#17. It's Okay to Feel Overwhelmed.

At my recent cross-cultural training in preparation for ministry in France, I was asked to draw a picture (with my weak hand) that best described who I was at that point in time.  

This is me...

...lost somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, my heart torn between my current home in Missouri and my future home in France. 

I had been looking forward to this training for months.  Even though it will be a few more months before I leave for France, this felt like such a big step in getting me closer to that other side of the ocean.  

And it was:  both in terms of the physical requirements for me to go, and—even more importantly—in preparing my heart and mind for the move.  God has already done a lot of work in me over the past few years, but during training we were asked to dig down deep…really deep.  At times it felt like every layer of myself was being peeled off and stripped away, until I was left with just the core of who I am, exposed for everyone to see.  It was painful and yet freeing at the same time…plus we were all in it together.

I’ve never been great at articulating my feelings; it takes ages for me to process what is happening inside me and to put it in words that make any kind of sense.  And throughout this whole process, I’ve had so many different feelings that it’s been almost impossible for me to make sense of them all.  My logical side wants to take each thought and emotion and put it neatly inside the appropriate “box,” but I can’t, because there are too many things happening all at once.

So some of the greatest gifts God gave me during this program were visual, tangible metaphors that I can use to describe what is happening inside me…both for myself and for others.

I can have a “yay duck” that says, “I can’t wait to get to France!” and at the same time have a “yuck duck” that says, “I’m scared to leave my family and friends behind.”  

I can feel pulled in eight different directions at the same time by my expectations vs. reality, others’ expectations of me, and my own desires.

When I’m struggling to understand or be understood in a culture that is not where I grew up, I can remember that I need to “move my chair,” and that “different isn’t necessarily wrong; wrong is wrong.”

When I keep thinking of the word “chair” instead of “chaise,” I can remember that I need to “strangle my yellow balloon.”

When I think it’s too hard to change, I can remember Paul, who became all things to all men so that he might save some.

And when I feel totally overwhelmed, I can cry, “Father, help!” and know that He hears me.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  

-Hebrews 4:15-16