Many years of longing and great expectation brought me into this classroom in Närpes, on the west coast of Finland, on a Monday evening in January 1990. At last, I would be a writer. Being in a group one evening a week for five weeks in Swedish was better than nothing. About six years earlier, I had found a copy of Writer's Digest in a bookstore in Bangkok. The message was: Find a Writer's group near you. There was no English writer's group near where I lived in Thailand. No one knew enough English. Short furloughs in Finland did not provide an opportunity to find any group.
My grandparents had saved my mother's correspondence, written over fifty years – all in Swedish. I had never been to a Swedish school. My aunt gave me those letters when we once lived in Helsinki on furlough. My mother was still alive. I skimmed through both her handwritten and typed pages in four months and chose familiar stories my mother had shared with me in the past. We had to return to Thailand, so I could not dig deeper. My mother checked the details where I wanted clarification. With the advice of an author friend, I managed to finish that Swedish book. An editor adjusted my Swenglish grammar to Swedish.
The book, published in 1984, succeeded in our local circumstances. Not because I wrote it, but because of its subject: My mother's life story – based on her letters to her home. My dad was a well-known mission visionary and pioneer in Finland. Readers wanted to know the woman behind his achievements and how she had survived. Later that book was translated into Finnish.
Seven other aspiring writers sat around the large table. It was dark outside. A bright-eyed author, a recently retired language teacher, taught us an essential lesson about using our perspective. She had no prompts with her. She said that if it had not been so dark, she would have asked us to look outside and write what we saw. Once a class of ten people she had led earlier wrote ten completely different stories, even though everyone had looked out of the same window.
Instead, she gave us the first subject. "Write a self-portrait." I groaned. What on earth can I write about myself? I don't like the person I am just now.
The title of my essay that day was: "A Reluctant Globe-Trotter." When we were about to leave, I asked,
"Can we have an assignment as homework?"
"Oh, yes. Write about a feeling."
Again, I groaned, though no one heard me this time either. A feeling? I was numb.
I had returned from Thailand with my family six months earlier. The Scandinavian school our four children attended in Thailand closed the year our oldest daughter began high school. Our youngest started his last year in primary school. Their education would take several years. We moved into a house in Närpes my husband inherited from his father. One night I counted the times I had moved in my life. I came up to 50 when I included how often I had to stay (unwillingly) on my dad's Gospel Ship on holidays. I believed this would be my last move. After all, it was the first time we owned a house.
I was exhausted. I was, at last, getting regular medication for my six-year-old Rheumatoid Arthritis. A lifetime of traveling and moving was at a standstill. Now all the hidden scars from repeated uprooting began to appear. However, I did not understand what was happening to me. Writing became a lifebelt
I had to write something before Monday. I had asked for the assignment. Late Sunday evening, I began to write a list of emotions. Joy. Sorrow. Love. Hate. I wrote a few memories.
Joy is
The flaming colors of autumn
among dark spruce and pine
Lighted candles in November
Scrunching snow on a sparkling winter day
wild anemones on a May morning
the laugh of a dandelion
Joy is
having a homeland
fulfillment of a dream
Joy is
Discovering
not demands – but opportunities
to serve others
to give oneself – to receive
Joy is
recognizing a soul mate
in a new acquaintance
lasting friendship
despite distance and time
Joy can be expressed by
laughter - smiles
hugs and tears
Joy can be
a surprise
or a fulfilled wish
Joy can be elated
lively - or
a calm contentment
despite circumstances
Joy flows in
when despair and bitterness
hate and guilt
are dissolved
through the warmth of love
to hope and faith.
The teacher called my list a poem. I had not even tried to write a poem. An elderly man in the group commented, "It's a nice text, but nobody lives so selflessly anymore in our individualistic and self-centered society." For me, the list drew on memories of earlier moments of joy. It was not something I felt at that moment.
One evening the teacher brought an old cookie tin full of picture postcards as writing prompts. I saw a familiar scene and picked a card showing palm trees. I was sure I could write about palms. I had grown up among them. I stared at the picture for a moment and put it back. I wasn't ready for that. Too many painful shards of memory rose to the surface.
The following postcard illustrated a grief-stricken girl in a beautiful landscape. She was blind to her surroundings. She did not see the mountains in the distance or the rider on a white horse crossing a winding river coming towards her. Whatever had brought despair and sorrow had closed her eyes and her heart. There was no future ahead. She carried bitter memories of better days. The rider on a white horse was coming her way. This poem was inspired by that scene.
She walked alone, blinded by sorrow
She saw no future, no meaning in her life
Bitter memories of shattered hopes felt strangling
Self-pity covered her surroundings in a fog
There was someone on the mountain
who knew her desolation
her sorrow
her disappointment
He wanted to bring help and comfort
give new courage
hope and love
give back the zest for life
He longed to open her eyes
to the beauty all around
the blue mountains
the river in the valley
spring's budding leaves
· and within herself
the ability to create something new
He came to her and
dispelled her gloomy thoughts
He showed her flowers
growing in her darkness
Do you want to leave this valley of sorrow?
Come, follow me
I will take you to higher ground
where you can see new visions of
things you never imagined
a future - a kingdom - a goal.
For the following session, the teacher gave us each a list of fourteen random quotes. We were to choose any two that seemed connected in our minds. Two quotations, though they were black and white, just like the others, caught my attention.
"To be free, to rise and leave everything behind, without looking back. To say, "Yes." – Dag Hammarskjöld
"A profit – and not the least – to afford to lose." Rabbe Enckell
Why did the freedom promised by "Yes" sometimes seem so challenging? Why did surrender seem so complicated, sometimes even unreasonable? As a young girl, I struggled with what it meant to follow Jesus. I thought the price was too high. I assumed that I had paid enough as a missionary kid. Once I surrendered to the call, I left everything behind and found the price to be nothing compared to the rich experiences I received. Despite all those riches, there were all kinds of struggles and hardships. I had said yes to many challenges, leaving a life that many others regarded as "normal." I had felt that freedom too. But there was a price.
There the second quote came with the answer. "Loss is profit." The comments helped me gain a new perspective on my life.
Both the message of the picture and the quotes were familiar to me, though from another source - the Bible. I knew who the rider on the white horse was. Then I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True. Revelation 19:11
If you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it. Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but lose your life? Of course not! There is nothing you can give to regain your life. Matthew 16:25-26.
PS I read this, this morning from a dear TCK friend and prayer warrior in Korea- you will relate, I am sure:
"Honestly, there are moments I struggle to dream. (This can be a particular challenge for TCKs, as we know how life can vastly change overnight. So occasionally we can “go with the flow” too much because we feel it’s pointless to dream or plan.) Sometimes it feels easier to deny or kill desire as a self-protective measure, especially if they touch deep, vulnerable places. To acknowledge desire feels scary. Yet it is necessary, to be fully alive." (Source: https://lynetterallcock.wixsite.com/beautyseeker/post/2021-allowing-myself-to-hope)
So so beautiful, Lisa. It inspires me reading this because my dream is still to offer free writing courses to traumatized (and spiritually abused) kids and adults to watch Jesus heal them as He reveals His Voice of hope and life in them as He did with me (and you) through our writing. That dream has never died. I now realize that it wasn't meant to - only that I was meant to die to myself and my way of going about it.
Your story also so makes me think of this passage in Lamentations:
15 He has filled me with bitterness;
he has sated me with wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
17 my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It also makes me think of what that man said to you: who is like that today? Jesus still is. Isn't He? We are all selfish and self-centered if left to our own devices, but praise God for the saving grace of Jesus, who delivers us from bitterness and depression to glorify His power in our weakness and draw many more to Him and His great healing love.
Thank you for your sweet encouragement in the Lord. I am listening, Lord.