I can still remember that last week in Philly sixteen years ago. A yard sale to liquidate all the second-hand household goods that we had accumulated in our rented duplex apartment. The hot sticky late June weather of a Philadelphia summer. Staying at our friends house for those final days. How they were in those raw and tender first weeks with a newborn but still welcomed us. Their thoughtful send-off and the way my heart lurched at the end, wondering what it was we were doing. My parents coming into town to help us pack, taking us to the airport, final hugs, tears, pushing bags of snacks for our two small boys into our already overstuffed arms. Running sweaty through airports with kids who couldn’t carry themselves. The other-worldly landing in Beijing. Smells and humidity outside anything I had experienced. Hiking the Great Wall, jet-lagged with toddlers. New friends that immediately became family. Worship that felt real and vulnerable and open to an exciting new life ahead.
Yesterday Josh and I sat in our exit interview, sharing reflections on these many years and what we’ve learned, what we’ve gained, what we wished could have been better or different. It was hard for us to find too much to be critical about. There are a few small things here and there, but on the whole our experience is one of immense gratitude. We love this company and what they do here. We have loved being a part of it all. When asked what it was I have most appreciated about our organization, I couldn’t think of one grand thing (I just don’t think like that in general), but the first thing that came to mind was the missional purpose. From the first day we arrived, listening to Chiang Kei share the vision for our work from Isaiah 6, we were all in. That vision has sustained these many years.
At one point, our interviewer asked how we think we have grown during our time here. This is always a humbling question to me that I find hard to answer. Have I grown? I hope that I have. Often, I look back with a critical eye at ways I struggled, things I failed to do well, or all the ways I didn’t show up how I should have during these years. But as I thought about it, the things that came to mind was how many times I’ve been asked to trust. More specifically, the many times I’ve had to make a choice about doing something because it seemed what was being asked of us or what we were being led to, as opposed to what would look like the “best life now” for my kids or our family.
I have a fraught relationship with the idea of living your best life. In one regard, I understand the desire for it. I experience that desire. And I have some compassion for that longing to take what you have in front of you and make the most of it, to appreciate and live in the present moment and not always be wishing for something different or better. In its best expression, “living your best life now” can be about being grateful for the ordinary goodness of what you already have. But more often the way we talk about it leads us to a constant competition with ourselves and others to find our best life— whether, it’s in our health and wellness, or our kids education, or our marriage, or our career, or our forms of personal expression. and whatever that is to go after it and to live it. Somewhere in that life, we think, lies our happiness.
As I thought about these past sixteen years and where I’ve grown, it is this battle I fight against the message of “living your best life now” that comes to mind. I don’t know how much further along in the journey I am, because I still grapple with doubts, even now as we make another monumental move to the other side of the world. Did we mess up our son’s future by changing schools for his senior year— cutting him off from extracurriculars he would have taken part in, and honors he would have accrued? Are we leaving a community that would have fostered more spiritual growth in our younger kids, in ourselves? Will they struggle in ways we have long avoided by being away from American culture?
But as I look back over these years and all the choices we made that involved missing out on things we believe are important and good— whether in areas of education, or love of nature, or family relationships, or church community, or spiritual formation— it is this crucible of trusting in God’s say over my life and belief in his goodness that has caused me to let go of whatever it was we were doing without.
Because what happens when I do my very best to craft a life that is “the best”, only to be disappointed by the outcome? Either I’ll beat myself up for the choices I made, questioning how I should have done it different, or I’ll be proud of the way I got it right.
In a message I listened to this week (I’ve been listening to him for years now, and it’s a habit I won’t stop anytime soon), Tim used a striking example of from Jane Eyre to illustrate what it means to “wait on the Lord.” He reads the passage where Jane has to use every moral fiber of her being to resist Mr. Rochester’s entreaty to stay with him, to live with and love him, though he is already married to a mentally deranged woman. Her heart is breaking. But her resolve is remarkable and admirable because, as she says, it is during the times when our moral decision is tested that we have to hold firm to principles long ago decided.
I thought about this as I struggled with all the doubts and questions that assail me in this current time of transition. Is this something I’ve learned? Is this an area I’ve grown in? I don’t have fewer doubts or questions, but I do recognize them when they come. And I see in Jane what I want to aim for, what I believe is the promise I can hold on to more than any modern message of “this is how you live your best life now.” That there is a Good Life that cannot be measured by the standards we so often use. Sometimes I am led to places that make no sense in terms of advancement, ease, happiness, or whatever it is we desire. But I believe God meets us there.
For me, it’s still that word we heard from Isaiah 6 that lit our fire and lit the way all those years ago:
It is not the impressiveness of the one who is called, or even the calling itself that compels us (Isaiah is told after all, that the message he is going to preach will be rejected), but it is the One who calls that makes all the difference.
I’m having to face that fear and practice that trust all over again. What if we got it wrong? What if we didn’t discern correctly? What if we moved too soon or followed our own misguided motives? The questions are like a subtle rumbling under the surface that sometimes break out into a full blown assault. What if in a year everything is awful and a disaster, what will I think then?
I hope I’ll remember that no matter what cultural messages or personal desires whisper otherwise in my ear, it’s not in my power to engineer a life that works out to the best optimal possibility. Even if I did it all right, and had every good fortune on my side, as Kate Bowler likes to say— Everything Happens. But am I being carried? Yes. Am I walking hand in hand with a Savior who leads, who cares for my kids beyond my ability to do them right? Yes.
Am I living my best life now? Probably not. And also, in so many ways that are not up to me— I continue to hope, yes.
If this post resonated with you, and you think might encourage someone else on the journey, please share.