Last week, I mentioned I didn’t know whether the next while would bring much rejoicing or many tears. Within hours of posting that, I found out the second option would win out (at least at first).
Within about thirty-six hours after the post was published, I finally had the answers I have prayed and waited for during these past months. My visa extension has been refused, and there is currently zero chance to stay in this land I love beyond mid-October. With the decision finally made and communicated, I watched my dreams, all the promises I’d felt God spoke about my future here, go up in smoke.
As I sit here among the ashes of my dreams for the life I thought might be, I can’t help but wonder what’s next. I never dreamed when I came back to Ireland nearly three weeks ago that it would be only to pack up my life and leave again. I had no plan B and have no idea where to go or what to do next. The obvious next step is to fly back to Colorado, and that’s my current thought. But I believe Frodo had it right at the end of The Return of the King, “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on… when in your heart you begin to understand… there is no going back?”
I am not the same person I was three and half years ago when I arrived in Ireland. There is no going back to the life I knew before. This place, the people who have become friends, and the opportunities I’ve had here have had a profound effect on me, and I am better because of each of them. Even the hope and persistence and waiting of these past months have changed me.
I also find myself wondering whether I held onto hope for too long. I was tempted to give up so many times, and each time, words of encouragement would come to keep asking and seeking and knocking. Like the persistent widow pestering the judge in the Bible, I was determined to persevere and keep knocking on doors until an answer came.
As of last week, it seems the doors I’ve been knocking on have turned to brick walls. Would it hurt less if I had walked away and accepted defeat months ago? Have I brought unnecessary pain to myself and others by holding onto hope? Would I be grieving the loss as much if I hadn’t hoped and believed so fervently for what I felt God had spoken?
Truthfully, I don’t know. Perhaps.
What I do know is hope, like faith and love, is always worth the risk. When God is the anchor of our hope, even when the hope is deferred and our hearts feel ill, it’s worth the risk. This is not the first disappointment I’ve faced – and it won’t be the last, but it has shown me something. While I’m not aware of another loss that has impacted me quite this deeply, I am aware of an assurance of God’s goodness rooted more deeply than I’ve ever felt.
I don’t know what God will do. I don’t know what will grow from the seed of my hopes and dreams falling to the ground and dying and being buried. I do know that what God brings forth will be beautiful in its time. I am more positive than ever that the words I posted last week are and always will be true: He is faithful.
Knowing He is faithful doesn’t negate sorrow; grief is still a process that must be allowed. But neither does grief negate the truth that He is good and faithful and trustworthy. It is that truth that allows me to say, even in the sorrow, “thy will be done”.
