An oasis of connection

One of the unique challenges of living and working in a country and culture not your own is a distinct lack of connection. As soon as you step out of your house you are immersed in a language and worldview, ways of thinking and questioning and conversing that are not your own. What I often get is a friendly 'getting-to-know-you' interrogation, just a casual series of friendly questions like

What are you doing here?
  Who do you live with?
    How much do you pay for rent?
      Why do you live alone, that's terrible.
         By the way what is your street and house number?
          What, you don't have kids yet?
             How old are you?
              Why haven't you married?
                You really should hurry up with that.
                  Would you like me to hook you up?

What is meant as a friendly chat, as you can imagine feels to the Western mind like my own very personal Spanish inquisition.  In that sense, coming home to the UK has been a relief. It is an oasis of connection. People converse in ways that feel normal and comfortable to me and in a language I don't have to put a lot of energy into using. That in itself feels like a good long drink to my soul - an oasis.

But there is also a challenge to being home. In a way, the connection itself is a challenge. Because friends here have no real idea of my world in Thailand with its unique oddities and joys and challenges, I paint elaborate word pictures to help you get a small glimpse. But whether I am at my UK 'home' or my Thai one, there is no one who has stepped into everything and every place that makes me who I am.

And then I realise that what I really long for is a level of connection where I am fully known and understood. Where my heart is heard without needing explanation because the experiences have been shared. The loss of being fully known is one of the things I grieve most in this path of life I have chosen.

At times it feels a bit overwhelming to have so many pieces of me scattered across the world, and communicating enough to make myself understood to those around me whichever context I find myself in. Yet that loss comes with a deep blessing. It gives me the unique advantage that my Father God is the only One who can really be my Oasis. He has been water to my soul wherever I am. In Thailand and here, He has shared every story I have lived. He doesn't need me to be a great communicator, He can just hold me with all of my complexity and scattered-ness and say to me, "I know". Because He has been there first, and He has been there with me.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Heb 4:15,16)

What wonderful comfort to realise then that I can go to my Oasis every day, because He is always with me. If you are feeling and grieving a lack of connection, let me encourage you to visit the Oasis.