I wish I could say that hearing her story was unusual, or in any way surprising. It was too commonplace, too normal to even shock me anymore. She had wanted to be an accountant, maybe even a nun. She, as we all do when we are young, had dreams. One of 9 kids, she had 4 older brothers, the lottery if you will, for a young girl. Her parents scrimped and sacrificed and put everything they had in those 4 boys. Everything. Hope, like a bubble, was expanding and rising and filling. Maybe, just maybe, they could be released from the grip of poverty. Maybe, just maybe, their grandchildren would have a different life, a better one.
Then, as every story here seems to have a tragic “then“, within a few short weeks and one year later, every single one of those older brothers died. The tragedy is that it’s not a tragedy, it’s like war-time, everyone loses loved ones and that’s just the way it is. It’s normalized here. They each had jobs, education-requiring-jobs that could bring money to the home and help pay for the secondary school fees of the younger siblings. The food, the health, the survival of the rest of the family had all been on their shoulders. Simple things end lives here: high blood pressure, a walk to school, a ride in a mini-bus, a fever, a headache, childbirth. Life is fragile and short.
So, this young girl, now a woman staring back at me, became the provider for her family. No longer a dreamer, she was a worker all the same- doing everything possible to survive and feed her family. When I asked her if she wanted to be a nurse, I quickly regretted my question with all its extravagance and luxury. What choice did she have? What did ‘liking nursing’ have to do with anything? With that I felt the magnitude of the excess, the entitlement and the wealth of my own experience heavy on me like wet clothing. I agonize about my purpose, I grapple with my calling, I question my life’s work, as if it wasn’t the privilege that it is to be able to have a choice in what that work is. I want to be filled with wonder and satisfaction and fulfilment every day in my work- whether as a wife, a mother, a nurse or in ministry. How woefully entitled and off the mark these questions can be. This too, is tragic in it’s own way. Tragic in that, I miss the joy and wonder of my family, this moment, my health, this day that I have been given, these people whom I have called to love right in front of me, none of which I deserve nor should I ever take for granted. While obsessing about the big picture, I miss the picture right in front of me: the very fact that I am breathing is a gift, not a right.
What then, do I make of the stark difference between where I have come from and the magnitude of the poverty around me? Without shaming those who have material wealth, or pitying those who do not, the reality is that wherever we find ourselves, in whatever life situation, we do still have one luxurious choice by God’s grace. We have a choice in common. That choice will always and forever be, how then, will I live? How then, can I love God and love others right where I am, no matter the losses or gains that make up my life?
Philippians 4:12-13 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
There is such a big difference between finding purpose and fulfillment in what you do compared to trying to find what fulfills us and gives us purpose, right? It is possible to do many things well and yet not be doing what is naturally in our soul-filling domain. However, “whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31), spurs us on in spite of choice, desire, or personal preference. Thank you for sharing a bit of this woman’s life with us, bringing the reminder of our graciously bountiful lives.
Thanks, Shannon! I’m going to share this with our NLCC Interns as part of our discussions about calling!
Cool, thanks Tim for sharing that- so curious what your discussions on calling are like! Learning more that our calling isn’t ‘out there’ to find as much as living where we are more fully.