Several years ago, I was dropping my son off with our childcare provider. At the time, Kael was about 3-years-old and we had been blessed to find her loving home as a place for him to stay while both his father and I worked full-time jobs.
There were other children there, and a mom that I said “hello” to in passing almost daily. I can’t remember her name, but she was a teacher and somehow one day, she lent me a book called, “The Alchemist.” I was intent on reading it, but as is with young mothers, my best intentions were overcome with an abundance of new responsibilities and a juggling act that more often than not resulted in falling asleep somewhere between pages 1 and 2 of my desired nightly reading. Sleep was not a commodity in those early days. It was a treasure that if I was lucky enough, came without warning and lasted for at least 5 straight hours.
Ten years later, that book has sat on a shelf amongst others. All of which I have read in their entirety. But, “The Alchemist” has sat and waited patiently for when the time was just right. Yesterday, as I was preparing for my first mission trip alongside my son, I was finishing a book on Audible (one that I will spend time discussing in a later blog post), when the author quoted another.
“The Alchemist. I forgot about that book,” I thought to myself. I had settled on reading anther book on this trip, but something beckoned me to run upstairs to that dusty bookshelf and grab it. So, I did exactly that. “If I get to it, I get to it,” I told myself tucking it alongside my copy of the Bible and “Braiding Sweetgrass.”
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It’s been a dream of mine to take a mission trip for years, but raising young kids, managing a dual income family, going through my divorce and then balancing the responsibilities of single-mommyhood has dictated my priorities.
That said, I have recognized that I’m no good at any of it, if I’m not pouring into myself in healthy and fulfilling ways. So, when I turned 40 I made myself three promises. Start teaching at the Y, get serious about my guitar and…travel internationally.
Then COVID happened.
My first trip was planned to Costa Rica and got delayed by a year as the world wrestled with its response to this crisis. Finally, in April of 2021, I was on a plane to meet with 8 women in one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places I have ever been. It was a wellness retreat. Complete with daily yoga, surfing, spa treatments and wholesome foods. Oh, and howler monkeys. To this day, it’s one of the coolest things I have ever done and I made instant friends with some really incredible women whom I still communicate with today.
In early 2023, Rachel, the woman who had planned the Costa Rican retreat was gearing up for a trip to Portugal. I was 100% onboard to join another of her incredible retreats and had committed to her verbally via Instagram that I was “IN!”
But God…
The cost for the Portugal retreat was $2200 + airfare. I had the money and was within days of booking when I found myself in church on a Sunday. The mission’s team had the weekly spotlight and Andi announced that they were finally going back to Honduras for a trip in July. Something stirred in me and that afternoon I went onto my American Airlines app to research airfares for both myself and my oldest.
$2200. The same price to travel to Portugal. I had a decision to make.
I chose the mission trip. And as I write this, I’m sitting next to my son on our first flight to catch a connection in Miami to spend a week at Orphanage Emmanuel in Guiamaca, Honduras. We are both a mixture of excitement and anxiety and exhaustion (6:45AM flights come early), but we are trusting God’s path for us and ready to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
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As is the case with many things in my life lately, I’m confronted with the fact that none of this is by accident. God finds little ways to remind me that He’s walking alongside the kids and I—and today was no exception to that rule.
Shortly after boarding, I finished my Bible reading and moved to opening “The Alchemist.” In the introduction, Paulo Coehlo writes, “What is a personal calling? It is God’s blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream…But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, than you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.”
It’s taken me almost 44-years, a lot of heartache, a lot of dusting myself off, a lot of looking in the mirror forcing myself to confront the things that would be easier to just push beneath the surface and try to forget. But in all the years of numbing the pain, I realized something very important—I was also numbing the joy. I wasn’t letting God work on me. I was trying to control the narrative and consequently hurting myself and those around me unintentionally.
Yes, it’s taken 44-years, but I finally understand. I know why I am here. This is my calling, and I’m ready.
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“Here I am Lord, send me.” -Isaiah 6:8
“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
-Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist