diamonds on the inside

i am pretty certain i’ve been handed a diamond of an opportunity—to live in another country, to learn a new language, to work with an organization i believe does meaningful work, and perhaps most fundamentally, to have a job in a totally tanked economy. and yet i wake up so many mornings pissed off i’m here, and walk into my day lost, wondering how i landed in this dusty dirge of a city. i’m living here like there better be some big reward on the other side of all the being so far away from people i love, the constant diarrhea and the nasty words men smack out of their lips when i walk past. i cry to my mom on skype first thing in the mornings, after i close my office door. and then, while i click through pics of my friends and families having a big summertime blast in my absence, i remind myself that i made the choice to move my life here, at least for now.

and so many times everyday i have to make the choice all over again to believe there’s something to find here because my reassurances to myself don’t last too long. i think many of us make the choice to find some diamond in our struggles because we have to believe things will get better than they already are—in our own lives and in this world—and we just don’t know what the alternative would be. it makes so much sense that many of us find god in struggle; it’s easy to praise god on the good days, but essential to lean on god on the low ones.

several years ago, my friend Lauren’s mom lost the diamond to her engagement ring. she looked for it for many years, holding onto hope that she would find it. after a long time passed, she was doing dishes in their kitchen and saw something sparkle in a dust bunny, inside their kitchen cabinet. she reached her wet hand in, felt around and found her diamond; it had been so near to her the entire time.

i’m still looking for my diamond, which is just a refined way of saying, i don’t know why the hell i’m here. i do have the kind of eyes that can see diamonds as so many everyday things—shining out like chocolate on the chin of a boy who has never before tasted chocolate, sparkling through the mud when you reach your hand in to get his lost marble, flashing like soft raisins in the only birthday cake he ever had, or reflecting the light of a whole community’s satisfaction in having saved bean seeds from last year so they can plant more beans this one. surely these are diamonds, and when we find firsthand that diamonds don’t always look like diamonds, we learn a lesson we will not lose.

it’s an important lesson to learn, and i’m learning it. but i still want the big diamond, the one of promise, the one that says, oh baby this is hard, and i promise you get to keep me on the other side of this, and i promise you’ll know me as priceless. i believe other people holding this job—braver ones, more salt-of-the-earth-than-i’ll-ever-be ones—might say it’s enough for them to give themselves for the sacrifice, that giving is how they find their diamonds, that giving is the diamond. oh to be that kind of person! oh to be so selfless and so brave!

my church in Nashville sent me off with the sweetest, small cross to wear around my neck. it’s made of soft wood and was surely carved smooth by the dark hands of a woman who lives the kind of hard work i’ll never have to live. the cross has gotten dirty since i’ve been here, hanging around my sticky neck every day. this morning, i was sleepy, sensitive and waiting for my ride on the curb outside of our house. i was feeling sorry for myself because my driver was, as usual, late to pick me up. i had my head down, looking at a brigade of red ants who were plotting, with hot determination, how to delay my taxi driver long enough to help themselves to a hefty portion of my ankle, while Jeshua, the two year old boy i live with, played in a muddy puddle beside me. i wasn’t looking when he reached out and grabbed onto the small cross on my chest with his wet hand and pressed it into my chubby cheek. i laughed a sigh and wiped the dirty water off my face.

but thinking about it now, i think, of course this is my diamond, so close to me this entire time, never ever gone from me. this was my diamond when it was given so faithfully by the hundreds of hands in my congregation who reached out and laid it on me at Easter. this was my diamond in the Nashville airport, when i left the security of my gorgeous family to walk towards the TSA security line. this is the diamond that will be with me even after the necklace comes off. and this was my diamond before it was ever around my neck, that ancient symbol of struggle, of promise, of resurrection, of i will not forsake you. this is the diamond whose price and power are fixed inside the fact that it is and only ever was made of dirty wood—that humblest of materials.

every morning here still begs a decision to stay the course. being alone like this forces me to face sides of myself that are the most difficult to face—the ones that don’t get pasted onto the blog or recorded in the photographs. whether i live in Tennessee, New York or Nicaragua, the story about the diamond asks me to mine myself deeply, to hold onto some hope that my reasons for being where i am will shine themselves out of the common corners i reach into every day. and the story about the cross, well, it’s one i lose all the time, though it never loses me. i think that wooden diamond and i got engaged to each other a long time ago, and the promises we made to each other are always as close as me, with me already, just everywhere on the inside.