this is big.

Dear reader who always tells me to send steel-toed boots with challenging blog posts,

You have been warned.  

Yesterday morning, something I have waited for and prayed for for almost 10 years happened.

Totally out the blue, completely unsolicited, Matt walked past me and said these four words:

"I really love Haiti."

Ten years.

Not me.  I loved Haiti the moment I met her at 18.

Walking across the runway that first time under the blazing sun into a little hanger that looked nothing like an airport only to be met by a blind man with maracas...holding two or three children on my lap sitting in a mango field and teaching them about Jesus through a translator friend who was Junior, one of dearest friends I have today...standing in the icy river with a group of mothers, laughing with them as they taught me the art of hand-washing laundry, twisting, beating, living life together.

I've loved her a million times since, her mountains and her valleys, and though living life in Haiti hasn't always been easy, loving Haiti always has been.

But Matt?

Yikes.

I promise you.  Yesterday was the first and only time I have ever heard Matt say it.

Though our experiences have been very much the same, things that are wonderful and challenging and beautiful to me--hiking through mountains to tiny churches, the challenge of living and working with no power and water at times, dwelling in 365 radiating heat--have been overwhelming sacrifices to Matt.  Daily struggles.

He HATES the heat.  He hates inconveniences.  He hates being uncomfortable, he hates being stared at, he hates sweating, hates the roads, hates mosquitos, hates the beach, hates hiking for 3 hours if you could drive 4 minutes, hates being asked to preach in the middle of the service, hates being crowded, hates dirt and germs, hates having people in the house and at the door continually.

Matt's dream place is a dark, cold, quiet, small room full of books and movies and coffee and jazz.

ALONE.  With snow.

Matt's dream cabin we found while we studied French in Quebec preparing for Haiti.

There is no such place in our Haiti world.  Nobody would even want there to be.

Except for Matt.

When we were dating, I prayed.  I prayed that one day, Matt might come to love Haiti, too.

When he was called to Haiti, I prayed.  Prayed that one day, he might love her, too.

When we moved to Haiti, dripping and drenched and to a house with holes in walls big enough to see through, with tiles that tripped you every time -- I was blissfully in love.  I prayed that one day Matt might be, too.

A lot of prayers.  Hard days when I resigned the fact that I could not MAKE Matt love Haiti.  Hard years of realizing that Matt would obey, and obey, and obey -- but that it was deeply difficult for him.

Somewhere around year 6, I think I kind of gave up the idea, and grew to appreciate that my husband would be faithful, simply.  That pursing his own cool and dark happy dream wasn't going to dictate his life.  God's call would call the shots.  And he would obey.  Even here.

And I don't even know what it was yesterday that made him realize that after so so so very much, he has grown to love this island that God has called our home.  Come to love this place that God has called our work.  Come to love this people that God has called our family.

And today, when a man on a motorcycle stopped our car to tell us that I shouldn't have my hand on the open widow sill of the car because it was too dangerous (this culture is always very generous with overbearing advice), I think Matt might have mentally retracted his statement :)

But these days, after many years of prayer and living life in Haiti for 8 years...Matt loves her.

I'm not sharing this with you to celebrate the fact, per-say.  Though I am.


I'm sharing it with you because this IDEA is entirely anti-cutlural for the culture of HUMANITY.

We have been telling ourselves our whole lives, as so many did before us, that this life is about our happiness.  That our gifts are FOR US.  That each penny and each decision and each moment should be about how we can make ourselves HAPPIER.  How we can be better to ourselves.  How we can be more comfortable.  How we can use our gifts and talents and experiences and connections to make ourselves happier.

Since Adam and Eve, we've been telling ourselves that what is best is what we want.  That we are here to make ourselves happy...occasionally, maybe make others happy.  That we know what is best.  That it's US.

If Matt had gone by this tradition, picking his own happiness and comfort and convenience above all else, I can't even comprehend what growth, blessings, joys and beauties he, and countless others, would have missed. Gifts money never could have bought him.  Joys 100 years never could have found him. People billion-dollar corporations never could have networked him with.

I'm sayin' all this to say this.  

Wherever, whoever, however, wherever, whenever we are:  If He's prodded, and we've neglected, ignored, overlooked, or passed by for the sake of our happiness, we will NEVER know how far, deep and wide we have missed out.

If He's called and we've taken our own call instead...if He's asked (us to love or to give or to cook or to look stupid or to go) and we chided away, we have pursed the fruit of self that leads to separation and death instead of the endless riches of the garden of a life walked intimately with Him.

If WE are the dictators of our lives, if we are living for ourselves, if our own happiness and comforts are our gods, then they will be our gods.  And they will be all that we ever have or find in this short drop called life.

There is so much more to this life He has given us than our own happiness.  But as we pursue HIS happiness instead...deeper, fuller joy does come.  

Even if it takes 10 years.  Even if it takes to eternity.

And it. Is. Never. Too. Late. To. Die.

To die to what we want, to die to what we have, to die to our dreams and to be reborn IN HIM, with nothing but "for the Glory of God" tattooed on our hearts.

Just because we don't like it naturally--giving, dying, serving, discomfort--does NOT mean it's not what He's asking.  I might even suggest the opposite.

It is not SUPPOSED to be easy, Matt's story testifies.  The disciples stories testify.  JESUS' story testifies.

It is NOT supposed to be easy.

It is supposed to be His.