Twenty minutes after Ash Wednesday service ends, and I’m
still stuck in the church parking lot— plagued by the Toyota Noah’s beeping
noise indicating my gear is in reverse— overcome by impatient anger that no car
will let me back out so I can leave the one-way, gated parking exit.  Aya is with me and dodges my curt comments as
I complain about crazy and inconsiderate drivers.  I say some un-Christian things.  I even beep my horn.  More than once.   Okay, a few times.

When I finally floor it out of the lot, the escapade
seems suddenly embarrassing.  How is it
that I’m always in a rush?  Yes, I need
to get to the girls home to pick up the kids and get back in time to make
dinner.  But surely I have no need to get
in an angry rush and horn-beep my way out of the lot.  I apologize to Aya who is frightfully
silent.  And I’m supposed to be a role
model for this sweet girl?  This girl who
is so empathetic that every time I’m in a mood, she suffers for it.  I shake my head at myself and apologize to the
Lord whom I had briefly abandoned the moment I stepped out of church. 

“There’s no rush in Swaziland,” my good friend had always
told me.  It was fine when my stay was
temporary.  But the longer I’m here, the
more frustrating it can be, even though you’d think I would be used to it by
now. 

I’ve recently realized that I can trace almost all of my
greatest moments of stress (and I need to confess there are way too many, I’m
really needing to work on this, please pray for me!) back to one thing: I’m in a
rush in a place where there is no rush. 
Ooh, that could drive a person mad. 
And sometimes it does. 

Like when my landlord says he’s going to come and fix the
fence for weeks and never does. The fence behind my house is broken [every
house here has fencing for security] and so it makes me feel very unsafe… yet,
somehow, though I’ve pleaded, he doesn’t seem to think fixing it to keep us
safe is a necessary rush. 

Or like the internet place… whose workers were supposed
to come install internet in the house in the first week of January!   Despite going there multiple times and even
having multiple people request them to come install, they gave different
answers and excuses and still have not installed it almost two months later
(but they’re eager to charge us for it on a bill). 

Or like major, major ministry changes and growth that I
think need to get figured out now.  But the one person who has the authority that
we need is on “leave” and we have to wait until he returns, whenever that will
be.  So, all progress is on pause until
then.

Or a prayer that so many people are diligently praying
for me (though I never asked any of them to pray for this) and a prayer I
committed to saying every night, but God’s not on my timing, though I desperately
wish He were.   

Sigh. 

It comes down to two choices.  1) Let go of what I can’t control.  2) Hold on to something I can’t control.

Why is it so dang hard to just let things go?  Why can’t I smile at the words, “No
rush”?  Why can’t I be thankful that God
is the one who keeps me safe, not a fence? Or why can’t I be content that I can
access internet from my phone?  Or why
can’t I be excited that our ministry has great opportunities and things will
happen when they’re supposed to happen? 
Or why can’t I admit I’d make a terrible wife if Prince Charming came
into my life right now? 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I
will give you rest. …For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” –Matthew
11:28,30

I recently wrote in my journal: “Jesus, you said to take
your yoke upon me because your yoke is easy and your burden is light.  How?? Your yoke is not easy and your
burden is heavy.  Please explain this
verse to me because I’m clearly missing something.” 

But now I think I get it. 
In order to come to Jesus, that means I must first stop what I’m
doing.  Stop rushing. Come to Jesus.  To take His yoke upon me means I must first
lay down my own.  And see, that’s where I
struggle.  Because the yokes I have taken,
the burdens I carry are for these children I deeply love, and I feel for
them—their pain, their hopes, “what they could be” and “what they should
be.”  I think that I have to carry
them.  I want to hold them.  I want to mend them.  I want to take away their pain and carry them
to Jesus.  But then I get disappointed
over and over again.  I fail over and
over again because it’s impossible.  I
can’t always carry them.  I can’t always
mend them.  I can’t always hold
them.  Yes, sometimes I am called to do
all of these, but Sometimes, I have to let them go.  It’s hard to discern when to step in and when
to step out; it’s hard to see the solution to the problem, knowing the girls
don’t see it themselves. I’m in a rush to show it to them.  I’m in a rush for growth, for
satisfaction.  I’m in rush for perfection.  But then that’s ironic, isn’t it?  How can anything that’s rushed ever actually be perfect?

Like Swaziland, Jesus, too, is in no rush.  He waits. 
He waits for us to come.  To lay
down our burdens, our stresses, our self-inflicted yokes.  And with nail-printed hands, He offers us a
yoke of freedom and a burden of hope.         

I’m letting go of rush hour.  I choose freedom.  I choose hope.  I choose His yoke.  This is joy.