Stop Crying

I know I’m made for more⁣

And I deeply hate this limiting season...⁣

⁣

But let this limitation be not the reality of life⁣, but the necessary transformational stage⁣ into a better way of journeying through it.⁣

- Scott Erickson

When I saw this image and caption that my talented friend, Scott Erickson, created, I felt as though he had clearly communicated my heart's struggle. A hopeless ship confined to circumstance that allows it to go nowhere. I'm supposed to be on the ship! Living our dream and calling. Yet the hand of the Almighty, Creator of the Universe, is holding the circumstance tight so that the sail is not an option. "I know I'm made for more and I deeply hate this limiting season." YES! I was living in fullness there, doing what I was created to do. And I hate now living a small life, so limited.

"But let this limitation be not the reality of life, but the necessary transformational stage into a better way of journeying through it." YIKES! Is there something more in this season than heartache? Am I to learn and grow in preparation for what is yet to come?

It's been 18 months since we disembarked the Africa Mercy. And for about 18 months I have cried everyday over that departure with no return. Not a day has gone by when we have not longed for the life we had onboard. Although it wasn’t perfect and it challenged us in many ways, it was rich and purpose filled and simple.

But circumstances – circumstances that were unavoidable happened and took us where we had no choice. I’ve wondered, “will I ever get over this?”

And now, we’re back in a life that we intentionally left behind - busy, bills, kids at school apart from us at work, complicated.

But here we are. And the choice is ours of how we’re going to live here. I can keep crying everyday, changing nothing, or I can listen to C.S. Lewis,

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts.

But you have to stop sooner or later,

and then you still have to decide what to do.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

Well, the time has come. We’ve decided to stop crying, as much as we have control over it! We recently tore out all the flooring in our new home and replaced it. As the floor was removed, we wrote scripture on the subfloor as a way of sealing God’s promises in the floor of our home and claiming this place as His. Then I handed Roger the Sharpie and asked him (with his artistic flair) to draw a picture of the ship on the floor. “It’s time to burry it. We can’t keep crying everyday and living in the past. We need to enter a new chapter and put the ship under the new floor.”

So, with tears in his eyes, he drew the Africa Mercy on the floor of our kitchen and thanked her for the adventure of a lifetime and added “We’ll be back, God willing.”

We left for a long weekend in Florida, celebrating the wedding of a dear Mercy Ships nurse that we love, and when we returned, all things were new. The ship was not longer visible under the beautiful new wood.

Now we must decide what to do!