But Ruth Replied

When I was 8 years old I went to summer camp for the first time. I heard how much fun it was. I was told I would make tons of friends. However, despite all the reassurance, the night before I didn't sleep a wink. Every hour, on the hour I would get up, run to my Mom's room and tell her I had changed my mind about going.

Laying in my bed, the hall light on, for fear of the dark, I stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavy. Quickened. Knots rolled over in my stomach. My heart choked up in my throat and tension ran its way up and down my spine. Terrified. I wasn't ready for this. A week away from home, when I had never had the guts to have a sleepover before. I was awkward, with big glasses, a know-it-all who liked to read, and when kids picked on me they'd laugh and call me cry baby as I nursed back my broken soul. Of course I was afraid. What if the kids were mean? What if the games were hard? What if I spent the whole week wanting to go home?

That was 14 years ago and though I'm not travelling up to a retreat center in the woods, I'm travelling half way around the globe and my heart feels the same. It's funny how there are some feelings that never change. That anticipatory anxiety, wondering if everything will be ok. Plagued with the questions. What if I don't get a long with my team? What if I don't have what it takes? What if I spend the whole seven weeks wanting to go home?

Though I'm 22 years-old! You would think that something may have changed. You would think that adventure and excitement would be given a new meaning aside from anxiety-produced-sleepless nights. However, it hasn't and if my mom lived in my apartment, I would probably be running down the hall every hour on the hour saying "I changed my mind, I don't want to go."

However, my mom doesn't live right down the hall. She lives in Iowa. So instead of my mom, I cry to God and pray "What is going on?" And there's no answer, simply a call to trust. So I will trust. Something I am learning, is that choosing to trust requires that there be a reason not to trust. Chaos around and abounding, there are plenty of viable reasons to turn around and run back to my bed, stick my head under the covers, and scream "I'm never coming out again." Whenever you get a group of women together, there is bound to be drama and chaos to some extent. Going to another country and coming back will indeed provide culture shock and reverse culture shock in abundance. And though India has been a dream since that first year I went to summer camp, it is quite probable that this will be the most challenging experience of my life. So I'm left with the choice, to trust or stay home. That's where I am. That's where my fear has crippled me.

It's like Ruth, at the fork in the road, where she has a choice to turn around and go home or leave everything behind and follow Naomi. Her family was in the country she knew. Life there was comfortable. She could find another husband easily and life would be ok. Her gods would stay the same. Her life would stay the same. However, she clung to Naomi, clung to the Lord, and said "I will go." She left everything she knew. She became a foreigner, something any immigrant will tell you is not comfortable. She gave up the certainty of being loved and cared for. She traded her gods for trust in a God she did not know. Her life was changed forever.

So, like Ruth, I will cling to the Lord, and I will go. Though the outcome is uncertain. My world will be turned upside-down. Though for a moment anxiety plagues my soul, I will go. I will cling to the Lord. I will trust.

But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.--Ruth 1:16