The Expat Wife Life: Faith Strengthened in the Desert

Photo Credit: World Top Top - Bahrain "Tree of Life"

Now this may sound strange, but living in a country where I am in the religious minority has strengthened my faith. When you are constantly faced with someone else's religion in a way that completely disrupts your daily life (aka Prayer Time), it makes you really take a hard look at what you believe and why.

Moving to a Muslim country with Muslim law is not easy. There are many things I can tell you about that would just flabbergast anyone who has not experienced this type of culture before (and I've described some of that in my other posts). But the one thing it has done that I was not expecting, the one thing I actually least expected to happen, is a strengthening and growing in my own personal walk with God.

Not to say this strengthening didn't come with it's own growing pains. It is because of my loneliness and sudden idleness that led to this spiritual awakening, if you would call it that. Our American lives are so BUSY. Just one thing after another. But life over here is different. There is more time to just sit and listen to what your heart is aching for, what it's telling you. It's lonely at times, yes, but how can God speak to our hearts if we're never alone?

I was very lucky and very blessed to be surrounded by several strong Christian women when I first moved here. They are my Saudi Sistas and my sisters in Christ. We have laughed together, cried together, been homesick together, traveled together, and prayed together. They probably do not know the role they have played in my journey with God, but they were and are an inspiration to me. They showed me what it really means to be a woman of God in today's world. Strangely, I had to move half-way around the world to figure it out.

And I'm still figuring it out. I'm in a new and different place right now. All five of the women I became so close with while I was here have moved one. Left the Kingdom. I'm now a remnant of the "first generation" of expats to our compound; there are new people living in the homes that I once walked into freely and often. The new girls are experiencing this life for the first time, and I tell stories of "my first [insert experience here]" like a goofy version of a grandmother. It's a strange and unsettling feeling; I'm beginning to feel alone all over again, but in a different way.

My feelings are currently very mixed. I am so happy and excited for the ladies and families starting their journeys here. This life has taught me much about myself, has cemented my marriage in a way I never expected, and is a constant surprise and challenge. However, this last trip back to Saudi, I cried as the plane took off in Houston. As I watched the earth drop away from the plane, my heart sank and I couldn't hold back the tears. All I kept thinking was, "I don't want to go. I'm not ready to go." This was a first for me. In over four years, I have not had that kind of feeling or reaction before, which tells me two things.

First, it tells me that something has shifted. Something in my heart and spirit is aching to be back on American soil. I don't want to miss any more birthdays, weddings, anniversaries or family gatherings. I don't want to watch my son be scared of his own family for the first several days because they are strangers to him. We have sacrificed a lot of time and memories with family to be in Saudi and live this life and until now it was worth it. Something tells me that isn't true any more.

Secondly, this tells me that we need to start planning to go home. This part is tricky. There is a fine balance to be struck between professional commitments and keeping a healthy home life. As an expat, the two are delicately intertwined. If we were to say "oh, we'd like to be done and go home"with little warning, it would reflect poorly on my husband's ability to fulfill his commitments and duties. However, if we were to stay another two years until it would be a "perfect" time in the job to leave, I know that I will be completely miserable which has it's own fallout in our lives and marriage.

Expat life demands a much longer view of things. You plan your life out nearly a year in advance - when your vacations are, where you will go, who you will see, what special occasions you will try to attend. It's a stressful and necessary part of life that can drive you nuts because the further out you try to plan, the fewer and fewer things you can control.

Lately, I've been feeling the overwhelming sense of that "lack of control". It gnaws away at me and manifests in small OCD projects around the house like reorganizing the pantry - things I can control. Other times it is so overwhelming that I just lay on the couch and watch old TV shows over and over because it numbs me to the ache inside. Instead, I should be looking to God for that comfort and am actively working on that. Just another lesson and just another example of this life stretching my faith.

I don't have all the answers, and as much as I wish I did, I don't know when we will be heading back to American soil, although my heart and soul aches for that day. All I know is that I want to wait for God's timing and the blessing that will come with it. I'm struggling with my own impatience, so my current faith challenge is to seek God's comfort while I wait and trust that He is moving the pieces into place.

Lastly, I find it ironic that God is making me wait in a desert. Not a metaphoric one that some preachers talk about. A LITERAL desert. He has a quirky sense of humor!