So if I'm going to stop regaling my ever shrinking audience with tales of the perils of being a missionary, what will I talk about? I guess will have to stop talking about the past and move into the present.
I'm working at a smaller non-profit now. The experience of working closely with someone who very genuinely cares about the work we are doing and gets excited about being able to help people has already started to remove some of the cynicism about the non-profit world that I had developed over the past two years. I'm getting to experience what it's like to be respected at work, and that has been very important for me.
I also have a really interesting job through the hospital that I can't talk about for privacy reasons, but I feel that it is a very good opportunity for me. Although my feelings of hurt are very real and completely valid, they are able to coexist with the positive feelings I have about the opportunities I am currently experiencing.
Yesterday, I stood waiting for an airplane to pick me up in Wales, Alaska, which is almost as far west as you can get and still be in the U.S.A. It was a cold, clear day and I could see the moon in one direction and turn around the other way and watch the sun set. I thought about my eighth grade world geography teacher, who was such a good teacher that she got me into the school's geography bee even though to this day I can hardly read a map. She would probably be one of the few people who could understand what I was feeling in that moment, because her class and the way she taught unlocked my fascination with the world outside of the small town I grew up in.
I will never be able to fully describe what it's like to travel to an Alaska Native village in January, and hear stories of polar bears and whales from an elder, and to see the moon over the tundra and know that everywhere in the world, people are seeing that same moon.
I will also never be able to fully describe what it feels like to move across the country because you genuinely believe in your heart that it is what God is telling you to do, only to be met with what is hopefully the most challenging workplace experience you will ever face. I may never have the words to convey what it feels like when you tell the truth about your experience believing that open communication and honesty will lead to reconciliation, and it doesn't.
All I know is that I stood there fascinated by the moon, I remembered the children who experienced unspeakable traumas and were still able to experience pure excitement upon seeing a rainbow. How wonderful it is to realize that even when we have experienced hurt that seems insurmountable, we have been given the capacity to fight through it and experience wonder again, if only we are brave enough to reject the tempting choice of cynicism.
