Ireland Revisited

It has been exactly one year since I left for Ireland. One year ago, I stepped onto the Eire Lingus airplane ramp, my excitement finally catching up with my uncertainty. Yes, there is still a part of me that wants to continue to remain bitter to the circumstances, attitudes, and actions that linger so obtrusively from my stay in that beautiful country. Part of me wants to squelch the sorrow and pain with purposeful forgetfulness. This is what I tried to do for several months after my return. I didn't want to talk about it. I was done. 

It's not like that anymore. 

In the past couple months, I accepted again that those 3 months in Ireland were 3 months of my life that were not wasted. I've accepted it and thus opened myself to something I should have let in long ago: gratitude. 

Gratitude helps me reach back across the ocean to remember as I should. And would I choose now again to go back, knowing what would happen? Difficult as it may be, I think so. I believe every person in our group was in Ireland at that time for a specific purpose. We may not have been in sync with each other most of the time, we may have grated deeply on each others' nerves. We may have even, sadly, scarred each other deeply on an emotional level. 

But in those few times of unity, there was a sense of holiness that invaded my soul. God's supremacy reigned in our dysfunctional "family." He reigns over us now as we have gone our "separate" ways, even as seeds of brokenness remain evident. 

If I were to go back in time now I would try, I would try to react differently . . . to be gentler with myself, to be more understanding of others, to be patient in hope, joyful in affliction, grateful in all things. Regret is not the word I will choose to use. I choose to rely on hope, hope that in my past failures and afflictions God's strength was made known in my weakness. Hope in my present, in that I understand more things now and am more well-equipped for certain battles had I not gone to Ireland when I did. And I have hope that in the future, my new perspective on my study abroad experience will flourish into a harvest of redemptive thankfulness. 

Thanks be to God for reminding me of my smallness in the infinite,

The abundance of grace in every moment,

And the redemptive beauty of remembrance