I was born to tell you I love you

I've had this journal entry on here for days, and I always hesitated when I thought of posting it. It's a bit raw, and bewildering, and exhilarating and confusing and perfect, and I suppose that I waited because I didn't want a stranger's shrug for something that means so much. I'm not sure I'm capable of explaining it in a way that can be understood.  That's your call.

January 12th, 2011

I have always hated the idea of being a missionary. Hated, deeply and passionately. Ask me why, though, and I don't know. It's like asking why I'm afraid of the dark--I couldn't tell you. There must be a reason, but I can't figure out what it is. It doesn't make sense, it just is, like the holes in donuts.


Imagine looking at the night sky. I've been doing a lot of that lately. I can be walking to my car, and suddenly, my head turns automatically and Orion leaps out at me, hanging low and bright and familiar, right where it should be. I recognize Ursa major and I look for the Lynx's trail, and they are always where I know they rest. Tonight, though...can I say that everything changed without sounding too cliche? But everything changed. Like the constellations shook themselves into new patterns that finally make sense.


I finally realized why I have always taken the persistant idea of working overseas, and crumpled it up, and stuffed it behind the boxes of good intentions in my head; and it's not what I thought it was. I don't always see. But today I saw a little old South American woman, treated for asthma, take a full breath for the first time in her life, and her black eyes wrinkled up as tears rolled down her cheeks. I could see her lips trembling as she smiled, taking another deep breath of the air that I always take for granted. I watched a little African boy dragging a big shoe behind him on a string, laughing while his feet stir up small puffs of dust because he has no shoes of his own. And they were beautiful, the two of them, so far away and so different than me. I let them into my heart; and before I realized it, I had reached back into that dark corner, and taken that dream, and carefully uncrinkled it and smoothed out the ragged edges and looked full at it. All I could think was, I want. I want this.


And I finally understood that I had shoved it away into hiding because it scares me to death. I am truly afraid. I am afraid to care so much about anybody; especially about people who need that caring so desperately, because they have nothing else. I'm afraid that if I leave what I know, to go to any place that requires that so much be given, I'm going to lose a piece of my heart to each of the precious people that come under my hands, and into my life--and if I lose so much of myself, what will there be left in the end? It's so much easier to stay detached here in the states, and so this is where I said I would stay. I didn't want to care. Caring can be hard and it hurts. Caring is handing someone a map to the center of your heart, and a knife, and hoping they don't use it.

I see how Emily, a stranger I've never met, has this amazing family in Africa, and how much they have become part of her heart. I can also see the pain that goes with caring so deeply. I don't want to form another family with another color skin in another country, because I'm afraid to lose them. I'm afraid to love, because I don't do things halfway. I don't know how. It's this grand adventure, and yet, I shoved it away because I don't know what I'll be afterwards. I'm terrified of being alone, but at least, it is familiar. I don't like it, but I know how to do alone, if I have to.


And now...now, I'm still terrified; but this time, it's for a different reason, and knowing the why makes all the difference. I know the why of what I've wished for, and what I want my life to be like. It is so new to me, and somewhat uncomfortable, to finally be so certain that my place is not here, it's there. I know that I want it, rather than feel that I want it, because I can hold that discarded picture up and it is honest and true, and because I feel peace gently shoving over the fear when I look at it. I look at it and I see a laughing face surrounded by strangers, on a strange continent, under stars and constellations that I've never seen before. And it's beautiful, and frightening, and it tugs so hard at my heart.


I pinned that wrinkled picture back up in my dreams so that I can see it when I sleep. I'm going to keep looking at it, every time I can, until I can recognize the girl I see there.

"I was born to tell you I love you."

Orion's Nebula