I’m beginning to see this time in Paris for what it is: redemption. I meant to spend these last few weeks discerning whether or not to be international, and that is still happening. In fact, once I have the details worked out, I will be sharing the next steps I’ve decided on, which will hopefully help me come to a more definitive answer on the international question. What I’m realizing in Paris, though, is a direct counterpart to the brokenness I felt when I was here eight years ago.
I left for Paris in 2015 having hit a wall in myself. A few months before my departure, I experienced an un-damming of all the emotion I had bottled up and pressed down in my life. A few break-ups, ministry jobs, and good professors and friends in college finally got me to a place in my final semester where I was soft and broken – ready for a new way of beginning but not knowing where to start. I now believe that times like these are fundamental in our faith journey, and yet I feel the horror of it still. It felt, truly, like death. I wondered sometimes if I would die. My family and roommates were worried sick. I went on medication and prayed to keep my head above water, and by the grace of God, I did. Any compassion or care that I exude today is directly, fundamentally tied to this time in my life, and the times leading up to it. I know what it is to feel like you’re going under and wondering whether you will ever come back up.
It was in the midst of this time that I spent those few months in Paris, still depressed and still broken. I felt weak, like I couldn’t handle the pressure. What I found, though, was a grace deeper than my weakness. In April, I went into the city having forgotten my map, feeling lost and alone. As I walked my least favorite street in Paris, I turned the corner and saw the Eiffel Tower, poking its head up above the rooftops. It sounds silly, now, but that moment illustrated God’s grace to me in a way that reoriented my whole life. Jesus would always be there, even when I couldn’t find a map. I didn’t need to be strong – I needed God.
So I came back to America, and worked at Starbucks and the Ronald McDonald House as I got my feet back under me, and then, dream of all dreams, I got a job in youth ministry at the church I adored. I fell in love with it all – with the small group girls, with the weekends, with the camaraderie. It was in the safety and joy I felt in that space that I began to slowly dig into the work that had yet to be done from the years before. I spent my 23rd birthday evening at a support group for women who were healing from different experiences, and I went through emotional health programs for years. I sat in my pastors’ offices and cried to my heart’s content. I learned to pray and be prayed for. I experienced vocational heartbreaks that brought further need for healing to the surface, and I eventually worked in contexts that pushed me to become more than I ever saw myself becoming. I spent five years working through my Master of Divinity, learning new things all the time, applying them to my work and then going back to learn more. I moved into my own apartment, then into the home of a family I loved, then into a dark duplex that never seemed to smell clean no matter what I did, and then finally into a bright, airy home with a friend who prayed with me every Sunday for two years. I did counseling and spiritual direction. I told people the truth about everything, and it took a long time, but my whole life changed.
I spent my twenties grounded in one place, working through all that pain that had come to the surface years before. More than anything, what I am most grateful for in my twenties was how much love I experienced. I spent the first 22 years of my life isolated, locking myself in my room and using introversion as a shield for the sensitivity I constantly tried to shut down in myself. What I found, though, in staying put and letting myself love and be loved, was healing. I remember, in those first few years, having a conversation with a dear friend about the emotional work I was doing, and talking about my tendency to isolate. His response was simple, but profound: “What has it cost you to not allow yourself to have deep relationships?” It cost me my joy, but these past eight years have taught me a new way. I would never go back.
So here I am, in Paris again, reaping the reward of this decade of love and tears and growth and incredible mentorship. I know, now, that the best remedy for loneliness is not to watch a movie in my room but to call or text a friend, and then to spend time with an actual human in the beautiful city I’m in. I know that the grief of goodbyes are necessary, but that loving people is always worth the pain. I know that small inconveniences are not a reason to quit – they might even be a reason to keep going, to see what amazing thing could be right around the corner. I know that the goal is never a program, or a number – the goal is always to be with people, to love people, to be as local as possible, to choose humility over power. I know that my talent means absolutely nothing (and it might even be dangerous) if I don’t choose character and emotional health, first. It is these things that are being cemented in me here, on this second round in Paris. I am still praying for a clear direction, but at the moment, I’m soaking in gratitude for what God has done in this past decade of my life.