Tag: fear

Transitioning with olives

All I wanted to do was buy olives. It was the perfect idea to reward myself with a short walk to the store between secretarial tasks. The weather was full of gentle Mediterranean breezes and I loved walking. Then why was I suddenly anxious?

What should I wear? Some of my clothes were stored in boxes. Others were stashed in suitcases, ready to make the final leg of the journey to the States. Somehow the outfit I had on no longer matched. The shades of blue were all wrong.

“Trish,” I reasoned with myself. “This outfit was perfectly fine before.” But not now. Not in Europe. Not in public. I changed and then changed back when the second option felt even worse.

How do I say olive in Spanish? Olive? No, that’s French. Zitun? That’s Arabic. Why can’t I remember my Spanish anymore? Should I take my own bag or do stores give out plastic bags? I can’t remember. What were they doing the last time I was here? Where did I even put my shopping bags?

Why is this so hard?

I didn’t want to take that short walk anymore. Every decision looked big. Nothing was familiar. I battled my anxiety all the way to the store. I felt everyone’s eyes on me. Am I even walking down the right street? Why is that car stopping for me? Thank you, sir! No, don’t wave at him; you’ll look even more like a stupid foreigner. You’re in Europe now.

Transition. Have I exaggerated my trip to the store? Yes. But the exaggeration was in reality, not in what I just wrote. It sounds ridiculous to say that I almost panicked at the thought of buying olives. But transition is hard because nothing is familiar. Everything requires extra thought and effort. No matter how insignificant, every decision feels big.

I am not the only one who feels the pressure of transition. Maybe everyone else I know can confidently buy olives, but there are different responses to transition. And there are different types of transition. Do you know of someone whose spouse has passed away? Someone who has lost a dear friendship? Someone who has moved to a different community?

Maybe it’s you. Maybe you’re feeling a bit like me right now, or worse. Whether it is you or someone else, give that person time to grieve and transition. Remember that we are not alone. There are others who understand… especially the “man of sorrows” who was “acquainted with grief” (Is. 53:3).

The hand

You said:
“Come to me and I will give you rest.”

But the sea trembles beneath my feet
And my midnight fear is blacker
Than churning waters or the sky above.

Lord, is it to you I stumble
Or just a ghost after all?

Inky waves climb to consume me.
Struggle fuels the water to tie its noose
Around my brittle neck.
Driving rain ignites my gasping face,
Joining the freefall of tears.

“Lord?”

A lightning stroke reveals the outstretched hand
That I never looked up to notice.

Life is too much

This morning I woke up early but chose not to get out of bed. The fan’s consistent hum soothed me as my mind wandered over the past week… and then the coming week.

As I lay there, suddenly I was terrified by the sensation that life was too much for me. I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t overcome the obstacles in my course.

The panicky taste lingered as all of my challenges and problems heaped up in front of me and dared me to climb. I only wanted to run away. Until I remembered that greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (1 Jn. 4:4).

Hungry or not, here I come

How exactly does a one hour tutoring lesson turn into eight hours? Simple: I agreed to stay for lunch.

It was my first day of tutoring. I was nervous because I wasn’t sure how the protective father would view my method of teaching his 5-year-old son.

Exactly ½ hour before we had agreed to meet, the father came to pick me up.

He took me to his house where I met his family, extended family, the maid, and of course, his son. After a long conversation–some of it typed in google translate–we had breakfast (their first; my second). Then I spent exactly one hour teaching and reviewing with the little boy.

“Will you stay for lunch?”

Noting the family sitting around the salon table, I agreed. But I soon realized that I wasn’t sitting down to lunch; this was pre-lunch! After two breakfasts, I was expected to fill up on bread, cookies, and tea and then eat lunch a little while thereafter.

When we finally did get lunch around 3:00 p.m., it was several courses: a salad followed by a beef and plum dish with another salad on the side, and then a huge chicken stuffed with vermicelli noodles and resting on a bed of rice. Everything was eaten with bread.

And all of the while, if I wasn’t reaching my hand into the platter, I was being told to do so. “Eat! Eat! Please eat!” The extended family kept a calculation of how much I ate while persistently informing me that it was not enough. We finished with luscious fruits for dessert, of which I was too full to enjoy.

This story has no moral, except not to take a tutoring job if you’re on a diet!

First day of school

This wouldn’t be so bad.

I gathered my school supplies, double-checking everything at least once. Forgetting a necessary item on the first day of English class wasn’t acceptable. Where was my flashdrive? In my handbag next to the stapler.

Ready.

It had been almost three months since I had arrived in North Africa. Three days after arriving, I started teaching English to twelve students ages 13-16. Each class period was different because depending on which trouble-makers attended, the dynamics could swing wildly. I planned each lesson with trembling, trying to predict the mood of the class upon its execution.

I had signed up to teach English, not manage behavior.

But this semester would be different, right? I locked the front door and went in search of a taxi. At the school gate, the guardian’s familiar smile was hardly encouraging. I had seen that smile every day last semester just before my carefully planned lesson was trampled by misbehavior.

I worked with the other teachers in the computer lab to make copies. I hesitated to leave the lab, knowing that unprotected by chatter and laughter my stomach would begin its nervous churn.

What if this semester was just as stressful as last?

“Here is your class roster.” The director handed me a sheet of paper. I had been told I would be teaching a class of 5-7 adults. This list had fourteen names. But it was okay. They were adults. Easy, right?

Except that last semester I had heard several teachers complaining about adult ego problems. “Classroom management is still an issue with adults,” they had said.

“And could you sign the contract please?”

Fourteen students. And what exactly did the contract say again? I pressed the pen to the paper and then signed my name quickly. What would the semester hold?

I still don’t know. But I do know that I loved every minute of my first class with these students. And I know that no matter what problems I may face this semester, I have a God who has not given me the spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control (2 Tim. 1:7).

The tourist attempt

Today I got my first taste of the unique flavor of tourist and local culture…alone. That taste has shaken me. Upon returning home, I brewed myself a pot of coffee and put in the remainder of a carton of cream. Just try to convince me that I don’t deserve every calorie.

My intention was to get home from school and join some friends at the leather tanneries in the old city. They left before I got home. So I grabbed my camera, a little cash, and my phone and started after them. The brisk walk took me down familiar streets full of familiar vendors. The colors, activity, and smells are why I like the old city.

The tanneries are located at the bottom of a very long street. Although I had never been there, it was simple. I would keep walking until I met up with a group of white foreigners with cameras around their necks.

After shaking a few persistent vendors who believed that they were selling what I was looking for, I put it in high gear for the downward trek, dodging children as well as the elderly, carts, donkeys, and cats.

No, I didn’t recognize the area, but of course I wouldn’t since I’d never taken the street down so far. I was encouraged by the faint stench of the nearby tanneries. But then I came to a T. And then another T. I paled and stood up against a jewelry vendor to let the crowd press by me. The streets had disappeared into tunnels. At the call to prayer, vendors began closing up their shops with thick wooden doors.

I pulled out my phone. “Um… where are you guys?” As long as I was on my phone, passersby were less likely to approach me, right?

Fat chance. “Hiiii. How are you? What’s your name?”

The jewelry vendor tried to help me when talking with friends unveiled no solutions. Before I left, he told me to come back to his shop if I ever wanted earrings. I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.

I started back the way I had come, but the closing doors of the shops threw off my sense of direction. The landmarks were disappearing. I started down one side street, only to realize that it looked more like a public bath entrance than a street. I spun around and kept walking…and walking.

Look confident!

I turned down a promising street and marched onward. The overhead daylight was a good sign.

“Where are you going, madame? That street goes nowhere.” A schoolboy approached and promised to take me to find my friends. “It goes to the tanneries.”

I explained that I wanted to meet my friends at the tanneries, and the boy insisted on being my guide. I tried to shake him, but he refused to go…and I was beginning to realize just how lost I was. When I came face to face with a few haughty men who wanted to take me through deserted buildings to the tannery, I told the boy to take me back to the main street. I was going home.

He led me to the back streets, narrow alleyways between towering concrete walls. Something was dripping ominously. A few men wandered in and out of partially hidden doorways.

Look confident! Don’t act afraid! But if I would scream right now, who would hear me? I had no concept of how close I was to the public. This school boy was relatively harmless, but was he leading me into a trap?

It took many more little streets and uphill climbs for him to point me to the correct street that would take me home.

“Thank you!” I talked to him as I paid him and found out that he spoke several languages; what a perfect little tour guide.

I turned down his offer to go to coffee (perhaps he didn’t realize I could almost be his mother?) and scuttled toward the street. I wanted to kiss the familiar vendors and buy everything in their shops, but I charged uphill toward home.

I nearly collapsed when I stepped inside the front door. That’s why I made myself a pot of coffee. I guess I’m not cut out to be a tourist. No tanneries for me today. Maybe ever! At least without people I know chained to my wrist.

The Noisemaker

Somewhere along our street lives a tiny man, perhaps no taller than my shoulder. I can’t say for sure because I’ve never seen him. He sleeps during the day and when the neighborhood goes to sleep, he steps out of his musty little house and begins his work.

See, although I have no proof, I do have ears. Every night I go to sleep, and every night the Noisemaker awakens me.

One night he walked up and down the street making a noise like a hoarse donkey’s bray. The dogs at every house barked furiously as he came and went, back and forth, back and forth. I lay in my bed, stricken with fear because the noise sounded like what I imagined a lion’s hiss to sound like. Now, I’m not even sure that lions hiss, but that wasn’t a factor I considered in my sleep-deprived state.

Just last night, the Noisemaker borrowed a keyboard and put it on the chorus setting. He played three notes and pause, three notes and pause. At least that’s what it sounded like: carolers outside the door starting and restarting their song. AhAHah, ahAHah. This time I wasn’t afraid because I knew it was just the Noisemaker.

Sometimes he comes in pattering feet up and down the hallway. Sometimes he pretends to be the wind and bang the poles that fasten the courtyard tarp.

And I’m sure he must smile as he snuggles up in his bed about the time the rest of the world struggles to get out of theirs. And he dreams of creative noises to make when the city once again goes to sleep.

What I want to know is: does he get paid?

Alone? Not at all.

There is something I know in my head but forget in my heart.

Do you ever look at your believing friends–those people you see every Sunday and meet for coffee during the week–and get overwhelmed by their spiritual “giantness”?

At times, exchanging a deep spiritual dialogue or having someone shower you with love strengthens your walk with God. Other times though, it discourages you. At least if you’re like me.

Sometimes, when I see flawless spirituality in others, I feel insignificant. I feel dirty. And selfish. My mind replays my past sins one by one.

“I’ll do better. I’ll try harder to be like my friend!”

Those are the times I feel the most alone; it’s as if no one can identify with the monster inside my sinful shell. No one else faces my daily temptations. No one else has to struggle with their thought life. No one else makes selfish choices that destroy trust in a relationship.

Have you ever thought that? Well, here’s a little bit of truth for you (and me):

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.”

1 Cor. 10:13a

You’ve probably heard that a thousand times. Maybe two thousand. But the truth hasn’t changed. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Whatever you’re struggling with has been struggled with before by someone else…maybe someone is even struggling with it right now. And not just one someone but enough someones to make it “common to man.”

Depending on how you look at that, it’s encouraging. But wait; lest knowing that others have the same struggles makes us gloss over our sinfulness. There’s more:

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

1 Cor. 10:13b

Having a faithful God means that we shouldn’t yield to temptation so that His grace may abound. God forbid! (Rom. 6:1) Without rejoicing in others’ failures, we can realize we’re not the only one in our boat, paddling furiously against temptation’s current. Others are in the boat with us. What would happen if we would paddle together without fear and without judgment?

Enough of this silently drowning in our own shame! We have an “very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). We are not alone. Not at all.