Serving Well. Jonathan Trotter

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СКАЧАТЬ so, I’m sorry. The first step is to acknowledge that this is the case, and maybe see a counselor.

      Why does this matter? Because meta-emotions will massively impact what you do with your feelings, and what you do with your feelings will massively impact how you do with life abroad.

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      This material was originally presented at an international church in Phnom Penh. It is now available as a podcast. Just search iTunes for “trotters41” and look for “Living Well Abroad.”

2. Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries, 80.

3 See http://www.alifeoverseas.com/beyond-culture-shock-culture-pain-culture-stripping/

      The Journey to Feel Starts Small

      by Elizabeth

      Before my husband and I moved overseas, we met with a pastor who specializes in counseling ministers and overseas workers. At the very first session, he launched into ideas like pain, connection, and empathy. I was both unfamiliar and uncomfortable with much of the emotional language he spoke, but I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know what in the world he was talking about. So I just sat there, nodding my head silently.

      As we continued with the counseling sessions, however, I realized that the reason I didn’t understand the language of the heart was because I had shut off my own emotions. I didn’t know how to deal with emotional pain, so I simply turned off my ability to feel—thereby avoiding the pain altogether. Our counselor described this phenomenon as an “intellectually locked heart” or a “head-heart-disconnect.”

      How had I disconnected my head from my heart? For starters, I had grown up in a military family that moved frequently. Each time I was at a new school, the other kids didn’t accept me. I often found myself alone and in want of friends. Weary of rejection, I turned instead to academics, burying myself in books and living inside my own head, where pain couldn’t touch me. Then in high school, I developed an eating disorder. Addiction to academics and weight control were two of the ways I avoided dealing with my emotions.

      I looked good on the outside, though. I was a dedicated student and high-achiever. I was a “good girl” who stayed away from big, obvious sins. But I couldn’t relate to others without fear, and I couldn’t trust God to love and save me on his merit, not mine. My life was all about earning and performing, and there was absolutely no place in that life for emotions.

      Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew happiness and joy, and was well-versed in emotions like anger, bitterness, and depression. But I had no ability to dip into the feelings underlying them: sorrow, sadness, grief, loss. I couldn’t feel my own painful emotions, so I couldn’t possibly feel the pain of others, which meant I couldn’t extend love to them, either.

      Meeting with that counselor was the beginning of my journey to feel. My heart was locked up so tightly that I needed someone to guide me through the process—I could not have found emotional healing on my own. The counselor led us in prayers to ask God for healing. I asked God to unlock my heart from its lifeless prison, and he did. Then both my husband and I asked Jesus to heal our own separate unresolved grief and loss. And heal he did.

      I began to see that Jesus was right there with me, as I moved from home to home, from school to school. Jesus was right there with me, through every bad thing that had ever happened to me. He was with me when other kids made fun of me. He was with me when I was excluded on the playground. He was with me every time I uprooted my life and moved again. He was there all along—I had never been alone.

      Jesus knew every teeny, tiny detail of my life, and he began giving me the emotional healing I needed. I could now see Jesus walking beside me through some of my most painful memories. His hand was clasped in mine when I felt lonely and uncared for. His arm was around my shoulder at my most vulnerable point—when a church leader repeatedly took advantage of me in a sexual way. Suddenly my memories didn’t seem so painful anymore, because I could feel the tender presence of Immanuel, God with us, in those moments. I had buried my deepest wounds so far below the surface that I had to unearth them during counseling, but after Jesus entered into those experiences, they no longer hurt.

      When Jesus unlocked my heart and healed my emotional pain, I started to feel other people’s pain—and that hurts. But now I can offer deeper, truer love to people, because it’s from the heart. I’m no longer stuck in my head, oblivious to hurting people. I no longer struggle with either restrictive eating or binge eating. I no longer suffer from obsessive negativity about my body, either. This is not to say that I never overeat or think negatively about my body, or that I always care lovingly for other people. It just means that these snares don’t control me anymore.

      Our God delights in the work of healing. He created us in his image, emotions and all, and he knows every fiber of our being. He knows we are dust, and that we need him desperately. He longs to bind up our broken hearts and free us from our prison chains. He is Jehovah-Rapha, the God who heals. He alone can mend our hearts; he alone can make bitter water sweet. His love can turn our mourning into dancing, and our sorrow into joy. Our God is a healer of hearts.

      One Question You Should Get Used to Asking

      by Jonathan

      It’s a simple question, carrying with it the power to clarify purpose and extend longevity. It’s a question that buttresses against the nasty cousins of burnout and bitterness. It’s a question we need to ask more often.

      It’s simply this: “What is it that I really need?”

      We’ve got to start asking our cross-culturally working selves, “In an ideal world, what is it that I really need to make it? To thrive? To be okay? To survive where God’s called me? What is it that I really need?” Before you crucify me for turning the gospel inside out and hamstringing it with a message about me and my needs, hear me out.

      I’m not at all advocating a life without obedient sacrifice; I am expressly advocating a life of eyes-open sacrifice. You might not get what you need. In fact, I’m pretty sure you won’t. There are a lot of things you need that a life of cross-cultural service just won’t be able to provide. I’m talking about the full spectrum here, from a Starbucks latte all the way to the absence of gunfire. And that’s where this gets real.

      When you realize that some legitimate needs won’t get met, when you realize that safety and functioning utilities and access to public libraries and date night just aren’t as much a thing where you live, you can do two things. You can seek to mitigate, or you can choose to sacrifice. In reality, I actually recommend both.

      1. Mitigate it: Consider whether there are any creative workarounds that might meet the need, in whole or in part.

      2. Sacrifice it: Obediently, with a full heart and open eyes, sacrifice the thing as a holy act of worship.

      The Importance of Knowing Your Sacrifice

It can appear holy to deny that there even is a sacrifice. Rachel Pieh Jones wrote of this4 when she responded to some missionary heroes who claimed they never made a sacrifice. She writes: “While I understand the sentiment and the faith-filled valor behind it, I respectfully disagree.”

      So do I.

      Denial and acceptance appear to be identical СКАЧАТЬ