On our flight from New Zealand to LAX, I watched the first 30 minutes or so of the first Hobbit movie to review the scenes shot at Hobbiton. Several times our tour guide had pointed out where a particular scene had been shot and I wanted to see the scenes while the tour was still fresh in my memory. When the title appeared—An Unexpected Journey—I thought it would make a perfect title for my trip blog. As we disembarked I was reminded that our aircraft was a “Hobbit” plane.

When I purchased my ticket to New Zealand for this spring, I had a completely different trip in mind. I’d come through a hard year of cancer treatment and my mother’s death and bought the ticket to reward myself. I anticipated being done with all my cancer treatments and able to enjoy time with James and Anne, helping her nail down a few of the wedding details.

As I fly home, the wedding is over and Anne and James are celebrating what someone called an “Annie-versary”–three weeks of wedded bliss. They are settling into their first home, a farmhouse at the end of a half-mile dirt driveway off a state highway, surrounded by cow pasture. They have several new kitchen appliances (mixer, food processor, electric teapot, pannini grill and so on,) a bed, a table with two chairs, beautiful copper pans, knives, baking supplies and very unique flatware. The rest of their home is pretty empty but they are enjoying making it their own.

For me it was, in so many ways, an unexpected journey. I thought I’d carefully planned the timing to coincide with the end of treatment and the birth of our second grandchild. As you already know, the timing wasn’t simple at all and I felt pulled in at least three or four different directions all at once. I’d also imagined a fun trip, time alone with Anne and some extra time with James (to make up for the time I’d lost during his visit in December.) There were definitely some fun moments on the trip and times of wonderful laughter, but most of it was not fun. I hardly had any alone time with Anne, either in the pre-wedding days or (understandably so) while she was honeymooning and settling into her new home and life. Whatever time could spared from wedding activities or newlywed bonding had to be shared with John, Lizi and her maid of honor, who had traveled from Canada to be with her. I’d hoped to see Anne at work with her youth ministry and participate in a few of James’ ABS activities so that I could understand their ministries and pray better, but between pre-wedding days off and the New Zealand school holidays, I missed those opportunities as well. (ABS begins today 4/28.)

And I hoped to see more of beautiful New Zealand. I’d loved New Zealand on my first trip and dreamed about visiting for extended periods of time in the future, traveling to many more beaches, tramping some of their many DOC trails, navigating the roads and seeing places I’d missed on that first visit time around. I thought I was being realistic when I limited our travels to the North Island for this trip, but we still saw a lot less than I hoped. Lots of rain slowed down our sightseeing, plus our focus was just different this time.

I also didn’t realize that on that first visit, I was a tourist and being a tourist and living in a place are two very different experiences. Language acquisition is only minimally important for a tourist; it is crucial for a resident.  A month of living in a verbal fog, missing about a third of any group conversation and many of the jokes, was frustrating and lonely. I usually could manage fairly well in one-to-one or meal time conversations, but once a group got going, I was missing a lot of the conversation.

I’ve also taken an unexpected internal journey, both spiritually and emotionally. After weathering the year of treatment, I found myself struggling with discouragement and depression as my physical body healed. I understood the added blows I experienced, but thought it would get better in New Zealand. It didn’t, and in fact, probably deepened.

There were days when I felt like I was thrown back to issues I thought I’d settled years ago, days when I didn’t know who I was or where I belonged, when I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. I worked hard throughout my time there to reframe my thoughts and work through to better attitudes, but I was only partially successful.

This unexpected journey helped me settle (I think!) an issue that has bothered me for awhile. My evangelical upbringing taught me that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” When my life didn’t look very wonderful, I began questioning the premises of my faith and concluded that American/Western evangelicalism had taken a wrong turn at some point, turning faith into a focus on me, my family, my church and world missions. I figured out that I wasn’t the center of God’s story–not my family, my church, or my denomination(s.) I kept God at an emotional arm’s length for a long time, but gradually came back to trusting Him in the midst of my “not so wonderful life,” leaning on him and on His word for strength and encouragement as I walked through hard times. When I read scripture, I struggled with misinterpreting promises that were beautiful and uplifting, but possibly not mine to claim. I became a stickler for trying to discern when verses were taken out of context and misused in songs, sermons, and devotional writing.

For example, Anne shared a verse at her baptism that she and I memorized on my first trip to New Zealand. She had randomly come across Isaiah 43:1-3 and loved the promises that God would be with her when she passed through the waters or walked through the fire. She was facing, with some trepidation, her ABS term and was worried about how she would do. She has/d some specific fears around water so it seemed perfectly suited to what she was facing as she’d be swimming, kayaking, surfing and so on. I memorized the verses but added verses 5 and 6 because I could already guess where her friendship with James was heading: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bring your children from the east, and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, give them up, and to the south, do not hold them back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth…” I know that Isaiah was referring to the Israelites who were in the process of being exiled to Babylon and Assyria, whose nation was torn apart. But I liked imagining that God was speaking to me as well, though not necessarily promising that my son might return from “afar” or that my daughter might return from what felt like the ends of the earth. I never banked on either of those two things happening and I still do not.

What I’ve learned is that the beautiful poetry of Isaiah and of the Psalms can reveal to us the heart of God, whether or not specific “promises” can rightfully be claimed as our own. I’m not sure that there is any promise about me or my grandson becoming “oaks of righteousness” either, but what a beautiful word picture to hold up before him and myself, about the heart of our God. In Psalms I’ve been underlining nearly every reference to God’s love, mercy, kindness, joy, goodness, faithfulness, graciousness, and strength. And references to the hope, refuge, deliverance and help He provides. (My new Bible is pretty marked up.) Taken together, there seems to be overwhelming evidence that God loves personally, intimately, and faithfully. I’m still not the center of his purpose by any means and I have no sense that life will turn out the way I’d like. But God is truly good and can be trusted, even when I am sad or disappointed.

I’m pretty sure the “unexpected journey” didn’t end when we touched down in Los Angeles or Chicago, but this leg of the trip is complete. I’ve come back from Middle Earth but I haven’t yet made it Home. There are still adventures ahead.

P.S. Coming home to this:

 

 

 

 

and this:

 

 

 

 

was awfully nice.