also don't have to pay for. A bed and warm blankets, kind people around me, my best friend living in the room next to me, clothes on my back to keep me warm, I even have extra clothes in the closet! And not just one extra outfit, but at least 10! That's such a blessing in itself. I also have art supplies, because I like to draw even if I'm no da Vinci. And I have books! I ought to be shining day to day just because of that. I have books that teach me, books that entertain me, books that help me, and books that I don't always understand at first. I have shoes. Pictures of the people that I love on my walls. I have a toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as shampoo and conditioner. So many little things that we don't think of every day! Yet what are the statistics of how many people have those things in the world?

This Christmas, as I stress and struggle on my own two shaky feet for the first time, I hope I keep that in mind. I hope I don't just count my blessings, I hope I realize them. And that I thank God every minute for them! Living the high life would be awfully comfortable, but I'd like to think I'm glad I don't. Because not a day goes by that I forget God's very real presence in my life. More like not an hour. Living the high life would rob me of that close dependence on God. And I like knowing that everything is definitely in His control and not mine (even though I'm a control freak).

Yesterday a prayer request was answered, I finally got my license! The test was so quick and the people so nice that I was incredulous that I had stressed and worried so much about it. I hope that's what it's like when I'm on the plane to YWAM. Even though $6,500 feels like the sum of the universe, I hope I'm able to thank God He didn't just hand me a check. I hope I agonize and laboriously have to surrender to Him every minute of every day, so when a check does come in (whether it's for $5 or $500), I'm able to sing praises to Him from the bottom of my heart with tears in my eyes. I want that joy! And experiencing joy means troubled times. Troubles I have, though blessings I have even more. My prayer is that God teaches me through each doubt, through each surrender, through each heart-wrenching worry and tear. Because God can paint pretty pictures in the sky, but I want Him to make my heart a forsaken wasteland to everything but love and trust in Him.

I don't say any of these things to boast that this is the lesson I have learned this week. Because I haven't learned it, I'm trying to learn it every day. I'm trying to see past the clouds in the sky to the stars waiting beyond. And in this period of waiting and trusting, I want so badly to have the faith that will move a mountain. I want that mustard seed. So I repeat to myself every day, "Just trust right now and surrender the later." Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. But that's why I'm not in heaven yet, because I'm still learning His ways.

“It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than resentful over what is withheld–one attitude or the other becomes a way of life.” ~Elizabeth Elliot

Third Culture Kid

“Life full of rich experiences in totally diverse cultures and places, each experience filled with a special vibrancy... And yet, a life in which she always felt a bit like an observer, playing the part for the current scene, but forever watching to see how she was doing.” -Third Culture Kid, by David C Polluck and Ruth E Van Reken.

On my senior trip, a re-entry retreat with many of my missionary kid friends, we studied some of this book, Third Culture Kid. It was given to us as sort of a guide to help us in the transition back to American life. Before I had been skipping to chapters that were relevant to me at the time, such as the chapter on reverse culture shock. But now I am taking the time to thoroughly go through it. I hadn't read more than a page before I felt like I knew the person they were introducing. She was an MK moving back to her host country (the country her parents were missionaries in) after going through college in the States. The quote is something that's said as they tell her story, and it honestly feels like me. It's quite normal to accept that I'll always be a little different when I'm the “gringa” or the “whitie,” but it's another matter entirely when I feel like I should be fitting in where I am. It's easy to be self assured and confident and content when it's obvious that you're a little different. It's much harder when you look like you are the same as everyone else. I'm not whiter, I don't dress that differently, I don't speak a different language. And I was born here. I should fit in. Right? Through reading the TCK book, and going on the retreat I did, I know that I'm experiencing what's called the Hidden Immigrant stage. I look like everyone else, but I think differently. I think radically different compared to what others are thinking. Often I find myself confused by conversations I hear. Honestly, it feels like I'm in a movie. Can the lights and camera turn off now? Where's reality?

I have been very lucky in my transition, because I moved back to my “hometown.” I already knew what church I would be going to, what college I would apply to, friends in my area and, most importantly, where I would live. I have great people who are helping me, supporting me, and a wonderful church who knows me and my family. I'm lucky. But even with all that, it has been very hard. It's rather difficult for me to think of anywhere as home. A few weeks back I was talking with the new youth pastor at my church and a lady he had just introduced me to. As we were talking and I mentioned I was a missionary kid just moved back, I was asked where I thought my home was. And I answered, heaven. Honestly, no place on earth feels like home to me. I only search for a place I can relax, where I feel safe, and where I know I'm not a burden. Then I call it my house. But my home? There's no place on this earth that is my home. I don't prefer one country over the other. I experience glimpses and brief moments when I feel like I'm home at random times in each place I'm at. A familiar smell, sight, or memory. It warms me and I know, heaven will be like that all the time. It makes me so excited to get there!

It has taken me a long time to get to the place of acceptance I am right now, and sometimes I'm not feeling so at peace. A lot of days are still challenges. Most days are still challenges. But I say this stuff, not just to raise awareness of other Mks like me out there, but also to remind myself of its truth.

And the real reason I am writing this is to raise awareness. Think of all the missionaries your church personally supports. Now think of all the missionary organizations there are out there. Hundreds. Hundreds of organizations, with thousands of missionaries. Now assume each missionary family has at least 2 children. At some point, those children will be moving back to their home country. It doesn't matter how long they've been on the field, whether it's been all their life or only a year. Those children, now adults or teens, need a home! Honestly it's such an area of need, and I see no one doing anything about it. Young couples, old couples, with kids or without. I know it's a lot to ask, but please. Image if you were overseas working, and you had to have faith to send your child back alone to start out. They don't have the benefit of a house. They don't have mom or dad around to help them do simple things we don't even think about. Get their license, set up a bank account, go to the doctors, go to the library, get new clothes for their new climate, etc. There are so many things that are necessary to exist. For me personally, I have been blessed in many areas. But I wish there had been someone there, who decided they would adopt me. Who decided they would be my parents, take me to the doctors, to practice driving, to go shopping, to handle money. I've been a missionary kid for over half my life. I'm used to my parents traveling around to raise support. But it's embarrassing to return home, ready to start adulthood and longing for independence, only to discover that I can't. That there are so many things I have to try and work out, and it takes weeks rather than days. I'm not complaining, because I'm getting them done. But I can't help but think about other Mks who aren't... Someday I'd like to start a program in churches across America. Regardless of domination! A program of finding families willing to adopt missionary kids returning home.

I was going to write about how I got into YWAM and how I'm starting the process of leaving in a month to do that program, but this subject has been weighing on my mind lately. So I went with this instead. Still, I thank God for this great opportunity to do DTS and serve with YWAM!