Missions and marriage

Toward the end of my college career, I was getting serious about Mark and abandoning or at least setting aside my plans of becoming a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

I heard about Wycliffe in middle school and thought it was the perfect mission.

First of all, there’s a concrete, scholarly task to do: learn the language, develop an orthography (writing system, like our alphabet), teach reading and writing, and translate as much of the Bible as possible with the help of local people. And relationships can form and grow as part of the work and part of the flow of life with kids, market, cooking, etc. (In contrast, strictly evangelistic missions seem awkward to me, with less organic / natural means of relating to people.)

So I majored in linguistics, also took anthropology courses, spent a summer in Africa with Wycliffe’s Discovery Program. That summer, I asked God to show me if Wycliffe was my calling. By the end of the trip, I had seen no skywriting and had no other clear leading. I figured that maybe it was okay to go into missions because I wanted to, even if I didn’t have some definitive sense of calling.

I tried to resist Mark, on the other hand. I wanted to develop a friendship with him, and was continually galled that I found him attractive. I thought I had no right to such feelings since I didn’t know him that well yet, and I didn’t want my thinking to be clouded by my feelings. Besides, “Real Christians” put God (in the form of missions) first, not marriage. And “Real Christians” don’t date, or feel romantic about anyone, or anything like that. No — in the spirit of a popular pamphlet going the rounds, once you stop wanting a husband, God will throw one in your lap — but you have to stop wanting one first.

Reminds me of the time I was little, when I kept trying to stop wanting something so that I could pray for it — because God wouldn’t give it to me unless I stopped wanting it.

Yikes.

Anyway, the strongest, clearest message I felt from God was not about missions or marriage, but sounded something like, “Go ahead, have some fun — date Mark! It doesn’t have to be this big huge monstrous commitment.”

And I did.

And later we got married.

I’ve often thought, since then, that marriage can be as holy as missions, a holy place in which God can work my sanctification. Loving my husband and learning to live with him is, for me, even more sacred and powerful a task and a grace (and a witness) as working for Wycliffe would have been.

Believe it or not, all of that was just the introduction to this post.

Barbara has written a lovely post about how much more difficult it is to trust God and be gracious in the little annoyances, compared to the big obvious challenges. So true.

I’m not writing in response to her post — I think it’s great. I’m writing in reaction to the Roaslind Goforth quotation near the end of her post.

Basically, this missionary wife has to allow the local people, who are prejudiced against whites, into her home, and she is expected to be perfectly saintly to them no matter what. One of them insults her deeply, and she speaks firmly in response. Her husband tells her he is disappointed in her.

I can see the point — really I can. It would be a powerful witness to never be hurt and lash back at anyone*. And the wife’s behavior certainly set back the husband’s goals.

But!

The insulting person responded, “she has a temper like us.” How true! Yes, the white people are not gods, they are not perfect; they are subject to all the range of human emotion and are not impervious to hurts. The wife’s talking back was not a personal attack. It was not name-calling or cursing. It was standing up for herself, for her home. Can it not also be a witness when people see that we are like them, that we get hurt and get angry, and when they see how we manage these feelings?

And that husband… could it be that his marriage should come before his mission? Did he love his wife sacrificially in that moment? Could he not have consoled her, comforted her, assured her of her wholeness and dignity in the sight of God? Took thought and care for her feelings first, before those of the outsiders? Charity begins at home. And what a powerful witness it is when a man loves his wife well!

*I have a theory that there are three levels of spiritual / psychological health; one is subhealthy: the people who are doormats because they believe they are worthless and less than nothing; the healthy: people who have good boundaries, who know who they are, who have respect for themselves as well as for others; and the superhealthy: people who can lay aside their rights for the sake of another person, without losing their sense of self and dignity. Standing up for yourself is healthy. Not standing up for yourself might be subhealthy or superhealthy, depending on what lies beneath. You can’t fake superhealthy. You can work towards it, and grow in grace with it, but you can’t force it.