Spring Means New Life

Spring has arrived in Prague with a wealth of vivid colors and energy: fiery red tulips lining the sidewalks in Petriny, rollerbladers and bikers speeding through paved Strahov Park, and Petrin Hill alive with billowing cherry blossoms. Everyone knows that Spring brings rebirth of life and spirit, especially after such a record winter like the one the Czech Republic experienced this year.

In a poetic way, Spring has done the same in my life - following an extremely hard and emotional winter, Spring has beckoned me to rejoice again and find peace in knowing that God makes all things new.

It all began with an intense desire to make some changes in my life, which usually manifests itself as Spring Cleaning in most households. Seeing that I live with four other girls, I figured that that type of cleansing was futile. Instead, it emerged as a self-cleansing detox diet to get rid my body of toxins and to encourage healthier eating. Erin, who literally eats dessert after breakfast and feasts on Czech food at it’s best – heavy white bread dumplings and various sausage medleys from the school cafeteria – was reduced to only fresh fruits and vegetables, brown rice, various random grains (such as buckwheat?), rice milk, and a selected few bean species. It wasn’t a lose-weight diet (which never worked for me since I am always so focused on what I can’t eat that I rebel) but a feel-good-about-me way to change my eating habits for good. Little did I know how thankful I would be that week for being permanently banned from chocolate, otherwise there wouldn’t be an ounce left of it in the flat!

I received some difficult news the day I began the detox that brought up a lot of very painful feelings and realizations - feelings of betrayal, deceit, guilt, and hurt. I couldn’t understand why I was letting it affect me so harshly, but I literally had a breakdown on the middle of the city bus back from Novy Smichov (the closest shopping center), a major no-no on Czech public transportation. I’m sure the other passengers thought I was crazy for even talking, much less bawling my eyes out.

What it made me realize was that the reaction had little to do with the news itself. While I was hurt by it, that wasn’t the basis for my feelings. When I arrived in Prague, I had distanced myself from my new roommates, thinking that the whole situation would be quite temporary, leaving me alone and with no one to share my feelings with about some painful circumstances I had been experiencing. Instead of talking about my emotions constructively, I internalized them. I let them eat at me from the inside out, allowing them to devalue and denigrate me to the point that my self-esteem was about zero.

I had NOT been the same Erin the past few months – fun, joyful, open, encouraging; I had become a virtual outcast - timid, boring, reclusive and jaded. The more I let my inner emotions affect me, the more reserved and removed I became. How pointless to be a depressed “missionary”? I felt like a failure, but I had been drained by this year’s circumstances and was too ashamed to discuss it.

So, one day I exploded, and everything came out all at once. Listening to myself drain all these emotions during the following days, I was shocked that I had kept them all inside for so long and had refused to open up to anyone, despite the fact that I knew how far I was from everyone. I literally spent the next few days crying and purging all my emotions over cups of ginger root tea and rice cakes (instead of milk and cookies!).

But, what has emerged is beautiful. Through this, God has revealed to me all of the lies that I had convinced myself of and has begun building me up again. I had simply been drained. I had nothing left to give, and He has begun to fill me again. In this spring of new life, He has given me new chances for life as well… to believe in myself again.

I’ve been reading a Beth Moore book called “Believing God”, and one chapter focuses on believing that “I am who God says I am”. Instead of defining myself or letting others define me, God has already taken that responsibility on Himself, defining me as “blessed, chosen, adopted, favored, redeemed, and forgiven” (Psalm 42:5). Unless I believe those things, how can my life give Him glory?
The events that caused my brokenness are not important - what IS important is that they don’t matter. God can fill every void if we let Him.
For those of you wondering about how my detox diet has fared, it diet ended abruptly today at the school principal’s 60th birthday party – the fresh pastries and champagne beckoned to me too strongly. So, perhaps I will start over again on the process of taking in new “toxins”, but for now I feel renewed and light, like my real self. My body has undergone several detox procedures this past week – I have given everything poisonous up to Him, and I can rest assured it won’t be back.

“[Erin, Erin], Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But, I have prayed for you [Erin] that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:31-32