When I left everything in the valley of my hometown in California to move to the hot, dusty brown lands of Northern India, I was still living life through a lens of performance.
Though I had encountered the teachings of the Apostle Paul about not working for your faith and how nothing we could do would change God’s love for us, these truths were just head knowledge. I wasn’t yet aware that on a deeper level my actions were rooted in proving myself to God and others. Awareness of these motivations would not come until I started to make space for reflection as a discipline in my life through the practices of Examen, journaling, silence and solitude years later.
I arrived in India trading the measuring stick of the church for the measuring stick of the evangelical missionaries of our time. Our team’s theme verse was “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives” (John 12:24 NLT). This verse became my task master. Dying to myself on a daily, almost moment by moment basis was the way to prove how amazing and worthy I was of God’s love. You can imagine how frequently I failed.
In generations past, there tended to be a mindset that missionaries are super-spiritual, strong, and holy. I heard people say things as I prepared to leave about how “amazing” and “heroic” I was. Sometimes it came from others’ comparisons that their hard circumstances didn’t look nearly as crazy and difficult as mine, so I “must be great”. Other times, these attitudes came from environments where missionaries were labeled “heroes of the faith” and put on a pedestal above everyone else. What common everyday Christian can even relate to this?
I arrived in India simultaneously rejecting this pedestal that I was put on as I tried to keep connection and mutuality in my relationships, while half believing that I was pretty great to be doing this thing that not many around me seemed willing to do. But my delusions came to a screeching halt in my first month in that dusty, chaotic village of one million in India. That first month in India was rough, I had no community, no ability to communicate, I didn’t know my way around and even if I did, I had three young kids and only bicycle rickshaws to get me somewhere. I couldn’t just wander the streets looking for all new household items with three children under five years old while we dodged sewage, trash, cows, goats, and rickshaws. In this village, admirable women didn’t just wander around on the streets. They had to have places to go to and from; otherwise they were found in the home. People quickly found the “Angrezi house” as we were the only white people in the city and would come begging for money as everyone knew all foreigners were rich.
My frustration at feeling stuck and being taken advantage of was grating on me daily. My husband and I were flailing in survival mode. My first lesson from God in this new land? I was still broken and on a journey toward wholeness. I was just beginning to participate in his forming me into someone who at least a tiny bit resembled him. If I didn’t humble myself and join him on this, I wouldn’t have any “hope” to show from my life to those around me that were literally dying.

One weekend our family traveled to Delhi for a getaway at a newly built guesthouse. As I opened the polished brown door and stepped into a common room we were about to share for the weekend, I walked into a scene that would change the course of my life. I had been growing angry and bitter at the difficulty of just being in my own home, lonely at being misunderstood and taken advantage of everywhere I went, and just plain uncomfortable with the conditions around me. God had been gently inviting me to the practice of gratitude, making a list of all the beauty and things I was grateful for, and I had been resisting. But when I stepped into that living room, I saw four kids about 10 years older than mine doing homework and the air was thick with tension. What was going on here? The mom came from the kitchen and gave some instructions to her oldest child in a bitter and harsh tone. The relationship was strained with hurt and anger. I felt God say, “This could be you in 10 years. If you keep resisting my invitation, this will be you.”
It wasn’t just an invitation to practice gratitude, it was an invitation to step more fully into his forming me. I have come to believe this applies to all disciples of Jesus wherever they are living, whatever they are doing. Once you accept a view of your life as a journey where you are always in process of being formed into the image of Jesus, and really begin to follow him, he will lead you into “winters of your soul”. He will lead you through “valleys of desolation”, seasons of reflection, and emotional and spiritual healing. Then he leads you to a season of rest, where you can walk your newness out and see fruit in your life and sow seeds for fruit in the lives of others. We call this ministry. And in and out of these seasons we go until our death. If we don’t willingly follow Jesus into the more painful seasons of our formation, we limit the impact that our ministry has. The case is the same for missionaries. You have probably heard the saying “you cannot lead where you have not gone”. This is a truth that rings true in ministry/missions work as well. You can only make disciples to the depth of emotional and spiritual transformation and maturity you have journeyed through.
As I kept saying yes to the invitations to reflective practices, God was meeting me in new and deep ways and forming me. So many practices or disciplines of reflection are available to us from those who have gone before us (Thomas Merton, Brother Lawrence, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila etc.). Detachment, contemplative prayer, Rule of Life, meeting with a spiritual companion, Lectio Divina and many more have played big roles in the process of my spiritual formation. These practices have brought so much rich depth to my spiritual life and opened access to God in ways that the limited practices I learned in church—Bible reading, intercessory prayer, and worship through singing—could not bring. I moved more and more into a person that God could use to love others and draw them closer to him. God increasingly used my valleys, my brokenness, and my healing to comfort others and accompany them through their own valleys of desolation toward healing of their own.
That first lesson in the dusty village in India perhaps was one of the most important—if I don’t keep accepting the invitations to journey forward, into myself, reflection and growth, my journey will be halted, and my message will be stale. But if I go forward and learn to say “yes” to whatever the next season holds for me, I might have a message that can bring hope to those around me.