July 8, 2021
I believe that God always puts us exactly where he needs us most; where we are most capable of growing and loving. Where others need us, and where we need the people around us. Even if it does not make sense to us, there is always a need for our presence where we are put if we choose to fully be our authentic selves.
In this reflection, I will be writing about part of my journey through Italy these past few months. My journey was quite an adventure. I believe that God certainly does have a sense of humor, and we must make him laugh so much. He makes what we don’t think is possible a possibility, and he works with our hopes and dreams because he has no other desire than to make us happy. But one thing I know is that God sees beyond our dreams, hopes, and wishes, and knows every possibility- even the ones unimaginable. And there is so much wonder and awe in that mystery; how he works with each human’s heart in such a deep, loving, and personable way.
A lot of people told me that I shouldn’t study abroad this semester. They said it was safer to stay in and to just have a normal semester at college. They told me that it was a wasted journey, a waste of money, a waste of time. A danger to life. Illogical. To pause my life rather than live it… to be fearful of one thing that could happen instead of looking at all the millions of beautiful possibilities and adventures. To me, it would be a uniquely beautiful journey. I could not ask for a better group of amazing friends to experience Europe with. Study abroad was a risk, but sometimes life needs risks and broken bridges to cross over. Taking risks but using precautions. The risks and the dangerous parts mold us into something better. They force us to make decisions to take precautions within the risks. We are often a lot more capable than we believe ourselves to be. I can still be cautious without having to put my life on pause. When we hit a difficulty in life, hiding from the problem and locking yourself away until it disappears is never the answer. As you know, we are meant for community. We are stirred with wonder and amazement when we see everyone living life as it should be- doing what they’re good at, bringing beauty to the world and the lives of others with their talents and their presence in the world. In the past year, there has been an absence beauty in the world. Why? Because there has been an absence of people in it. People have been held back from doing what they love and living in the presence of others. The world is beautiful, but people are really what make the world and it’s beauty come to life. What is the world when we’re all locked away? People have been trying to put the whole world on pause for the past year, and it’s made our hearts and minds sick. The disease of loneliness has crept in and killed more than ever in the past year. When I was abroad, one of the places that allowed me to experience beauty more as a whole and more freely was Spain, especially since it was so open.
Spain smells like sugar, blossoms, and warmth. It kind of smells like what the smell of sunshine would be if it had a scent. When we first arrived, I was so overwhelmed with joy that my eyes filled with tears at all the hundreds of people walking around everywhere with every restaurant buzzing. In the evening, we explored far out from our hotel, and then… It started raining a little, then a little more, and before we knew it, it was pouring on us! We were still about a 40 minute walk from our hotel. We started running, but then I realized that running was pointless, as we were already soaked to the bone. So, I started walking, just appreciating the moment. My friends kept running because they wanted to get dry. I didn’t care though, so I just took my time. I figured I’d catch up to them eventually, and find my way back to the hotel somehow… wherever it was. My phone was almost dead but I wasn’t worried about any of those things. All I knew was that I wanted to enjoy this moment and enjoy the rain. Then, I felt like meeting someone. But so far, no one that we’d met spoke the slightest bit of English. So, I said a quick prayer. “Hey God, could I meet someone who speaks English please?” Immediately after finishing that prayer, I turned the corner only to see a man standing outside a cafe buzzing with people pull out a large fancy camera and snap a picture of me walking that way. He was about 30 feet away. I walked up to him, said hi, and introduced myself. And you know what? He spoke English! He was a regular at that cafe and started telling me about how he enjoys taking pictures of life around Seville. “You just look so happy. Can I take another picture of you?” He asked, “Sure! Why not!” I stood back in the rain and he snapped another picture. By now, my friends had realized I wasn’t with them anymore, and they came back, and introduced themselves. We had a good conversation with our new friend before we had to leave. You always hear the term “Learn to dance in the rain.” We didn’t exactly dance, but it’s definitely important to not always run away from the storms in your life, especially when there’s no getting out of them. So I guess it would just be making the most out of the storms, and appreciating the blessings in disguise. When we stop running and slow down, we never know who we might meet along the way, and who’s day we can change with just a smile. People notice when you run away from the storms in your life, but they also notice when you dance through the storms, and make the most of the rain coming down on you, even when it ruins your shoes.
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One day, we took a long hike in a small town in Italy called Pruno. 10 hours, 13 miles, 3,500 feet, 26,000 steps. This was by far the most beautiful, intense hike I’ve ever been on. It required a lot of actual rock climbing, and climbing around edges that were very high up to say the least. Anyways, we were about 7 hours into our hike when suddenly… we couldn’t find the trail anymore. Where did it go? It was in that moment that we realized… we were going to have to scale a giant mountain at 3,500 feet. It also occurred to each one of us that one slip, and we would fall for a very long time to our death. But no one said that. No one admitted it until the end, but we were all thinking it. However, this was the only way, and we had to beat the sunset. We all started. It’s exactly what you would picture in a movie, and that was real life for us. “How is this a trail?!” I said, as suddenly the wind kicked in stronger than ever and two of us collapsed into the mountain to cling for our lives. My body was shivering with cold and my hands went numb. Teeth chattering, my right thigh began to spaz. That was when the thought occurred to me… I am going to die. It was perhaps the only time I’ve felt certain of this thought. “Lean into the mountain!” One of our friends kept telling us all. One of the girls admitted later that she was trying to look up the Italian rescue number in case someone fell off. Some people said they were just waiting to hear a scream behind them from someone falling off. We all thought that someone wasn’t going to make it. But in the end, we all did somehow.
Sometimes in life, we hit a point where our path is unclear. We have nothing left but to step far out of our comfort zone and scale the mountain. There are always obstacles and sometimes it seems like we will just never make it past them, but the only way to make it through, is to walk through them. But we are not alone on our climb. God is always with us throughout our journey, and sometimes, when the wind kicks in, we need to lean into the Lord and cling to Him. He is always there in the most difficult times, even when we feel like we have no support.
I am beginning to appreciate stillness the longer I live. Mountains are still. They don’t move, they don’t make noise; but they are seen, appreciated, and they are beautiful. Looking at a mountain is so different from experiencing one. Experiencing the stillness, the peace, the beauty, the journey of traveling through it. I’ve always pictured the way mountains were created by God pinching the earth with his fingers, and then creating little paths through them for us to climb and be a part of, since he’s created adventurous minds in every one of us in some way. He created the paths through mountains for us to enjoy. He wants us to experience his creation. We experience it every day in a new way. But are we just looking at it from afar, or are we taking a part in the journey and appreciating every moment of it? Even the most still and quiet moments in time. Time. There is always time. Time is something we can always make but also something we can never get back once it passes by. If we work so hard to get by all through life and forget to enjoy it, what do we benefit from? Life is meant to be lived and loved. When we are constantly working to get by, beauty may pass us without our even noticing.
I learned a lot while studying abroad. When you think of the term, it sounds fun and exciting, like an enjoyable experience must happen at every moment. While the majority of study abroad was like this, I must admit, there were times that were very difficult for all of us.
One thing I could say for all of us is that we’ve learned to suffer with one another. That’s not the experience you’d hope for when you choose to study abroad. But the reality is that studying abroad isn’t an escape from real life… It’s diving deeper into the meaning of life and experiencing life more in a way that you’ve never experienced it. One of the ways we’ve experienced life on a deeper level is by suffering together and sharing in the sufferings of others. It’s in this way that we connected and became closer than ever to one another and have shared many moments through tears, pain, and laughter.
It’s seeing that those who seem to have their lives most put together and the most joyful even crack too sometimes. It’s simply because of our humanity. We experience pain and we respond to it. To be sad is not a bad thing… to feel the sadness that pain caused. Being sad is okay. But we must choose to do something with our sadness. If we were never sad, we would never be able to relate to and understand other people when they feel the effects of suffering. When we understand what it means to be sad, we are able to console and to love. We are united to one another’s sadnesses, and this creates joyful bonds between people; it creates the strongest relationships. As humans, we bond through the joys of life, but our hearts and souls connect so much deeper through tears and suffering together.
Tears. Tears are a vulnerable thing. To be able to cry beside someone is a vulnerable thing. When we are not afraid to be in silence, that is when we hear the noise of our hearts. It is in silence where our thoughts speak the loudest, and sometimes this can be terrifying. It can bring up many emotions that we don’t want to deal with… sadness, regret, desolation. Even anger, embarrassment, or hatred. Then we spiral into a whole variety of negative emotions. I don’t write these things to tell you something you don’t know, but rather, to remind you of something you’ve experienced. And to remind you that you’re not alone in it.
We watch a lot of people suffer in our lives, and we suffer too. When all of the beauty we loved so much or desired so much is taken, that is when God wants us to be the beauty in the midst of it. When it is so easy to crumble and fall into hopelessness and desolation, that’s when he wants us to have the most hope. Surrendering it to him, always… especially in the most difficult times...when we don’t want to. It’s often the hurtful things hardest to let go of that we need to let go of the most. The more we learn to suffer, the more we learn to appreciate beauty in small things. I learned a lot there. But one of the main things we all learned was to suffer with one another. I wish I could say I pulled through it all and made the most of every moment and came out stronger than ever. But the reality is that some things are just crushing... Frustrating. Disappointing. It made us wonder why. We were people of hope but some hopes were shattered. We saw parts of each other that we wouldn’t want anyone to see. We saw parts ourselves that we never thought we’d be. I think that maybe suffering sometimes has to break you. And sometimes you search and search for the good but you just can’t find it… but we cannot be restored if we weren’t broken in some way. Suffering is not meaningless… and that is where the good can be found. Suffering can be made into a prayer and a gift, and it’s okay to feel the effects of the pain. It’s okay to feel lost and hurt but we cannot lose ourselves within our suffering. I think that is the difference. It’s good to acknowledge our pain, and it’s okay to feel lost sometimes, but we just cannot lose ourselves. We seek to be constantly happy… constantly fulfilled. But as much as we were made for beauty and happiness, we were made to suffer too.
I cannot be in control of everything in my life and that’s ok! All I can do is be grateful and hopeful. Grateful for the things I’m still given even if it feels like things were taken- making the most of every situation. This means:
Thinking of how to turn everything into the best adventure it can be, you know, making the most of it all.
Loving to the max- in every circumstance.
Two simple things but not easy things. Simple things are often the greatest things but the greatest things often require the greatest amount of strength. It’s often easier to step down rather than stepping up our game.
I was walking down the hallway one day and had a random thought pop into my head... I really hope everyone in the world feels appreciated. But if I want everyone to feel appreciated, that means that I must appreciate everyone. Acknowledging, loving, and respecting their humanity. That requires me to step out of myself to acknowledge the beauty of the other person’s soul... to acknowledge the dignity of their humanity. If I strongly desire the world to be a better place, I need to live out that change that I want to see, and not wait around for the change to happen if I’m not willing to do anything about it. Sometimes we want to help others more than we can. We worry our hearts over these things. But sometimes, all we can do is love them and be there for them- and that is often more consoling than we even know. Just because there are wounds and broken pieces in us doesn’t mean we are a broken person. It connects us to all of humanity- as we all have broken parts to us, and that’s what makes us beautiful in our humanity, because it gives us the ability to have humility and strengthen our hearts in hope and love.
Good and strong people aren’t born; they are made. Good and strong people weren’t formed because they stopped struggling. They were formed because they chose to let their struggles bring out the best in them instead of the worst- stepping up their game instead of stepping down from the plate. They don’t stay down and let suffering beat them and break them. They stand up after falling and let suffering affect them and yet still mold them into something better. >The bigger the disaster, the more room God has to make something all the more beautiful out of it< And He’s already working on it. Some of the most beautiful things are formed out of broken pieces. Rest your heart, it probably needs a break, and be kind to yourself.
As spontaneous as my life currently is, I’ve noticed that’s probably one of my favorite ways to have it. The best adventures are usually the ones least expected. Sometimes it feels up in the air but I just ride with it. Sometimes it feels chaotic but I just enjoy the fact that it’s not boring. Even when it is mundane and slows down, I still appreciate that life doesn’t have to be moving at 100 mph in every direction and sometimes it’s good to coast for a little while. It’s in those moments where I remember to sleep sometimes. Sometimes it takes a chaotic turn for the worst, that’s definitely happened many times. But I always come out of it and learn something. It never fails to either make a good lesson or a good story.