Learning to Float
by Karen Carlson
Three years ago, January 2005, I was preparing to fulfill a dream to move to Asia to serve with InterVarsity Link on a university campus. I had been on staff in San Diego since 1997 and in 1999 got involved with Global Projects. As I spent more and more summers in Asia, I found myself sensing the call to serve there long term.
Actually getting there was a long and winding path of waiting, asking, confusion, hope and disappointment. One very unexpected turn in the road was discovering that God had a partner he had been preparing for me. In the same month that Dave and I started getting to know each other, God made it clear that it was time for me to go to overseas. The following year, in November 2005 I married Dave and together we left for Asia three months later. We were thrilled to be embarking on this great adventure that God had so clearly invited us into. Through an abundance of encouragement and prayer, we were convinced, as were others, that God had tremendous plans for us.
Arriving in our new city, it seemed that the dream had dissolved into a nightmare. The city we were living in was labeled the most polluted city in the world in 1996 and hasn’t improved much since. There are days in the winter when you can’t see a quarter mile across the river that runs through the city. I discovered that actually living in Asia was different in every way from my thrilling experiences during summer global projects. Most people have a honeymoon phase when moving overseas; I think I skipped that part and immediately began my headfirst plunge to the bottom of the adjustment curve.
As I went through the motions of trying to learn a very difficult language, which my new husband already spoke fluently, and getting to know the people on my team, I was experiencing deep inner turmoil and significant culture and transition shock. In the previous four months I had made three huge life changes: marriage, moving to a new country and starting a new ministry. I can’t say that I recommend it.
During this extremely difficult season, I found myself doubting God’s care and protection. I wondered if all the struggle was because my faith was just too weak. I didn’t feel like I could do more than I was doing, but it just didn’t seem like enough. I seemed to be disconnected from God and felt like a spiritual failure.
Regular times of sickness added to my doubt of God’s care. My greatest fear in moving overseas had been illness. Being sick without the normal health care options I was used to, terrified me. Well, let me tell you, I had reason to be afraid, it is actually, rather terrifying. I am generally an adventurous person, but a foreign, unfamiliar hospital is one adventure I would rather not have at three in the morning when I can’t breathe!
Being stripped of most everything that had previously defined me: singleness, ministry, leadership and influence, friendships and geographical location, I found myself unsure of who I was. This stripping process made me feel threatened, I thought that eventually I would literally just disappear, fade away. This was excruciatingly painful; I experienced intense feelings of loneliness and worthlessness.
One of my funnier habits during those first months was crying in restaurants. Over a meal would often be the first chance Dave and I got to debrief a day and without fail I would be in tears wondering what the locals thought my husband was doing to me to make me cry like that! There were moments that both Dave and I were genuinely concerned for my sanity, I felt completely on the edge and unsure if I could make it. If God’s call had not been undeniable, I would have been on a plane back to the States.
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us…(nothing) will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)
In all honesty God’s love has been difficult to see. But I want to testify that it was there. At one point God showed his love for me through a picture and a promise. During a prayer time one of my teammates prayed the image of a waterlily over me. I was a waterlily in the eyes of the Father, floating in the buoyant water of his love and growing roots that would anchor me. Later God showed me a verse from Hosea: ‘I will plant her for myself in the land’. This picture was a promise: God was holding me up, he was causing my roots to grow, and in his abundant goodness and love he would cause me to flourish in this land.
Nothing in the last two years has been able to separate me from the love of God. Not loneliness, not depression, not grief, not the sickness I had so greatly feared, not guilt, not my own weakness and sin, nothing. God’s love truly is incredible.
I want to share a prayer with you that I wrote on Thanksgiving in 2006:
I am thankful indeed that you, Lord have been a constant companion on this wild journey, through rugged terrain, dry deserts, crashing waves and tear-filled meadows. Your presence has sustained me through what I thought I couldn’t live through. Your gentleness helped me to believe and hope. I have never wept so many tears or felt grief so deeply; in all that you have been so very near. Thank you for inviting me to float as a lily in the water of your grace and power. My heart is bound to yours and planted in you, I rejoice in your love, dear Father.This difficult time has become genuinely precious to me because I have known God’s love in a deeper and truer way than ever before.
Karen Carlson is currently serving as Link staff with her husband Dave in East Asia.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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