Life

The last few weeks have been difficult here - cold, barren, a desolate wash of unanswered questions and dreams that lie like dirty snow in the gutters, almost unrecognizable. I love the call of God, the Japanese faces and prayer times with other missionaries... but sometimes there are just THOSE DAYS, the days you wake up (too early, too tired) and mull over what's been accomplished so far.

And the unthinkable: Nothing comes to mind.

Nothing, that is, except the big piece of shrimp you dropped on the floor at a friend's house or the blank look in the subway ticket lady's eyes when you try to figure out what's wrong with your subway card.

No messages in the inbox... a cheerful good-bye from junior college students you will probably never see again, girls who ended the last Bible discussion group by unanimously agreeing that they don't believe Jesus is God.

THOSE DAYS... there is just no other way to describe it.

All that and seeing friends and weddings and lives going on thousands of miles from where you are and knowing you can't be there.

"I wish I could be there," I remember saying to my sister over the phone (2 a.m. her time), "but I know this is where God wants me to be."

What hollow-sounding words, I thought. I can't say, "It's worth it because my friend got saved" or even "It's worth it because people are seeking God."

No, "but this is where God wants me to be."

I said it as a statement, but my heart said it as a question.

I left the apartment this way yesterday, cold wind stinging my face, and opened my little blue travel Bible on the bus to read. The words from Isaiah 49 surprised me:

"He said to me, 'You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.' But I said, 'I have labored to NO PURPOSE; I HAVE SPENT MY STRENGTH IN VAIN AND FOR NOTHING. Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is with my God.

"And now the Lord says - He who formed me in the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob back to Him and gather Israel to Himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength - ...This is what the Lord says: 'In the day of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, to say to the captives, "Come out," and to those in darkness, 'Be free!'

"...Though you were ruined and made desolate... the children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, 'This is place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.' Then you will say in your heart, 'Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these - where have they come from?'"

Oh, Lord God - I have no words - only a prayer for mercy! How can a God like You have such compassion on a child of dust like me?

How can I believe that giving my life into His hands is laboring to no purpose?

I am in tears now, remembering, looking back over the wonders He has done in my life.

On that same bus I read and re-read a folded email from a dear college professor who saw me through many dark days. "(Think of) the seeds you've planted under the Lord's direction sprouting under the snow-covered earth; I'm as sure of that as I am of the sun and the Son," she wrote - and called me "honey."

After walking the snowy streets of my city between appointments, watching White Illumination lights come on against the dusky blue sky, I sat at a corner table in a bright coffee shop, alone - listening, thinking, writing, my journal and Bible and printed out emails spread out on the little round table.

I watched the people come and go - the businessmen with waxed-looking hair, the people alone with books and cell phones, clouds of smoke curling up from tables with fashionable young women in high heeled boots. Them and me, together in a warm room, separate lives lived, for the moment, within inches of each other.

Words from Christian friends poured back into my mind: "Nothing about me - not my country, not my tribe, not my ability makes me worthy to preach the gospel," one said on the phone yesterday. "Only the fact that Jesus died for me makes me worthy."

An email from another: "Give also your dreams to God. I have but one thing to say: God will provide new dreams. God will provide new memories. God will provide."

The chair opposite mine was empty, save my black wool coat.

But, in reality, my table was filled with the presence of Christ - for He lives in me! I was not alone - I, in fact, was the honored guest at the feet of the One who allows me to come near!

The other tables were the empty ones!

When I came home there were three letters waiting for me on the table: one to confirm that a college loan was paid in full, one from a new Japanese Christian girl I met at English worship, and a packet of precious, hand-drawn construction paper cards from Sunday school children in a little Virginia country church.

I was still holding the cards in awe, tracing the crooked letters with my finger ("To: Jenny Rogers in JAPAN. God bless you! Merry Christmas!") and white chalk snowflakes when the phone rang.

It was Hyun-Sook, a wonderful Korean Christian missionary I studied with at language school and hadn't heard from in a long time, calling to tell me about the language school Christmas party Friday and that she hadn't forgotten about me.

Oh, Lord, neither have You... for there in the middle of Isaiah 49 are Your words, to unworthy me, chosen not because of my ability but because of Christ:

"But Zion has said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.' Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forgot, I WILL NOT FORGET YOU! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands..."

And 2,000 years ago He did, in His own red blood...
for my sake
for your sake
for the Japanese sake
and for the sake of HIS NAME, His precious name,
that still goes out to bring LIFE.

Merry Christmas from Japan, where I plead that His name will be heard.