Everything is Not Okay

I scanned the grocery shelf quickly, calculating the grams and prices of the tubs of halva that sat squat, side by side. The ones with pistachios were considerably more expensive, but then I spotted a plain tub with a blue lid. It was 25,000 LBP, still not cheap but more affordable than the rest. My hand reached out for it, then stopped. Could we afford it? Should I buy it? 

I put it in the cart and we continued our shopping. As we headed to the checkout, our cart a quarter full with our week's groceries, I was still contemplating putting the halva back. I didn't need it, after all. There was no nutritional value in it, except maybe from the sesame tahini that complemented the sugar content. 

I decided to check one last item. Hurrying around the corner, I headed straight for the packaged cheeses. Last week, also on an impulse buy, I had bought 250 grams of Dutch Gouda cheese for 44,000 LBP. It was outrageously priced; I could buy a block of soft white Lebanese cheese of similar weight for a quarter or less of the price. I had picked it up and put it back three times, then gone back just before checking out and grabbed the package. My Oma had just died and this was the only way I knew how to console myself; with a block of imported cheese from her country. 

This week I stared down at the empty space where, the week before, 3 or 4 blocks of cheese had sat. I hadn't realized it was a promotional item or a relatively cheap item. If I had known, I would have bought 2 or 3. The next best thing, American Cheddar, was at the deli and cheese counter for 57,000 LBP for 200 grams. I could not bring myself to spend that much money on cheese. 

So I returned to the cart and firmly placed the tub of halva on the rubber rolling counter. I watched the cashier scan the barcode, saw the amount light up on the screen, and ignored the voice in my head that reprimanded me for buying yet one more treat that would just add pounds to my stomach. I didn't need the empty calories but I did need the treat. It was the only way I would be able to get through another week; if I had that treat to look forward to. 

I had frozen in the grocery aisle again that evening. I had been getting used to the increased prices; I had accepted that things would never be priced at the 1,500 LBP rate again. I had even acquiesced to the knowledge that locally-produced products would now be priced at the imported goods rate. Yet when I saw how the prices had climbed, yet again. I couldn't handle it. I had to literally walk my mind to the next item on my list, then tell myself that whatever the price was, we could manage it, because WE HAVE TO EAT!!! I had to tell myself that I could no longer look for the *best deals* because there were none. After going through the checkout, I had sighed in relief because the bill was just 420,000 LBP for 10 small bags of groceries. That used to be our monthly budget; now we spent up to twice as much as that for a week's necessities. 

I've reached my limit. I cannot manage this anymore. I may not have a choice, even as, ironically, those who live in this country are finding ways to leave in the droves. Yet here I am, stuck like a fly to sticky flypaper, with no hope in sight. 

So I open the tub of halva, spread it thickly on white bread, and make a sandwich. For a time, I will fly back to when I was a teenager, eating halva spread on honey and stuffed inside a gritty wholewheat baladi in Egypt. For a moment, the sugar will dull my senses and I will feel like everything is okay, when really, it isn't. For now. 

One Chair Left

Don't go, come back! she said, as she passed me, dressed in her Sunday best, clutch under her arm, perfectly coiffed hair, and a bright smile painted on. 

I gave a polite laugh as I headed up the stairs in the opposite direction, YouTube open blasting Need You Now by Plumb on my phone. The requisite mask dangled from my other hand, taken off as soon as I had reached the 174 steps that led up the hill to my underground bomb shelter basement. 

How could I explain to her that as I had headed towards the crowd of people, two cupcakes in my hand from a birthday celebration, that I was leaving because of a chair? It all sounded rather silly, anyhow. 

I'd decided to stay for church even though my husband wouldn't be coming as he had been up early to share with another church over Zoom. Yet again, I would be sitting alone but I was used to it. I went to the lawn where everyone was gathering for outside church and scanned the audience for an empty chair. There were a few, scattered here and there, mostly next to someone, but then I spotted it. 

A solitary plastic beige chair in the sunshine by the tree that towered above everyone, providing shade from the midmorning sun. I made up my mind and started to walk towards it, planning to take the chair and move it to a shadier spot. In my horror, as I walked the 20 or so steps in its direction, I realized that another woman was also heading in the same direction. I could not stop my trajectory, or I would have looked awkward, but I was just a little too slow. She reached the chair before me, and, not realizing I also wanted it, tucked it under her arm and marched away. I stopped and looked around, pretending to look for someone. I scanned the empty chairs again. I didn't want to do the awkward, Is this chair reserved? dance and end up looking stupid because it was, so in a split second I made my decision. 

I turned and headed towards the stairs. I was going home. 

Thank you, God, for today

And thank you, God, for today. 

I'd woken up after another interrupted night due to allergies and was spending a moment in prayer before I opened up my laptop to face the barrage of inane questions and vague requests that had been hovering in cyberspace since I'd shut it firmly at 5 pm the day before. I looked out my barred window into a perfectly blue fall sky and breathed out in gratitude. Without a thought, the words of thankfulness came to my mind. I spoke them into the atmosphere. . .then stopped in shock. It was the first time I'd woken up thankful to be alive in a long, long time. 

These past few months, maybe even a couple of years, have been very dark for me. Some would attribute it to situational depression, and they would probably be right. I'd taken the online quizzes from psychcentral. I'd noticed my energy levels slipping, my motivation disappearing, my only interest to stay home and lose myself in a virtual world of Facebook and Homescapes. I withdrew from all my social circles, making excuses when someone wanted to meet up. I began to go through a series of existential crises with no simple answers in sight and I wondered if I would ever come up for air. 

From struggling to trust God as good in the midst of all the evil I was seeing, to constantly fighting for my simple basic rights in the system I functioned in, from seeing how little value was really attributed to me as a person to reaching my breaking point with the political Christianese, I was holding on to a thin rope that was fraying rapidly. 

I began to lose what little patience I had left. I froze in the grocery aisle. I cried as I sat in a melee of cars pressed tighter than sardines. I tried to peer past the next day or week and I could only see blackness. My patient husband cleaned, cooked, listened to me process, and did all he could to support me but I still woke up every day feeling empty and went to bed most nights with tears slipping down my cheeks. 

I had passed an invisible road marker and was heading for a steep drop-off with brakes that no longer worked. As much as I pumped those brakes, people crowded into my vision, trying to persuade me to give this, to do that, to donate here, to help out there and each request was like a thin slip of paper under those brakes. If there had been only one or two slips, or even five, under those brakes, I could have pushed down hard and managed to come to a complete stop. But those papers were piled so high, they had jammed the brakes dead up so there was no stopping power at all. I was headed to a fatal end with no U-turn in sight. 

In the span of 30 hours, I was asked to attend a 10-hour training on how to do small groups, to assist in a 4-6 grade branch Sabbath School class, and to go to a meeting for students in my husband's department. And of course, these events were all scheduled on the weekend. 

I knew something had to change. So I started to talk. I stopped pretending everything was okay and I asked for help. I posted on my social media site the realities of the region where I was living. The economic crisis had resulted in a very unstable situation—one that made it impossible to create a monthly budget as the exchange rate fluctuated widely, let alone plan the week's grocery shopping when the local currency was tied to that exchange rate. 

I started talking to people again. An older woman who had seen much of life, my mom, my sister, several best friends, and my husband. I was honest about my struggles, about my fears, about how I cried in the grocery store because I didn't know how to manage anymore. I asked them to share how they had managed expectations from small church communities or worked with the politics in the system we all knew far too well. I listened and as I listened, I began to realize that things were different than the faulty tapes I had been listening to for far too long. 

And I stopped saying yes and I stopped feeling guilty about it. 

Slowly, I began to remove those slips of paper. I tore them up into tiny shreds and threw them out my window. As I did so, one by one, I started to feel the power returning to the brakes. The cliff's edge began to recede and my car started to slowly turn to face a meadow of luscious green grass, dotted with pink and purple morning glories and yellow-white daisies. 

I still get irritated at times. This evening there is some kind of celebration outside in the valley, banging on a drum, music playing loudly, and people making lots of noise. Earlier, a loudspeaker broadcasted some announcements or religious ritual so loudly, I had to close my windows so my students could hear my teaching. I'm worried about whether we will be able to buy gas tomorrow because the long lines have returned, even though gas is now 10x the price it was 3 months ago. I'm so so tired of fighting every day just to manage the little things that in another country wouldn't take another thought. 

But I'm finding me again. I'm learning to be grateful and I don't feel the heavy cloud of darkness settle on me quite so often or quite as heavy as before. I'm taking time to really be present and I'm finding I very much enjoy it. Whether it is sitting on our veranda overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and sharing a meal with a friend, deep-cleaning and organizing kitchen shelves, trying my hand at making a felt puppet from scratch, or baking snickerdoodles and apple pie for an appreciative husband, I'm finding meaning again in life. 

I was so caught up in what I thought I had to do for everyone to approve of me that I forgot to ask myself what brought me joy. I forgot to slow down and savour breathing. I forgot to appreciate the smell of clean sheets and the sight of a tidy kitchen counter. I didn't understand that in trying to please others; I had lost myself. Until it was too late and I nearly lost the ability to live life. 

Depression is real. But realer than that is life. Today. The day I'm living and the day I will forever be grateful for. Thank you, God, for today. 

I Don't Believe in the Church Anymore

I never imagined myself a pastor's wife. I grew up in a pastor's family and had vowed never to marry a pastor since I saw what the church expected of one. Family was much more important to me than committees and visitations and hosting out-of-town church leaders who expected the royal treatment. Then I went and married a pastor-in-training. And for the first time, I felt confident about being a pastor's wife. Not in an arrogant sort of way, but a quiet confidence that this would be where I would thrive. I was naturally nurturing, a good listener, an excellent organizer, and very capable of undertaking the many tasks that would be expected of a pastor's wife. 

Then I grew up. And even before we got our first church, I gave up. 

I never want to be a pastor's wife. I do not have the calling. I cannot handle the politics, the hypocrisy, and the dysfunction of the church systems and processes. I have no problem putting myself aside to serve people; I have every problem with erasing myself to be walked over and treated like a speck of dirt by those in leadership. 

I see my husband, earphones in, laptop open, Bible on the desk, 11:30 at night, translating for a Bible seminar. I hear him speaking to his teachers, his mentors, anyone who will take a few minutes to listen, asking them, pleading with them, to explain a Bible text to him. I see him poring over his Bible then listen as he asks me to explain concepts I grew up with since I was a little tot but to him are novel ideas. He did not grow up in this faith but his faith is much, much greater than mine. He is humble, he is dedicated, he is committed, and he is working oh so very hard. He never turns anyone away who asks for help. Even when he is tired or not feeling well or has a lot of homework to do, he answers the phone, he counsels the couples, and he gives that Bible study at 9 pm. 

My husband labours diligently night after night with few tools in his native tongue. He has spoken to leader after leader, begging for the doctrines to be translated so he can share something with his contacts. After 2 years, he still has nothing. Only a series of basic Bible studies and 5 of the EGW books. 

Jesus said that if we did not become like little children, we would never enter the kingdom of heaven. Perhaps it was because He knew that when we grow up, we lose that innocence, that simplicity, of childhood. Pride, comfort, ego, being right, are a few of the characteristics that are valued now. So no, I don't want any part of that. If those who are working hard to share the gospel with others are not supported, how can I support the system? In all honesty, I cannot. 

In the words of John Pavlovitz, "You wanna reach the people you’re missing? Leave the building."

Wearyness

I come here to write when nothing makes sense. When my world is swirling like a chocolate-vanilla cone, except deliciousness is not waiting for me at the end—just confusion. A sour taste in my belly. 

Yesterday, I left church early. Ants had found me and were swarming over my feet, in my shoes, up my beige plastic chair legs, and on the seat where I sat. I scurried faster than they to the sidewalk, vigorously thumped each shoe on the cement, then flicked off the persistent ones. I decided I couldn't manage it anymore, so my longsuffering husband took our chairs and we went home. It was not a good day. 

Some parts of days are good. Like our spontaneous falafel-and-sea adventure Friday afternoon where we sat on giant rocks and savoured perfectly moist-crunchy sandwiches as we watched fishermen throw out for a bite. But to reach the perfect rock, I had a mini meltdown because I was wearing flipflops, not gymshoes, and the cracks between the rocks scared me. I couldn't manage it. Just like most days when I cannot manage life. 

I slept most of Saturday afternoon. I cried most of today. The tears are always there. Uncertainty. Fear. Worry. Anxiety. Nervousness. Stress. Anger. Pain. Inadequacy. 

I don't like most parts of my life. Work. The community. The geographic location and all its pieces that don't make sense to my German mind. 

So I write. I eat. Most days I play Sudoku, scroll through Telegram and Twitter and Facebook, read the news headlines, or sit and stare at the wall. When I'm at work, I cry, I try to focus my mind to manage the full-time job in part-time hours, I prioritize, and I lock my door so I can teach in peace and quiet. And I eat. 

The child I will never have symbolically sits forever under my chin—a full stomach. An ugly stomach. A reminder of everything I am not and will never be. I will never be a mother. I will never be beautiful. I will never be slim. I will never be enough. 

So how do I feel? Unlike the children's song that repeats, I feel all right, I do not. I feel lost. I feel alone. I feel sad. And most of all I feel hopeless. I've lost my song and I don't know if I can ever find it again. So I struggle on. Because in the end, that is all one can do, really. Struggle on and hope that one day, somehow, there will be light. Or the end. Whichever comes first. 

Where It All Ended; It Began

Our plane lifted to the skies but I could not see the ground below for the tears in my eyes. My heart was breaking. I was leaving behind the world I knew. Our family had just shattered and now we were starting anew without a father. My world had just ended. 

For the next 17 years I lived a disconnected life. Everything that defined me—lay on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It was set behind a wall so high, Jack the Beanstalk could not see over it. I mourned the loss but never truly got over it. 

Until one day, I returned. Though much older, my heart had stopped time on that fateful November day and now it started ticking again. Like fresh batteries giving new vigor, I explored the country and fell in love, not with a person but with a place. 

Then someone came along. 

And 3 years later, the life I thought was shattered was beautifully pieced together in a turquoise setting of white lace. 

I listen to Carrie Underwood's See You Again and the lyrics have shifted now. I still love Lebanon, in all her messiness of politics, garbage, crumbling buildings, and exorbitantly-priced potato sandwiches. Like a first love, I cannot forget dancing along her rocky sea's edge, the delightful taste of street food, the rush of air on my face as we speed along in the rickety bus. Art galleries, classical concerts, gourmet buffets, and hike after endless hike through cedar forests and vintage vineyards are forever pressed in my mind like delicate wildflowers in a scrapbook of time. 

Yet now, the stars are not the ones that barely blink in her night sky, competing with fireworks, machine guns' red blast, or nightclub strobe lights. They are the stars I see in my husband's eyes when he looks at me across the breakfast table. Now the light I follow is not the light of the Jounieh harbor or downtown's elegant commercial arena lit up to entice the buyer. It is the light of my husband's smile when I make him his favourite Martha Washington cake. Now my tomorrow is not defined by the crickets' incessant song as the sun comes up or by the planes coming in for a landing into the sunset, one by one. It is my husband's hand holding mine, reassuring me he will be there tomorrow, and the tomorrow after. 

Lebanon will always have a special place in my heart. It was where I grew up, where I learned what heartbreak was, where I stepped over the threshold into adulthood. Yet most of all, Lebanon is special because she taught me how to love. I learned to open my heart and here, in the land where I thought my life had ended, 20 years later, it began. With a man who saw me and knew—he loved me. 

I will carry you with me. Forever. 

True Religion is This. . .

I slip an extra pound note into his hand and watch as Radjo, the gas station attendant, adds it to the stack of paper bills he holds to make change for customers. I hope he gets the tip. I hope it helps him in some small way even though with inflation now, it will be just enough for a bag of bread. I hope he understands that I am not trying to buy his loyalty to get a full gas tank when others are just getting a quarter or so because of fuel rationing. 

I give freely because I want to give, not because I am a millionaire but because my heart is broken by the sadness I encounter every day. Young men digging through putrid garbage trying to find a bite to bring home to their families. Mothers with little ones on their knee as they sit sweltering in the summer sun by the side of the road and wait for a handout from a passerby. I carry food bags in my car to hand out where I can, not because I expect anything in return, but because I am loyal to helping others. 

And therein is the catch. Sometimes loyalty can be bought. If you have enough money, if you have enough pull to give privileges in your sphere of influence, you can give it away “like it’s extra change,” always knowing there will be something coming back your way in return. 

The paradigm that I grew up with, while I understand it, goes against everything I believe in. It’s almost as if I can feel the atoms in my body linking hands, resolutely refusing in solidarity to approve of it. I hesitate to take. But I never stop giving. It is what God asked me to do, to share my bread with the hungry and give clothes to those who need them (Isaiah 58:7). Perhaps this is why God describes this type of giving as true Christianity. Because He knew that if I gave to those who could not give in return, I would understand what true loyalty is.

Shrouded Paths

I don't trust God. I'm honest about it.

Please help me to trust You more.

If God was taking care of my worries, I wouldn't be here.

It seems God does answer prayers. 

The see-saw goes up. And down. And up. And down. Each time it swings one way, my fragile trust seems to swing with it. Like the simple folk in Jesus' time, when I see a miracle, I believe. When life gets too difficult; I lose all hope. 

The day started out rough. I'd been up for more than 2 hours in the middle of the night worrying. Worrying about fuel, worrying about groceries, worrying about health, worrying about the economic situation, worrying about family, worrying about our future. Off I went to work, in my usual foul mood as Monday mornings and first official day back to the office were not a good mix. I unlocked the front door to the building, wondering how I had managed to be the first to arrive. After logging into my email and quickly scrolling through headers, I realized why. Today was a holiday. It had been announced late Sunday evening. So, everyone else, who dutifully checked work email over the weekends and late at night, had slept in while I had dutifully come in to work. Alone. 

I had a lot to catch up on after a month away so I started working through emails. Soon enough, there was chatter in the hallways as those without a life started to trickle in, dealing with emergencies or simply feeling important. I kept my door closed and ignored the small hubbub outside. 

Later that afternoon, as campus residents exchanged commiserations in a WhatsApp group about the heat and lack of a/c because we were on generator power again, my husband sent a picture of three loose wires sticking out of our living room wall. Here is our air conditioner he joked after remarking that we knew for the past 2 years how hot it could get. Moments later he received a private message from the powers-that-be informing him that this was not the channel to complain in. He was not complaining. He was simply stating a fact. But the higher-ups, seemingly embarrassed, chose to make him feel bad when we had been silently suffering for the last two years through the insufferable summer heat. 

I sent an email. The powers-that-be, after I had sent countless emails, suddenly said there would be an a/c installed that week. Whether it was my friend who had been telling everyone he met that we were the only apartment on campus without a/c or whether it was my husband's innocent joke, somehow the a/c was magically materializing. Too little, too late, however. 

I sent a list of things that I was thankful for, in our group family chat. I had resolved to stop burdening my mother with my worries, none of which she could do anything about and would end up just being internalized which was not healthy for her. Even as I typed, I thought, Am I trusting God more because the a/c is suddenly being installed? Or do I trust God less because it wasn't here when the heat was beating down and my husband was recovering from surgery, alone, in a room with just a fan? 

I didn't have an answer. 

As I bumped along on my transatlantic flight the week before, I had felt particularly close to God. I had seen Him working it out so I could board my flights, albeit without the requisite QR code on my negative PCR test, and I was trusting He would get me home safely as I prayed each time I undertook the long journey from coast to coast. Then I landed in the hellhole I had left just a month prior, only now it seemed 10x worse, and fear and anxiety overwhelmed me. I cried, I journaled, I read my Bible, I vented to my mom and sister, I got upset with my husband, and through it all, I questioned my faith. I lay in bed that night thinking, I don't even have that mustard seed of faith. 

It was true. I'd told my husband at suppertime, as I cried into my cucumber sandwich, I don't see any hope! Trapped by circumstances, there seemed to be precious little left to hang one's hopes on. Fun activities, intriguing ethnic restaurants, jovial outings, jaunty international trips, even simple things like a carton of soymilk had all vanished overnight to be replaced with heat, isolation, uncertainty, and crisis after crisis. I had depleted my emotional resources long ago, as I stood frozen in the pasta aisle in the grocery store, unable to make a simple decision as to which pasta to buy because THERE WAS NO CHEAP PASTA ANYMORE. 

I compared my month in sunny, though smoky, California with my dreary life in Lebanon and my soul shriveled up inside. Two more years of this seemed impossible. Even counting down the days seemed endless. Then after this, there were 6 more years of enslavement to the system as indentured servants. 8 more years. 8 more years struggling to find a speck of hope; an eyelash of purpose; a spot of joy. 

This life is taking all my energy just to survive. So don't be surprised if I retreat from all responsibilities and from most of life. I'm just trying to manage. Trying to find a reason for trust. Because this faith? It's brittle and fragile as century-old parchment from Pharaoh's tomb. 

He tears me down on every side till I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree. ~Job 19:10

My Heart Breaks, Too

 It was 5:30 am on a Friday morning. I'd closed my eyes to sleep just a few short hours earlier, at 1 am, after a long day of sorting and organizing and rearranging. I checked my messages and sent a quick one to my husband. I deflected a work message that made my blood pressure rise. I hated it when I was on holiday and people asked inane questions but my husband had taught me to deal with things right away so I wouldn't have to linger on thinking about it later, so I did. 

I should have dropped off to sleep again, after all there was a lovely soft morning breeze that just barely lifted the lace curtain and I had an eye mask to block out the light. But then I started to think. That was always my undoing. 

And I started to cry. 

God, why does it hurt to love someone so much?

The day before, I'd done a 30 minute video call with my husband who was recovering from nasal surgery. Not wanting to stress me out, he had gone and done it while I was away, on annual leave, out of the country. Now he was feeling pretty miserable as he could not breathe through his nose, his mouth was dry, and he was all alone. He had been quite chipper the first time we'd talked, the day after his surgery, but as with any illness or major event, the 2nd day is always worse and I could hear it in his voice. He was not so energetic and was talking less and after 30 minutes he was ready to say goodbye. We hung up and I cried. 

I started to panic, thinking he was dehydrated and worried that, because he was alone, he would not recognize the signs of dehydration and get seriously ill or even go unconscious and nobody would even know. I worried because I was not there to check on him in the night, make soup for him during the day, put a cold washcloth on his head to cool him down, and keep him drinking water. I worried because I could not lie next to him and check that he was still breathing. Being apart from him, across oceans and time zones, made it that much harder and the worry was much greater than if I had been with him. I always told him, I'm not good with medical stuff, but I was finding out that I was even worse with distance. I knew he was a careful person, I knew he had a strong body that would recover quickly because of his many years of being an athlete, I knew God would take care of him, but I still worried. 

After talking to my best friend who was a nurse and also married, I felt better. She reminded me that while we as women are nurturers, who care deeply about our husbands and want to take care of them, men are independent and want to take care of us but they don't know how to be taken care of. It helped me understand why my brave and stubborn husband had driven himself home from the hospital after a surgery with general anesthesia, filled a prescription, and changed his bandages without help from anyone. Then I started to cry again. I really really wanted to be with him. 

As I cried, the tears started to come from a different place than the usual one. I noticed my body almost shaking and I felt the fear and pain emerge. Two days earlier, another best friend had listened to me share how I had kept myself a bit emotionally distant from my husband since our marriage, somewhat aloof, but it was a protective mechanism. I could not allow myself to really love him, to open up my heart and be vulnerable, because then God would take him away just like He had taken away all the other precious people in my life and I could not handle one more loss. I had reached my breaking point before I met my husband so though I fell in love and I loved him rationally, I had stopped myself from opening up my heart completely. I could not because the prospect of pain was too much. 

Yet I knew that had to change. My mother had reminded me that it was better to love someone completely, even with the risk of loss, than to keep a closed heart. So I had decided to try loving him more. Then he went and did the nasal surgery and I found myself in a very vulnerable place, being so far away from him and unable to care for him. I was so scared that something serious would happen to him, because I tend to overthink far too much and always imagine the worst, and in my moment of vulnerability, the pain was intensifying. The fear collided with pain and I cried out to God to help me. 

Eventually I calmed down. I worried again that evening a bit but was able to sleep. Until I woke up and started thinking about everything and feeling sad again. Now I was not as worried. My husband had reassured me that he was drinking and I knew that each day that passed, he would get better. We had exchanged fun text messages before I'd gone to sleep and I was learning to encourage and build him up. I had not shown him how seriously it had all affected me; he hadn't seen the current of tears. Now the tears came, though, because I felt sad that he had to be all alone during his time of pain. And I cried out to God again.

Why does it hurt so much to love?

The answer came immediately. This is how I feel. Every day. Remember how Jesus died of a broken heart on the cross? It was not the nails whose pain He felt; it was the pain of billions of people who rejected His love and rejected His care for them. We are love. We don't love; we are love. Let that sink in for a moment. What you feel; We are. I don't tell you how I feel because I am God; I can handle the pain. But when Jesus died; His physical heart could not handle the pain. That was how great it was. The pain of love. 

You ask me almost every day, how can I watch these horrible things happen to innocent people, especially children, and not do anything? You don't understand. My heart breaks when I see those atrocious acts. It breaks because I loved the perpetrators; they are my children. They were born out of My heart. Don't listen to anyone who says that people are born out of accident; each person's first breath is placed there by Me. I love and care for each person and then, they turn away from Me. They reject me and they try to do things on their own and they don't care about Me anymore. My heart breaks because My love, which is What I am, cannot penetrate their stubborn cold hearts. 

I hurt when I see innocent ones in pain. I feel their pain just as deeply because I created them and they are part of Me. I know it is very difficult for you because you want Me to end their pain, especially the pain of the children. I cannot explain everything to you now about how sin and the end of the world works, because there are many things happening in the unseen world that you would not understand completely. It does seem like you are simply a puppet on the stage, strings being pulled, no choice about whether to live in this sinful world. But My child, you were born out of My heart. I would never, never do anything to hurt you. I use all My power to protect you and care for you. The pain you feel when you see your loved ones hurting? I feel all that pain and so much more when I look at you. Because I know you are hurting. I feel it in My heart. I love you far deeper than any human can love another and if you experience pain when your loved one is hurting, so do I when you are hurting. 

It seems strange, doesn't it? To imagine Me in pain. I don't want you to focus on that, though. I want you to focus on just one thing--My love for you. This love is what will carry you through all the pain in life. My love is more than an expression or feeling; it is Me. I will carry you through the difficulties; I will carry you through the sorrows. I cannot protect you from every pain in life but I can love you with the fiercest love that exists. I will take the pain on Myself and I will worry about everything. I will be the barrier between you and sin's worst pains. I took that responsibility when I created you and I will always be true to it. 

All my life I have been struggling to understand Who God really is and to reconcile what I see with what I read and know. With what I want to feel in my heart. God has no choice about being vulnerable or not; He cannot close His heart to love because His heart is love. Now that I understand a little more, my heart is calm and still. As much as I love my husband, God loves me and him even more. So I can rest in that knowledge because I know He will take care of both of us. 

I led Maria along with My ropes of kindness and love. I lifted the yoke from her neck, and I myself stooped to feed her. ~Hosea 11:4

Take 2, or maybe Take 59. It doesn't matter in the end, anyhow.

Today is not a good day. But then again, I cannot remember the last time I had a genuinely good day. 

Dear God, today is not a good day. I whisper it under my breath, thankful for the mask that muffles my voice so nobody hears me mumbling to myself in the middle of Ross. 

I've been working my way down the aisles, women's shoes to handbags to sheets to frying pans  and now I am staring at a rack of dresses. I feel a bit panicky but hope it will pass. I take 2 bras off the rack and head to the fitting room. Thankfully one fits.

Later, I realize I haven't looked for sweatpants. I hunt through the small selection, discouraged that I am now an XL, and finally find one that looks decent. In the fitting room I try it on. I peer into the mirror and see the tears starting. I don't have a tissue so I wipe my nose on the back of my arm and my eyes with a corner of my soft gray-blue pilling blouse. I sit down and whisper again, I'm not doing good today. 

After a few minutes, I manage to collect myself. I meet my mother in the clearance section and we both ponder our potential purchases. She agonizes over a soft pink day bag for work. I look at 5 boxes of discount headphones, the black sweatpants that don't fit perfectly but will do, and a snappy pair of cute beige heels. I add it up in my head. My monthly salary now worth $315 flashes like neon lights in my mind. I have the cash but spending it on things I do not need, like a pair of heels when I have a closet full back in Lebanon, heels I haven't worn for a year since the pandemic began, seems frivolous. Never mind they are comfortable and would look perfect with the flattering black dress my mom found for free in the mailroom. Or that they would match every outfit I currently own. I look at the 5 boxes of headphones. My head hurts just trying to think about which ones to choose. I hate having to buy for other people, namely a very picky husband and SIL. 

After standing frozen in the aisle for more than 5 minutes, I grab the fitted sheet set and the bra. I leave the cart full of carefully chosen purchases behind. Today, I cannot deal with them. I cannot deal with life.

I go home and unfriend most of the people on my Facebook page. I choose 5 books from a bookshelf packed with books that I spent hard earned money on but are now worth pennies on the dollar, and I tell my mother she can take what she likes. I will donate the rest of the 100+ books. I battle with myself to reach the mental state I need to just throw everything out. To forget my past self. After all, who cares about that person from before? Nobody, so why should I? I have to continually reinvent myself each time I move and I am sure I will be cursed to keep moving several times more, so now is as good a time as any to forget the Maria before. I do not need to bring her into my new life. 

Tomorrow I will start on the cupboard. Maybe, if I can manage it, I will be able to throw everything out. There can be no regrets. Only resentment. And anger. For the rest of my life. Because this life is not a good life.

Be thankful, they say.

Be thankful, they say. 

When you sit in line for 1.5 hours waiting to get 1/8 a tank of gas and finally reach the front of the line, only to be told they have run out of gas for the day and to come back tomorrow. 

Be thankful, they say. 

When you go to the grocery store and the prices have tripled in a week. When nuts, soymilk, whole grain products, and most fruit are out of your budget now.

Be thankful, they say. 

When everything is sold on the black market at 12x the original price from shoes to soap to shampoo. 

Be thankful, they say. 

When hospitals stop accepting your health insurance and you have to drive to multiple places to find one that still does. 

Be thankful, they say. 

When a simple burger with fries costs $25. 

Be thankful, they say. 

When a car repair takes your month's salary. 

Be thankful, they say. 

When sanitary pads cost $11 for a package of 16. 

Be thankful, they say. 

When you have been informed that the budget does not allow for the a/c that was promised more than a year ago, until after the hot season is over. And your apartment only has 2 fans.

Be thankful, they say.

When friends share their worries with you about medical bills, when you see the anxiety on people's faces, when gun fights at gas stations feature prominently in the Telegram group you follow, when mothers are afraid they will not be able to find powdered milk for their babies, when old people beg at street corners for a bit of money and young men dig through garbage dumpsters looking for a bit of food to feed their families. 

Be thankful, they say. 

Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? ~James 2:15, 16

Just as faith without acts is a dead faith, so too is telling someone to be thankful when they are faced with extraordinary difficulties. Not only are we struggling with the pandemic everyone else is struggling with, we are facing an economic crisis that is "among the world’s three worst since the mid-1800s" according to the World Bank and The New York Times. How can you look someone in the eye, who does not know if tomorrow their salary will cover their essentials because the prices are skyrocketing out of control, and tell them Be thankful? How can you say, Others have life more difficult than you, when this is possibly the hardest that person is experiencing right now? 

What do we need? Understanding and empathy, above all. Then let's work together as best we know how to help each other. 

*Note, Prices have been calculated based on a median average salary and official syndicate rate.

The Last Goodbye

Would you like to have kids? Are you guys planning to have kids? When would you like to have kids? Would you want a boy or a girl?

Just the other day, a good friend of mine posted on Facebook wondering whether it was a safe place to be open and honest. I pondered his question. I was all too familiar with people who used Facebook as their mental regurgitation space to share all their personal and often dramatic issues. There was a reason I had less than 150 friends now on Facebook. On the other hand, he had a legitimate question. Could we be honest or was Facebook just another place to show a perfectly-lined-up life, just like when we came dressed in our Sabbath best to church?

Speaking of honesty, there is one thing that has been bothering me immensely lately. Just as people are ambivalent about whether or not to receive the vaccine, I have been grappling with whether or not to have children. I married late and am now in my 40s. Until now, God has not blessed us with children. At the same time, I have not been very proactive about following up with a fertility specialist or seeking fertility treatments. In all honesty, I am terrified about the thought of having children while I equally long to hold a little one in my arms and know they call me, and not some other woman, Mommy.

Before I met my husband, I was really good friends with Karen who had twin boys. I helped her take care of them since they were premies and had just come home from the hospital. We built a special bond and those little boys knew they were safe with me. When we would go to church and some loud woman would reach to hold one of the boys, they would bury their little head in my shoulder and I would calmly move out of reach. I watched them walk their first steps, rocked them to sleep, gave them their bottles, and held them on my lap when we went for a drive. I held their hand as they toddled about after church, played the fishing game with them, and helped decorate for their first birthday.

I was never one to go and pick up random children in church or stop and say hi to a little one I was passing in the grocery store, which my husband is constantly doing to my extreme embarrassment. I didn't want to disturb any family dynamics so I just watched wistfully from afar and wondered what it would be like to have my own little one. I marveled at how new mothers seemed so natural at what they did. Then Karen gave me the gift of spending time with and taking care of her twins and I realized that I could, indeed, do this.

I married. We talked about kids but never really seriously. Both of us coming from broken homes, both of us disenchanted with life, and both of us very much aware of the enormous difficulties in life, children were seemingly never in the cards for us.

I had known other couples who didn't have children and I had never asked them why they didn't have kids or jokingly suggested it was time for them to have kids. Yet the community around me was not as thoughtful or sensitive. For some reason every single person felt it was their God-given duty to ask me about my reproductive goals. Was I going to have kids, did I want a boy or girl, when did I want kids? It made no difference if we were just acquaintances; the questions came regardless.

Most of the time I dug my fingernail into the fleshy part of my thumb until it hurt so I would not cry. Then I would usually reply with God knows or look at them until they became as uncomfortable as I felt. I could not tell them honestly that I had dreamed of being a mommy since I was little. That I wanted to have twins. That I was terrified of trying to raise children in this impossible economic situation and in this world where abuse is rampant and morals have flown out the window.

Often some insensitive soul would look at my belly, the 12 kg I had gained from stress-eating during the pandemic's multiple lockdowns and economic crises that led to fuel and groceries skyrocketing, and remark, Are you pregnant? Not only did they remind me that my arms and heart were empty, they dug and twisted the spike with a comment that reminded me of my lack of self-control and poor eating habits.

I can honestly say I am thankful God has not given me a child because I would want to be able to guarantee them a comfortable life without too much pain or suffering and that I cannot do. I could not raise a child who would turn to me and ask, Why did you bring me into this difficult world? I could not be certain they would make right choices and live an upright life. I would not be able to raise a child who had serious health challenges and having a child at an older age significantly increased that risk.

Not every woman is comfortable to be honest about how she really feels. As women, we are taught to be subservient to all others around us. If someone asks us piercing personal questions, we feel we should answer them, rather than politely state that it is not their business to know. We worry more about their feelings when we do not consider our own. While it is true that when we actually speak out, it is not that difficult to be open, it takes courage and a safe space to speak. Even in my own openness, I have had well-meaning people try to justify others' questionings or tell me that God can bless me with a child if it is His will.

What if it isn't His will? Or what if I exercise my free will and choose not to have a child because I am thinking of the long-term consequences and how difficult this life will be for them? A child is not like a puppy who needs a little training, food and water, and love and then they are content. A child has to be intentionally nurtured and brought up to be a good citizen in society. I cannot choose to have a child just because toddlers are so cute.

So this is where I am. Caught between a longing and reality. Learning to be honest about what I wish while recognizing what can be. Struggling with the likelihood that it is too late. Then again, the TCK life is one of unfulfilled dreams so this is just another one I can add to the valise, then shut the lid and lock it tight.

One more goodbye.

Greatest Expectation

I managed to get him into a second doctoral program. Fully paid for. He beamed up at me as he shared what he felt was really good news for G. It was good news. I was happy for G as he was a personal friend of mine. At the same time, my heart crumbled just a little bit more. 

Some people have all the luck, flashed through my mind. I knew it wasn't true. Most people have difficulties in life but oh how my heart yearned to get into a doctoral program. I had so many ideas, so many directions I could go, so many areas I was passionate about. I had recently discovered that I loved teaching but was limited by my graduate studies as to what I could teach on the university level. I contemplated more master's level courses but found myself irritated and bored in class so I quit. I was ready for a challenge. I knew I could meet it and I knew I would grow immensely from it. I was confident that if I had the chance to complete a PhD, I would actually use the knowledge I had learned and continue building on it to thrive mentally and emotionally. 

I missed that. For years now, I felt stuck. The greatest expectation of me was being able to print business cards or schedule a Google Calendar meeting. Every now and then I joined an online webinar from another university—a writing workshop, a seminar on architecture and glass, diplomacy in the Middle East. Some were in my wheelhouse, others were completely foreign territory, but I reveled in the mind-stretching exercise to learn new terminology and expand my awareness of other topics. For an hour or so, I felt intelligent. 

I guess I cannot complain. There are many who have not even completed their bachelor's degree and are desperately searching for opportunities and finances to do so. I should be thankful for what I have earned. Yet the desire doesn't go away. I want to write books, read books, delve deep into psychology and understand adult TCKs and identity. If I could do anything in the world, I would complete a PhD in Psychology with a focus in TCKs so I could lecture, write, and counsel in a way that would give them tools to manage their many complexities born out of a life they did not choose. 

But that is just a pipe dream. For now.

2,966º Celsius

I sat at my desk, head buried in my hands, and cried. 

Thankful that my office was at the end of a quiet hallway and that my boss rarely disturbed me, I let the tears flow. With a Kleenex in hand, I sobbed quietly, waiting for the feeling to pass so I could resume my morning work. There was nothing I could do, after all. 

Perhaps that was why it all felt so terribly difficult. Because there was nothing I could do. I was stuck. In an impossible place. With no way out. 

That morning I had sent yet another email asking if there was an update on the maintenance request including an a/c unit for our little apartment. When we had moved in, we were told that the work was planned for a few months later. 6 months later I inquired and was told there was no time frame yet. 9 months after that, I sent another email reminder. Mid-May I was told it would take 4-6 weeks. 6 weeks later, I sent another inquiry about an update and was informed it would take a few weeks for the maintenance request to be completed and was asked to be patient. The a/c would not be installed before August because the budget had already been spent for the next month.

Patience. 

When you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, turn off the heat, and it tries to jump out, do you tell the frog Be patient? After all, if they wait just 30 minutes or more, the water will be less hot. Of course, the frog could be cooked by then, but that is not the point, is it? The point is to be patient. Endurance and all that. 

I texted my husband, sharing my frustration. He told me not to worry about it and that one day all things would be made right. But we are supposed to be Christians and if someone hits us on one cheek, we are supposed to turn our face so they can hit us on the other cheek too, I replied somewhat hopelessly. 

If that is what a religious community is like, then I don't want to be part of it was his astute reply. 

Lately it feels like I'm just sitting in a pot of boiling water all the time. I earn the equivalent of $2.25 an hour; I cannot exchange local currency into USD but the majority of services in the country now demand USD or local currency based on the black market exchange rate. My salary has doubled, thanks to the generosity of my employer, but prices have increased up to 10 times higher. I am limited in how much I can withdraw from my bank each week. Every time I go to the grocery store, prices have jumped, often quadrupling within a matter of days, so that our daily meals are becoming more and more simple. Even staples are increasing in price. Gas stations ration fuel, only allowing you to fill up 1/8 of a tank at a time, if they are even open. Often, after sitting an hour in a line that others try to cut into, we reach the front only to be told the gas has run out. Electricity shortages are starting to hit now so internet outages are a very real possibility. Covid still lurks as evidenced by masks required in all public indoor spaces. Protests against the country's crises lead to roads being blocked with burning tires. And on top of it all, the heat rises, metaphorically and literally. With no cooling system in sight. Least of all an a/c. 

Ironically, I grew up in Africa so my body knows how to adjust to heat. After my cry this morning, I reminded myself that I will not die. We have a fan, thankfully, and our basement apartment has thick walls so the heat does not hurt as much as if we were in a rooftop apartment. We will adjust to summer's sticky heat just as we adjust to the mold that creeps all over our walls during winter's moisture-laden storms. In the end, however, that is not why I cry. 

An air conditioner costs $238. Not much to invest in an employee but apparently, too much for this month and the next, maybe even the one after. And that is why I feel so discouraged. Because I am being told, you are not worth $238. Because it is one thing after another after another. When I'm not fighting lines at the gas station, searching for fruit that is not outrageously priced, or going to the ATM for the umpteenth time to check if they have cash so I can make a small withdrawal, I am sending email after email asking when the maintenance request will be done, when we can get a/c, when the reimbursements will come, when, when, when. And I'm told to be patient. 

According to The Atlantic, "If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will (unfortunately) be hurt pretty badly before it manages to get out -- if it can. And if you put it into a pot of tepid water and then turn on the heat, it will scramble out as soon as it gets uncomfortably warm" (Fallows, 2006). 

Boiling water hurts. Sitting in boiling water time after time eventually leads to a feeling of hopelessness, just like in learned helplessness, where a person goes through stressful situations so many times they eventually, " come to believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when opportunities for change become available" (Leonard, 2019). 

There is hope. According to the same article, CBT that provides support, encouragement, positive and beneficial thoughts, ways to decrease feelings of helplessness and improved self-esteem will help someone overcome learned helplessness. The only problem is, what do you do when the place that sets you up for this behavior is unable to provide any of those positive reinforcements? 

Then you just cry. After that, you wipe your eyes, shut your heart, go into auto-pilot mode, and just get the work done. Because after all, there is nothing that you can do.

The Clown Cries

I navigate to the airline's website, typing it into the search bar in Google Chrome. The departure airport is already there; I just have to choose the arrival airport and travel dates. I know the airport code and quickly choose the dates for the umpteenth time. I find an itinerary and am about to select it when my fingers hesitate. My stomach is churning. I feel ill. I close the tab and look away from my monitor. I cannot do this. I know I have to, because I spent $540 to renew a piece of plastic; my mother has decided she wants to live the rest of her life in a country I do not want to return to; and I have a shopping list a mile long of things we cannot find here at reasonable prices. If I want to make gluten steaks for my husband, I have to book that ticket, step on that plane, suspend over ocean at nighttime, and sit in tiring airports for 11 hours in a row, so I can buy that gluten flour. 

But I cannot. 

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concert, Op. 35 does nothing to soothe my nerves. Nerves that have been rattled and frazzled for months now. Will it ever end? Two years seems like an eternity, even though I have lived here that twice over and more now. 

My ability to handle things is rapidly diminishing. I accept responsibilities only to quickly hand them back as I realize my world is narrowing by the hour. Loud music on the radio, potholes in the road, unexpected work requests, a peach that needs to be eaten, all becomes too much. I watch episode after episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, somehow finding solace in its consistency. 500 dollar question, then 1,000 thousand dollar, then 2,000 dollar and so forth. The game never changes. The questions do, but the structure is predictably the same. And perhaps that is what I need in my life right now. 

I got married, then the economic crisis struck, then the pandemic crisis, and through it all I was dealing with work stress and getting adjusted to married life. Never mind that it all happened in a foreign country where I do not speak the language and do not have a strong local support system. Of course we should add the guilt of a thousand years that whispers, You are a missionary, you are a TCK, you are a Christian, you should be able to handle all of this without a problem. You're not reading your Bible enough; that is why you don't know what to do. You're not trusting God enough; that is why you are feeling overwhelmed.

Perhaps that is true. There are days and sometimes weeks that I cannot read my Bible. I flip through the pages unseeing, cliche phrases that just don't seem to do it anymore, or prophecies that seem irrelevant to what I'm going through right now. I try to pray and sometimes I feel peace, but most of the times I feel anchorless, unsure the God I speak to can or will do anything. After all, the Christian is supposed to be grateful for all the difficulties in life because they come directly from the Father's hand, isn't that what we are taught in church? So sometimes I tell God honestly, I cannot speak to You right now. 

In the end, I return to writing. It is what calms me and keeps me somewhat held together. I will count my fingers, keep the classical station playing on YouTube, drink another bottle of water, and somehow hope I can manage to get up my courage to book that ticket. After all, I have to go.

Paper Burn

it comes unbidden, without warning

like mt. vesuvius

it explodes

into a gajillion million

invisible pieces

i see myself fractured

splintered

red hot lava pouring down

unstoppable

it drowns anyone in its path

mercilessly

5 years of constant dripping

drop upon drop upon drop

no, make that 17 years of hell

or 22

or maybe it's just always 

been like that

and i never really noticed

until one day

it became too much

and i

exploded

Stick-her Shock

I took the pink plastic package over to the scanner to check the price. 19,958 stared at me from the monitor. Shock rattled through me. I went back to the display shelf, searching in vain for a cheaper item, a different brand. There was none. I turned the package over in my hands, wondering how badly I needed them. There were 16 inside. Would that be enough for this month? I knew, though, that I didn't have a choice so I put the package in my cart and pushed it to the escalator. 19,958 for one package. 

Pads.

It's not a topic we talk about easily. If you are from the older generation, you likely don't mention the word at all because it is taboo. If you are younger, you may throw the word period around easily enough, but we still don't talk about pads, tampons, and other hygiene items for a woman's monthly period. 

I live in a country where women, naturally, make up a significant portion of the population. It is also a country that is experiencing a significant economic crisis. While a number of items are subsidized, pads are not. Yet they are more essential to daily life and health than coffee creamer, bug repellent, or sugar which are considered crucial and on the list of subsidies. 

I am one of the lucky ones. I have a decent salary, enough to afford the 19,958 every month or even splurge on an extra packet if I want to have both overnight and daily options. But what about the woman who begs on the street, a small child sitting on her lap while two more huddle beside her? What about the woman who earns a meagre pittance of a wage as a domestic helper? What about the single mother who is struggling to put food on the table and put her children in school? What about the refugee who is living in a two-room dump of a place, or a tent in a refugee camp, battling the elements to survive? They are just trying to find money to buy a bag of bread; how will they ever manage to buy a package of pads? 

We do not have a choice about whether we bleed. Don't make us choose whether we live in comfort and peace of mind, or put food on the table for our children or take care of our ailing parents. All life comes from the woman--she nourishes the child inside her and continues the cycle of life. Don't make us feel ashamed of what makes us a woman.