Ash Wednesday, 2009.
Alone, I slid into an empty seat near the back of the chapel. Darkness and somber cello music concealed my fears but could not remove the weight settling with me into the pew.
Fears. So many of them swirling, chasing each other like the shadows and the light, like the notes and the silence, thick in the darkness of the church.
In a few days, I would board a plane for Ghana. If you had asked me what I feared, I would have pointed only at that. The rest remained an unwrapped bundle I dared not unravel, a tangle of questions without answers, unnamed possibilities I wished not examine.
Matt and I had planned this last leg of our adoption for months. We would travel and meet the children together. After that, Matt would return home while I stayed to wait with our children for their visas, a process the embassy in Ghana claimed would take no more than 30 days. As soon as we made our plans and purchased tickets, the embassy announced its new policy: expect a three month wait for visa applications.
At that, an overwhelming fear arose. Until then, perhaps the planning and anticipation and excitement had kept reality at bay. Perhaps bedsheets and stuffed animals and dresses and toy cars made our children’s homecoming feel inevitable, planned, scheduled—a family of four, a logical conclusion. That one announcement cracked open a chasm of unknowns, a deep chasm lurking just beneath the surface all along.
I had never traveled to Ghana before, had never traveled without a return ticket, and had never traveled alone. Further, I had never adopted before, had never parented older kids, or any kids at all. And further yet—after Ghana, then what? Life would look completely different on the other side of this trip.
If I wanted to, I could also consider the alarming political unrest leading up to elections in that country, or, even closer to home, the recent break in and assault at our children’s orphanage. I could research malaria medication and water born diseases and food safely for travelers. I could check the little yellow card that documented the slate of vaccinations I received in keeping with CDC recommendations for traveling to that area of Africa.
I could.
Or, I could hide in the back of the chapel and tremble with the weight of the fears.
I didn’t need to go looking for them. Beneath the deep cello voices painting in slow mournful tones, “What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul,” fear whispered its dark secret, “You will be alone in Ghana. All alone.”
Yet in the dark and in the silence, fear did not have the last word. By the time I slid out of the pew, by the time I felt a gentle finger on my forehead and heard the quiet words, “For you are dust and to dust you shall return,” I carried not fear but this: “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” What do I fear for myself? The life I live is the the life of Another.
That night, I carried away words that gave meaning to the ashes—a reminder of death, a reminder of life—life overflowing, full, rich, and fearless.
Life, loved.
“This life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)
He loved me.
I was ready for whatever came next. I was ready to face uncertainty and to do it alone because—
There is no alone when He lives in me.
There is no fear when He loves me.
In death, I fully live.