the migrant wife

I sit on the train hurtling down the English countryside on our way down to London to visit family. Hurtling seems to be the word characterising my entire existence this season: hurried lunches wolfed down in between meetings and tasks, intensely deep conversations explored between two souls between the one-hour-limit of our appointment, plans scribbled down on bits of paper to stop it from being forgotten in my thousand-miles-an-hour brain. Adjusting to marriage is a hard task and I’ve tried to cram it all in as soon as possible.

Looking back at my childhood I’ve been trained to do that in the classic, high-achieving style that overshadowed and coloured a vast portion of my development. I have become an expert on cramming two after-school activities in one afternoon before completing my homework, how to thrive on six hours of sleep a night as a teenager to keep up with any assessments that a good education demanded. In university I have studied a certificate course in theology at seminary, alongside my second and third year, and completed a children’s ministry course at another seminary in my final semester, all when completing a dissertation and subject exams. While I was really trying to deepen my understanding and knowledge, my imagination, which needed silence, solitude, rest, was stifled. I had itched to write – but lacked the space to do so. When I started work, I told myself, I would give wide berth to creativity, to solitude – that’s when I could afford it.

And yet, my “ambition”, (or rather, “foolishness” would be a better way to name it) would itch for another ministry opportunity, another discipleship relationship, another training course… more, more, more. The internet with its limitless connectivity beckoned me to fill my minutes, seize my seconds, to scramble at the next headline and swipe for the next image – pulling me from my grounding, squeezing, suffocating every ounce of imagination that remained. I had to learn, to retrain my fingers, not to reach for the easy distraction away from the somewhat uncomfortable, unsettling silence, when you’re forced to listen, forced to process, what really needed my attention. I needed insight, not distraction; I yearned for my rich thoughts to be articulated into being, not shoved deeper and deeper into my to-dos (which, by the way, always resurfaces at the most inconvenient, and often emotional, of times). It takes courage to unplug.

It has been on my mind how I should look after my body better. Sickness after sickness, days of fatigue, remind me of the limitations of our physicality. I cannot get lost in the world of career and only serve scraps of leftovers to the relationships and friendships I treasure the most. This, I believe, requires a lot of re-shuffling of priorities and engagements, and to be completely honest, I am scared. There is a “good and safe” category that I’ve been lingering in, the category of status quo, the slow, silent accumulation of responsibilities, the soft, small voice or “oh, just one more thing.” There is another “good but uncomfortable” space that stretches and matures a soul. One that reminds you that, energy is a limited resource; you better budget it well.

In pondering my awkward limping in an unhesitating rhythm of goals and tasks, I came across this verse upon which I meditated:

…and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thes 4:11-12)

How freeing – a quiet life. Not a command to live a life “quiet” enough as a hermit to earn our way to eternal bliss, but a plea to dig deep into our well of assurance and grace, and to resolve to godly living. A suitable exhortation that followed the Apostle Paul’s genuine outpouring of his heart over the beloved Thessalonians; an adequate assignment, if you will, for us as we wait patiently for the Rapture when Christ comes back for His Church. in a verse before, Paul urged the believers in Thessalonica to do “more and more” just a verse before – an ambitious call to “take on more ministry responsibilities”? – no, Paul was saying to love believers in Macedonia and family of God more and more; and yet at the same time making it their ambition to “lead a quiet life”. Ambition does not lead to a chaotic, noisy life, if such ambition and energies were funnelled correctly towards self-sacrificing work of love. After all, how else would you measure the gains of life, if not the sacrifices you make?

In earnest, the line between good and selfish ambition is sometimes hard to perceive. One means dependence on the One who gives me strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow; the other means indepence from Him and squeezing out every ounce of excitement I have. One means earning to give, working to love, training to serve; the other means earning to spend, working to be busy (and to be proud about it), training to decorate my CV.

The line within my heart is often difficult to discern as well, the selfless camouflaged in the selfish, the pride disguised in the humility, the laziness masked in patience, the covetousness shrouded by apparent curiosity. The heart is deceitful above all things; I don’t pretend to know my own. I look outside again, thoughts not any clearer than the blurry hay-bales darting across my window. And yet, there is calm. A quiet life, how freeing. Comfort from on High covered me thickly as I waver, teetering over the edge of the “discomfort” of the unknown. It silenced my vain efforts in controlling this gaping void of the unknown (which often preceded seasons of growth, of maturity). I begin to understand that I can’t out-run the growth-pains. What is the purpose of God’s comfort, if not for during these periods of unknown? What is the point of faith, if not to reach across the chasm from our side of broken desperation and His side of fruitful glory? What is the function of grace, if not to invade our pitch-black emptiness of a vain life with a blinding, terrifying, holy Light? What more do I need, to untangle the complicated and warring priorities that colonise blocks in my diary (entirely my own doing) – to savour the slow and rewarding transition of marriage, the glimpses of grace that that brings – to persevere in the daily self-reflection and examination against His word – to embrace His pruning and nurturing of my life as I abide in His word and serve His people?

My sentences are becoming much less literary – they mirror my winding thoughts as I meander occasionally. I don’t think this will be the last of my musings on “busyness”, either: if the past few years is anything to go by, I would think the Lord still has a bit more work to do in me – He is indeed faithful in sanctifying His people in love. We’re going to arrive at our destination, sooner or later, and that will be sure.