My world began to turn upside down when many of the familiar ways I was used to for years threatened to unravel. Our long-term housing contract ran out, and one by one the team we had been working with on community projects and missionary outreach decided to move on. Our children, now young adults, flapped their wings and flew out of the nest. There we were on a challenging African mission field, just my husband and me. We felt far from being competent and we didn’t feel brave enough to weather the upheaval in our usual routine.
Even though we had to admit that God had never ceased to help us through many tests and challenges, and He had never failed in any of His promises for our care, support, and safety (Matthew 7:7–8), our outlook wasn’t all that positive. The question of how we could manage the increased workload seemed daunting, and as I tried to figure out how we would tackle the immediate situation, emptiness and worry about the future settled on my mind.
We had depended on the many skills our co-workers had brought to the team. We had always had talented people to collaborate with. As a result, I never got around to the tedious task of taking driving lessons. It would have meant learning to navigate through the frightening jungle-like traffic in our congested African city, which I gladly left to a teammate. It also had not been necessary for me to acquire the skill of designing our regular project updates and brochures. In addition, speaking in public was not something I excelled in. Previously, there had always been gifted co-workers to tackle these tasks, which provided me with the privilege of doing what was in the range of my gifts and training.
Now, as things changed so drastically, my mind protested: “Oh God, what happened to my orderly scheduled life, and when did the proverbial apple cart come to this awful tipping point?” I was worrying during my morning time of reading and prayer, when the following Bible verse popped into my mind: “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5 NKJV). This was followed by another short message: “Take courage, God is in control!”
My complaints had fogged my view of the new things God wanted to do in my life. The time I spent lamenting the closed doors of the past had obscured my vision, and I hadn’t even noticed the open windows that had appeared right in my vicinity. I have realized, especially since growing older, that my natural tendency is to first focus on the negative, mulling over lost opportunities, before paying attention to the good that usually comes with change.
When I finally concentrated on the positive side of the closed doors, I sensed the fresh fragrance that blew through the newly opened windows, which God was trying to turn my attention to. I remembered what a friend had recently told me: “Blessings come in different shapes and sizes; in fact, we don’t always recognize them.”
So, I took the plunge. I signed up for a six-month course in counseling therapy and received my certification. I studied a tutorial to learn how to lay out brochures. I went on to pass my driving test. These newly acquired skills have been a great blessing and asset in our community work.
What seemed like such a defeat has actually proven to be a whole staircase of exciting steps upward and forward, and the “forced” learning process helped me to become a more well-rounded person and a better jack-of-all-trades, which has come in handy for some of the new assignments that life has brought my way. Best of all, I experienced what C.S. Lewis wrote: “When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.”
Looking back over the 29 years (and counting) that I have been working on the African continent, with all its insecurity, poverty, and unexpected changes, my faith in God’s Word has been my shield. It has given me courage, adaptability, and endurance to hang on during challenging times when energy runs low and resolve wears thin. (See Romans 4:20–21.)
Furthermore, I have seen an amazing design for my life unfold, which can only be accredited to God’s guidance, and that is proof to me that He truly is in control, and we can let Him direct our paths.
“Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21).