Moving Forward

All who are thirsty
                     All who are weak
            Come to the fountain
                                        Dip your heart in the stream of life
                                    Let the pain and the sorrow be washed away
                                                                           In the waves of His mercy
                                                                                            As deep cries out to deep.


I have been back in the U.S. for almost three weeks now. I alternate between feeling home and feeling like I just left my home. It's amazing how much faster time has been going since I returned; the days were usually very long and slow in India. It's a testament to the healing I'm experiencing that my life feels like it's beginning to flow a little bit more. I talked last time about how I feel like I have an ocean of memories, and that I have to sift through drop by drop until the is becomes the was.

I've realized a couple of things about this process, a process that feels like grieving. Firstly, I realized that this will take a lifetime, and so my mentality of "Ok, I have to process India first, and then I can move on with my life" isn't correct. God wants me to move on, and I can perhaps process and begin anew here at the same time. Isolating myself in the house a lot these past few weeks has been very good in ways, but I've also found myself sitting around waiting for the "processing" to happen, like it's just going to happen without my doing anything. I think God is telling me that the experiences may receive their meaning, new meaning, when placed in my current context, instead of just in mind-India, where I spend a lot of time.

Secondly, with my realizing that this is going to take a long time, I can't sit around and wait until I feel "normal" again, whatever that means. I will never be who I was before my time in India and I don't want to be. I have greatly changed. In familiar circumstances it is easy to appear normal, just like I was before I left. I look basically the same, except having lost some weight. Don't let that fool you. A lot has changed in me and my heart. I don't know what the changes were exactly, but there was a lot of growth. It was good. So I feel that God has given me the go ahead to slowly, gently reintegrate back into society again, and not have fear about having not processed everything yet. Additionally, I realized that others can help me in this processing by asking tough questions and encouraging me to share. In my conversations, I can begin to identify some of the choice pearls that keep surfacing. And I cannot wait for these questions!

The pain of leaving India is still very real and raw, though I have kept in touch with my family there as much as possible. I think this is because I didn't leave India on my own terms, in a sense. Something happened that was beyond my control, God's plan was different than my own. I obsess and try to remember what all happened that led to my coming home, where did it start, what exactly happened, what could I have done differently, all the harmful would've should've could've-s getting in the way...There's a lot I don't know. I know that my last two months in India were very challenging and that it became too much at some point. I know that God is and was in control during all of that. But I can't help but feel like a failure some days, falling into puddles of guilt, or mostly just confusion. Sometimes I realize that I'm in back in the U.S. and I'm like, "Wait, what happened, how did I get here!?" At night especially, the enemy speaks lies to me about my own inadequacy and I just have to tell him to CAN IT! I know that God's timing is perfect and that He knew what He was doing bringing me home. I know that I got sick, and that we all get sick, and that when we get sick we need to get well, and that all this is part of life, and it's okay.

Jesus told them, "Go home to your people and tell them what Our God has done for you." Mark 5:19

Recently, I felt Him speak a promise and a word of hope into my heart. I felt that He revealed to me that I am viewing my experience as being over, when in fact, just one phase of it is-the actual being there. There was the preparation, a time of much excitement, anticipation, and incredible support. There was the being there which was amazing and challenging and vivid and so much else... And now, in coming home, I get to take what I experienced and SHARE with others, and this is still part of the experience, as well as being a new experience in and of itself. This is just as important-maybe more important, in some respects. God told me, "Claudia, I'm not done with this yet! Do not limit me. I still have lots to do with this," and I felt comfort from Him knowing that new chapters are opening, things I don't yet know, new horizons, new ways in which God will provide for me to incorporate what I've learned and experienced in my sphere of influence here, are still to come. I'm so thankful for this. I hope that I am faithful in sharing COPIOUSLY what I've learned...once I figure more of that out. But I know that He has been most faithful and I will tell of His faithfulness. Maybe now it's just enough to share what I've seen? and leave the lessons and the message up to God... Lord, help me to be faithful in TELLING what I have seen! And thank you for the promise that this is just a phase that has ended and that there is much yet to come, more than I can possibly imagine right now.

I mentioned before that home certainly looks different now. I feel overwhelmed in general by stores and how many choices we have of everything. It seems really ridiculous. I remember how big and wide and scary the roads here looked after returning. I'm still wearing fleece and lamb wool slippers all the time and scarves and missing feeling like I was constantly in a sauna. I can get overwhelmed going to restaurants and everything just felt so needlessly excessive. Dishwashers seem like a silly concept. Why do we use so many dishes, anyhow? Familiar things looks silly, wasteful, or empty. But my vision has changed to notice many new things I wouldn't have seen before.

I am moving forward. I have started driving again and getting out of the house. I am beginning to go shopping for things by myself again, drive downtown, all little things that feel like big accomplishments to me. I have opened and read the big pile of goodbye letters on my desk.  I have been talking on the phone more and beginning to get out and meet with people to talk about my experiences. I have not yet resumed working on the book for the Choir Directors. I went back to church for the first time this past weekend, was greeted with many wonderful hugs, and enjoyed dinner with Roger and Betsy afterwards. I'll start attending a class at church this week. I'm beginning to reconnect with old private students and friends, and also getting reinvolved in MPC's ESL ministry as a tutor. I'm not sure when I'll be ready to go back to work, but what an AWESOME church family I have to be so understanding and patient and supportive. (Before I went to India, I worked as Worship & Arts Assistant, assistant to the music director, at my home church, Memorial Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and my church family has invited me back to this position.) I realize that I am ridiculously lucky to come back from this year and have a job waiting for me.

It's back and forth all the time. A face of one of my Indian friends suddenly pops up in my mind and I get choked up. But then I find joy in so much now that I always took for granted-like showers. Tonight I had to buy two things at the grocery store, but I spent time wandering around the store, amazed at the fact that I was alone and could just browse, something you can't do in India. I am relishing the wide open skies and big spaces in my neighborhood and walking or hiking most days. I still can't get myself to drink water from the tap, haha.

I am feeling better every day and am much more emotionally stable. His peace is seeping into my spirit, more peace than I have let in in a long, long time. I am feeling like something inside of me that was wound up really tight for so long, all the fear and anxiety, is slowly loosening and relaxing. I am feeling calm. I am breathing deep, walking, taking one day at a time. I appreciate your prayers against the anxiety and depression and know that they are helping me.

There are still so, so many stories to share. Stay tuned for lots of videos and photos of my last weeks there.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. DO NOT BE AFRAID; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9 

As Deep Cries Out to Deep

I will lift my eyes to the Maker of the mountains I can't climb

I will lift my eyes to the Calmer of the ocean's raging wild
I will lift my eyes to the Healer of the hurt I hold inside
I will lift my eyes to You
-"I Will Lift My Eyes" Bebo Norman

Deep cries out to deep
              in the roar of your waterfalls;
                                                        all your waves and breakers
                                                                                                  have swept over me.
                                                                                                                   Psalm 42:7

Coming home feels like getting knocked over by waves and choosing pearls. But mostly, getting knocked over by waves.

I have been back in the U.S. for about a week. The henna tattoos that Sherina and Ledu covered my limbs with the night before I left have almost completely disappeared. I sit here, looking at the remnants of the thin brown lines covering my skin, feeling like they disappeared all too fast. I tried to replicate my name in Malayalam just as they did on my other arm, but it doesn't look anything like their writing.


When I walk around the house or outside, I keep hearing Malayalam words for different things, making me realize that I know a lot more Malayalam than I thought I knew. I am still wearing sandals, as closed-toe shoes feel really strange, and pants, long sleeves, a fleece and a scarf, because even though it's about 70 outside, it's about 30 degrees cooler than what I was used to.

I still have nail polish on only my non-eating hand, in true Kerala style. Though I'm looking around me, I'm seeing the faces of those in India. My mind wanders when anyone is talking to me, and I have to make a conscious effort not to shake my head, indicating "yes."

Yes, I'm home, but home is very different now. Home is the same, I guess, but I'm very different. Truly, I feel like I'm in a foreign country again. I know that this is normal. It fades a little with each passing day, just like the henna fades from my skin. I'm not quite in India, not quite here either... Maybe I'm still on the plane and it hasn't really landed yet.

I know that I'm with family, but I've left just as much family behind. "Are you happy to be home?" everyone asks. "Are you relieved?" Yes....and no. It depends on the moment. I do know that it was right for me to come home, though in God's timing and not in my own timing or in man's. I'm feeling much better, but also majorly confused as to where I am sometimes. Though in some ways I was truly ready to leave India, in other ways I distinctly was NOT ready. I was nowhere near ready to say goodbye to my new family-Gigi Sir and his family- and my sisters, the girls at the hostel. And so many others. But I never would have been ready. I think of certain people and family back in India and my heart aches I miss them so much, even though I've been in touch with them every day since I flew back. I felt actual physical pain in saying goodbye to everyone and in remembering them now. It's all so fresh it hurts.

Coming home, my street, house and room seem foreign to me. I have finally unpacked and put away my things, a week later. But there sits a pile of unopened goodbye letters and cards on my dresser that I haven't had the heart to open yet.

It's a strange place to be, wherever I am right now, floating somewhere between India and home, kinda like a plane that isn't really sure where to land. My feet aren't exactly sure where to plant, but I am slowly coaxing myself back to where I used to live, which feels like more new territory. Wherever I am right now, I know that I'm in the center of His hand.

Feelings, feelings...of all kinds and shapes and sizes... What are feelings? They wash over me. I dream vividly of India and wake to find myself back here, and all of reality floods over me, knocking me over in the waves. I stand up in between, but I still get knocked down by it all. There's lots to miss, things not to miss, things to rediscover, things to undiscover, mostly things I had discovered that I didn't know I had discovered...tons of things that never got sorted out but are now ready to be filed somewhere. Must they be filed? How long can I just keep them sitting all sprawled out in front of me?

Mostly is just this feeling that I have something so huge to share, but accompanying it, some hesitation of how to go about it. When someone asks, "How was India?" I feel like I'm going to explode. I feel the same way I think I'd feel if someone asked me, "How were the past five years of your life?" Mostly I just need to start to process...to start to sort through the thousands and thousands of thoughts and shells and pearls and feelings and impressions, to sift them for the nuggets that God desires for me to share. After all, I can't dump my entire experience over everyone's head. I can barely surface from it all myself.  I need to prayerfully spend lots of time considering what big lessons and experiences God desires most for me to share with others. I need to choose my pearls. I don't think that this will become clear right away, but after lots of time and lots of prayer. I can't wait to start sharing here about India, but I also can wait, because I'm not really ready to talk about it like it's in the past. I'm still so there in my mind. I feel like I'm grieving, in ways, grieving a friend, grieving a me that no longer exists, a me in India. It seems dramatic to describe this as grieving but it feels very similar to the times in my life I have grieved. Something that was, and was really really strong, loud, and powerful, is no more, or at least I'm no longer a part of it. Suddenly I'm back, back to "familiar" settings, not quite sure how I got here, alternately feeling like I took a long sea voyage and at other times like I just kinda landed here on this new shore, still wet and sandy. One feeling I do NOT feel is the feeling that it wasn't that long ago that I left home. It feels like years have passed. And I guess, in the number of new experiences, adventures, sights, relationships, and such, years have passed. And they were good, long, and full years.

It seems crazy to think that I was only in India eight months. It'll take me many, many more to live out in my mind all that I physically lived out. And I welcome this process, this mammoth filing project, this grieving, as it were, knowing that God has given me so much to share. I am excited to share with you all in person, but I'm very grateful for this time of processing, however long it may last. I'm thankful for the comfort of my home to sit and write and cry and get angry and sad and smile at things thousands of miles away and think it all out. But mostly, right now, I'm just in denial that I'm not in India anymore. Nonetheless, the Great Adventure of following after Him continues.

Am I found ready?

Ready for healing,
       ready for sharing,
                 ready for taking what is and allowing it,
                                     drop
                                                            by drop
                                                                                    by drop

                                                                                                    to become what was. 

It will come. I feel like each memory is a precious pearl I want to save, but who would have room for so many pearls? Besides, you can't make a necklace with all those, you have to choose the best pearls and wear them and share them.

Slowly but surely, it will come. Maybe little waves here and there, little pools of thoughts and memories collecting. Like a drop falling in a pool that spreads ripples, may my words be. May they be His words. May I choose them carefully, like a polished shell. May I walk with Him gently, peacefully, and patiently as we explore this new shore together, with the other shore so nearby in sight. Right now it's so close I could reach out and touch it, but in reality, it is the distant shore of India.

So loudly, deep cries out to deep on the beaches of my soul. All His waves and breakers have swept over me, and I lay here, wet and sandy, not getting up, letting the waves wash over me, at least for a little while longer.

Coming Home

"For HE said to me, 'My GRACE is sufficient for you, for my POWER is made perfect in WEAKNESS.' Most gladly, therefore, I will boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me." 2 Corinthians 12:9 

Dear friends,

Since last I posted, many things have changed. I have no idea where to begin. I last wrote about March, "I have no idea what plans God has for me for this month, but I'm excited about them!" March certainly included something I didn't expect: a call to return home.

There is so much to tell. How did I come to this decision? What all led up to this? Please know that this decision came with a very heavy heart and with much, much prayer from many people.

This entire year, I have battled head-to-head every day with anxiety. This battle has been very hard but it has refined me. I have been able to do so many things that I never imagined I would be able to. I have also discovered my limits. I wrote in a journal entry a couple months ago, "I am constantly running up against the walls of my limitations. I am discovering the dimensions of a box I didn't know existed. If I keep running hard enough against the walls of the box, will they expand?" In some ways, I think they have. I have been able to accomplish more than I ever dreamed I would be able to, through Christ's strength. 

But I have been limited, and I am so very, very human. As we all are. In discovering my own limitations, I have discovered God's lack of limitations. In running up against my own walls I have seen that His love knows no bounds. I have fought with my flesh. I have asked God to remove the thorn in my side. He has not, but instead, He showed me how much I could still do with that thorn still in me. And for that I am SO THANKFUL. He showed me that even in my weakness, I could STILL SERVE HIM and give Him my all.

And so despite anxiety, I fought on, being supported by His strength alone every day. I haven't been able to accomplish anything on my own strength here. I have never felt so inadequate as I have in this year, and I have found that His strength is more than enough to support me and to work through me. If there is anything good I have accomplished here, any lives changed, any friendships formed, I can say, truthfully, that it is ONLY in the Lord that these have happened. And many, many, many good things have happened. More than I could ever have dreamed of. More friendships made than I ever would have imagined. My ties here are so strong. I feel God's hands having bound me to the land, to the people, my voice mingled in their own. I have known deep, deep life in Him here. I have clung to His word with all my strength, and I have found it to be my sword and my strength against the attacks of the enemy.

Around the end of February, I sunk into a depression. I thought initially it was just feeling down after the amazing visit at Freedom Firm. But I kept sinking, lower and lower until I found myself in a place I'd never been before, new places that frightened me. I continued to try to do everything as much as I could but I had absolutely no internal resources left and it became difficult for me to do my work. I fought and fought and the depression worsened to include physical effects. During this time, everyone around me was immensely supportive. With the recommendation of my doctor back home, I tried starting medication, but it's just too hard to figure out this kind of medication and deal with all the side effects from 12,000 miles away from home and from my doctor.

During this, in around the third week of March, God made it clear to me that it was time to go home. At first I was very reluctant to hear it. But I realized that I was putting my health in danger. I was fighting, fighting, fighting, but I was deeply hurting. I realized that I hadn't felt like myself in months, that my attitudes and thoughts were not at all like me. I realized that I had become sick. In one big culminating moment, I had a huge internal struggle, where I was fighting to stay because I wanted to stay, and I felt God said to me, "Claudia, stop fighting. You've done what I sent you to do here. Now it's time to be healed." I realized that the only reason I was fighting to stick it out until the end was so that I could say that I completed my year. That's it. It was all about ME and my pride. My pride took me a long time to admit that this was bigger than me, that this was out of my control, and that I had not been myself in a long time.

This was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. I went back and forth and back and forth on it. I prayed for God to clarify things for me, to just show me His will. I knew that my will was to stay and fight, but I couldn't do it any more. I didn't want to spend the rest of my time in India counting down the days until I go home and barely making it through each day. The struggle was over. 

I admitted that I really needed to seek healing, and that I felt that I needed to be home to receive healing. I never expected this. I never wished this. I didn't think this is how my year would end. The enemy attacked me with lies about being a failure and a quitter.

It took me awhile before I told anyone my decision, but once I did, everyone was extremely supportive. More supportive than I could've hoped for. They all had known that I was struggling and seen that I was battling, and wanted to help me, to see me healthy again. They helped me battle the lies that Satan was feeding me about being a failure because I hadn't completed my year.

After all, I was going to return home in June, and now I'm returning home in April. Most of my programs were ending in April anyhow. This has allowed me to give myself some grace. And some very exciting news: a couple months back I was asked by a couple of the choir directors to write a book on choir directing so that they would have something to keep once I left. I wrote about 40 pages of the book (oh my goodness do I feel so unqualified), and Dr. Aswan of Harp n' Lyre music academy, and one of the members of the Director's Program, helped me complete a video series component to go along with the book demonstrating conducting fundamentals and warm-ups. I will be continuing this work from home and will remain actively in touch with my friends back here as they help me edit the book. So though I am leaving, my work with this community is not finished.

So I realized that I was making this a much bigger deal than it is and that it was more important that I take care of my health. When you get sick, you seek help to get better. And that's what I need to do. It took me awhile, but I'm not afraid to admit that, now. I know that I am weak, and I will boast about my weaknesses, hoping that the power of Christ will dwell in me. 

I have been feeling so much better about my decision. God has given me a deep peace about it that I would not have thought possible a few weeks back. It is the hope that I will soon be well again, and the truth that I HAVE been successful. I know that He has plans for this testimony. No, I have not finished the time of mission that I set out to finish, but I have finished what He intended me to finish, in His timing and in His plan, not in my own. God had different plans for me than I had for myself. After all, in serving Him we must be flexible. We do not know where or when we may be called, but we must follow after Him. And we do not know when He will call us to another place to serve, or when He will call us home. We do not know what lies ahead. We must follow Him day by day, not with our own plans and our own boundaries, but go where He goes, stay where He stays, and move when He tells us to move. We must walk with Him, just day by day, step by step.

God made it very clear that my time in India (for now) has come to a close. I gave everything I had to the relationships and the programs here, and for that, I am pleased. I don't think I withheld an inch of myself. I feel that I really gave my all, and it's a good feeling to know that I don't have regrets or that I withheld a part of myself from His service. The professors all helped me wrap up my programs earlier and they all finished successfully. Gigi Sir and all of the professors and everyone could not have been more understanding. Initially I wanted to come straight home but I strived to stay to direct the two Kottayam Mixed Voices concerts, one on April 1st and one on the 7th.

There is so much more to share, but I will do so later. The past couple of weeks have been filled with wonderful send-offs, finishing up the programs, having convocations for the programs, and so on. I'll write more later about how everything finished up. These are the most difficult goodbyes I have ever had to say. I am saying goodbye to the people who took care of me as parents and family. I am saying goodbye to brothers and sisters. But I hope, Lord willing, to return to India.

I know that this will come as a shock to most of you. Please know that this has been a decision surrounded by much prayer and the seeking of God's will through wisdom and discernment by many, many people, for a long time. Thank you so much for being so supportive and for encouraging me to take care of myself when I need to. Thank you for loving me, and giving me a place to share my testimony of what He is teaching me here.

I will update more later. I will be returning on this Wednesday, the 11th, travelling for two days, and still arriving on the 11th (because of the time zone changes). Please pray for me during this difficult time and these heartbreaking goodbyes. Please pray for peace of mind during travel and for God to protect me for anxiety as I travel home. 

I hope and pray that you are all doing well. A better support system I could never have asked for. I can't wait to see you soon and begin to share with you all that the Lord showed me in India. I know that this is just the beginning. God has plans for me and for this testimony, and I believe that He is going to use every bit of this to make me more a more effective servant of His. I believe that He will awaken me to be restored to better than before.

Wishing you a very happy Easter, as we celebrate worldwide the ETERNAL LIFE we have through our Savior, Christ Jesus! THANK YOU, JESUS, for dying on the cross that we may know You and draw closer to You for eternity! Thank You for sending us Your son and for caring for us as you do. 

In Christ,

Claudia