Let's face it, we all have secrets: things we're afraid to tell others because what we're hiding just might make them change their opinion of us. I'm not talking about the things that you don't tell your acquaintances or someone you just met, but the deeper things that you keep hidden from your parents, your best friend, maybe even your spouse.
I've never been the most outgoing person. Loud noises scare me, and being around large groups of people tends to push me further inside myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm no cave-dwelling hermit! However, I tend to be one who has a smaller group of very close friends and not necessarily Ms. Popularity. Therefore, I really take to heart the friends that I do have.
Where I am going with all of this??? China. When you pack up your whole life and move halfway around the world, you don't exactly get to take your friends with you. And you don't exactly have the good fortune of having friends waiting for you there. So, when I met John & Lindsey at the first adult English Corner in our city during my first month or so in China, I was excited to know that there were some other young foreigners in my city. We got to know each other better and became more than friends, really. We became a family. We even joked that the people in our city probably thought that John had 2 wives because we pretty much went everywhere together, the three of us. We celebrated holidays together, watched movies together, shared some pretty awful/embarrassing moments together, and shared our hearts for the people of our city. That first year together in China created an inseparable bond between us - one that endures today.
However, God had other plans for us in our second year. This isn't something that we talk about much. Not me. Not them. Not our other friends in the city either. It is just so emotional and sad and still filled with so many questions. John & Lindsey ran into difficulties when they tried to switch jobs from the private school they were working at to the university where I was working. They tried everything imaginable. I prayed everything imaginable. I walked the campus praying the Word of God over their situation, I prayed in my apartment alone, I prayed together with them, I prayed and prayed and prayed because that was all that I could do. I never lost hope that God would come through and make it okay and neither did they. And then, on Oct. 11, I helped them pack their things into the taxi and had to watch them drive away with me left standing there in front of our apartment building. It still makes me cry today remembering that day. I didn't know when or if I would ever see them again on this side of heaven.
Then came the doubts - Why didn't God answer our prayers? Did I not pray hard enough? Did I not have enough faith? Do you not love me, Lord? What about me? John and Lindsey have each other, they will be fine, but I am all alone. This is the first time that I had ever experienced doubts like this. It shook me to my core, and my faith became weaker and weaker. I didn't realize what was happening or even what I was doing. I just noticed that my quiet times weren't as meaningful as they had been before, I wasn't hearing from God the way I had before, my times of prayer weren't like they were before, I wasn't as passionate about being in China and doing what God had called me to do there as before.
As a result of losing my 2 best friends in China I began to pull away from everyone and everything. I was scared to let someone else into my heart and my life. I put up walls and closed myself off to everyone - students, friends, family, my parents. I didn't want to get hurt again and the easiest way to do that was to simply isolate myself. If no one was close to me, then it wouldn't matter to me if they came and went in and out of my life. I became cold and dispassionate on the outside, but on the inside I was barely holding it together. My heart was hemorrhaging.
Almost 1 year later I realized that I was backsliding. I was desperate to turn things around, so I decided to do a Bible study on prayer. I started to feel a little "better" at certain times when I was praying, but where I had once been "on fire" I was now just kind of a "dull flame" or a "flicker". Slowly, gradually, it began to dawn on me that I was not depending on God, but was instead depending on myself.
Then came another set back: JL was denied his visa to the US to meet my family and to get married...twice. Again the doubts came. I continued to battle against depending on myself and instead relying on God. I knew that He wasn't keeping us from getting married, but I couldn't understand why He didn't want me to have the wedding that I had been dreaming of my whole life. I wondered, "After all I've given up for you Lord, after all I've sacrificed, can't You just let me have this ONE thing? Is it too much to ask that I could get ONE thing that I want?" Apparently the answer was yes. Quite honestly, I began to resent God. How can He be soooo good and soooo loving and yet not give me the only thing that I really wanted in my whole life? Was it because of sin in my past?
Last month, in preparation for an upcoming conference, we got some materials that needed to be translated. It was called the Prayer for Over-Comers. It asked the person to identify a lie that they were currently believing and to name it, then nail it to cross, repent of believing the lie, and to replace the lie with a truth. I began to think about what my lie was. Then, it dawned on me - I was believing that God no longer loved me because He didn't give me the things that I wanted. Consequently, I also questioned God's power to work in my life. The truth is that God loves me unconditionally (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8, Rom. 8:16-17, 1 John 3:1). The truth is that NOTHING can separate me from the love of God (Rom. 8:38-39). The truth is that God loves me too much to give me lesser things (Matt. 7:11, Jas. 1:17). That's my secret - that this woman of God has questioned His love for her and His power as the All Sovereign God of the Universe. In difficult times like this, I can only stand on the promises of God because they are the real truth. I have to trust that God knows what is best (Isa. 55:8-9, Rom. 11:33-34).
Do not get me wrong! By no means do I suddenly have it all together. God is continuing to speak to me and reveal and unravel the depths of my heart and faith that this lie has infected. This will be a slow recovery - there's a lot to heal and work through. But, we ALL have secrets, so maybe by sharing mine you can face yours.
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