The Trouble With Dry Eyes

Late in the spring semester of my junior year of college, Tony Campolo spoke in chapel. I remember that day because it was the first time since I’d returned from studying abroad that I didn’t get angry with the speaker. I didn’t cringe at exhortations to personal holiness or grit my teeth against “Jesus wants to be your best friend” appeals because Tony didn’t talk like that.

Instead he told a heart-wrenching story about restoring the dignity and childhood of young prostitutes, little girls, in Haiti by buying them ice cream and watching Disney movies instead of buying their bodies.  If only for the night, he showed them love and compassion. 

As he told the story, I cried tears of empathy.  

This tear-stained service signaled the first sprinkles in a series of salty manifestations of the heart movements that ultimately pointed me to God.

From then on, I cried at every story of sacrificial love and restoration and reconciliation that came across my ears.

The first time a friend casually told me about the transformational work of Plant With Purpose, I blubbered like a mother at a wedding.

Eventually this stirring led me back to belief in God, the outrage I felt at injustice pointing to a God of justice and love. My own desire to see things be made new became a testament to the One who makes all things new.

I came to see this passion as the proof of God working in me.

I still see it that way. I still believe God allowed me to experience a bit of His love for the poor and forgotten. I still consider it the greatest gift ever given to me to use my skills and talents and time to support families as they break free from a vicious cycle of poverty.

I know that ending my time at Plant With Purpose does not mean I no longer care about the poor or that I’m selfish awful person (although sometimes I find myself fighting those lies).

But a week out of quitting my job at Plant With Purpose and a year out of feeling burned out by the work that I used to enjoy so passionately, I have found myself perplexed.

Where is God when I am no longer a part of this redemptive work?
Where is God when I’m no longer moved to tears, when passion gives way to apathy?
If my passion pointed to God, does my apathy point to an absence of God?
How do I know He is here when I don’t feel that passion? When my compassion meter feels broken?
Will I ever be passionate again?

Honestly, these last few weeks have been filled with doubt. Not necessarily in my belief in who God is, but in my own ability to hear from God, to decipher His voice. I don’t know how He speaks to me outside of my identity as Aly Lewis, Staff Writer and Grants Specialist. I don’t know how or when He will restore my passion. There are a lot of things I don’t know, and I don’t like it one bit.

I’ve been praying for confirmation and validation that I’m making the right move, that He has good things planned for me in Guatemala, that He will restore my joy. But all I’ve heard and felt has been silence.

And in silence, in isolation, fear festers.

But this weekend, this blessed weekend, I was reminded that I am not alone. That I am not on this journey alone and that I don’t have to hear from God alone.

It was pure gift and that’s all I’m going to say for now. You will have to check back tomorrow to read about the incredible send off my friends-who-are-like-family gave me this weekend, and how I was reminded that—thankfully—“hearing from God” has never been a solitary thing for me.  

See you tomorrow! 

Video Viernes: What Makes Us Happy

Great news for fundraisers!

Apparently money can buy happiness, as long as you spend your money on someone other than yourself.

Give a listen to Michael Norton's fascinating Ted Talk on how spending money on other people actually increases happiness levels, and then go out and buy someone else a coffee.




Happy Friday!

T.S. Tuesday: An End and A Beginning

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

This week marks the beginning of new era for me. I wrapped up my job at Plant With Purpose last week and have about a month of bucket listing, bridesmaidsing, and packing before I move to Guatemala.

The last couple days, as I've stared at my screen, fingers perched, or opened my journal, pen clutched, I've found myself voiceless. Like Eliot writes, I'm caught between "last year's language" and not yet confident in my next year's voice.

Usually my words flow profusely, involuntarily. But this transition, from full time, productive member of the working world to, as ee cummings puts so eloquently, a "human merely being" has been tough to process.

I'm sure this voids any sympathy you were feeling for me in my "tough transition," but this is how I spent my first morning of "funemployment."

I don't know exactly how God is moving. I don't know if I'm supposed to be sad to say goodbye to my friends and coworkers or if I'm supposed to be excited for the new adventure that awaits. I've found myself torn between the bitter and the sweet, wondering what to make of it.

I'm scared that I've made a mistake. That I'll get to Guatemala and be lonely out of my mind. I'm scared that my writing will wither when I don't have to spill words onto a screen before work, when blog posts aren't squeezed into lunch breaks, and when I look at my schedule and see wide open spaces.

For the first time in 4.5 years, I don't know exactly where I'll be on Monday mornings or how much will be deposited into my bank account every 15th and 30th of the month.

It's a little disorienting to say the least. But also exciting, exhilarating. When I was in high school, one of the most meaningful things I heard from God was the promise,

"You will grow."

The one thing I am sure of as I look at this next month, this next year, of unknowns is that I will grow.

I am excited to learn more of my identity outside of Plant With Purpose. I am excited to make new friends in a new country. I am excited to see God move in new ways, to count new gifts and chart new graces. I am excited to await another voice of a new year.

And though I'm scared, I am excited to make an end and a beginning.