When Top Gun is far too similar to my life

Sometimes I can't begin to process all the thoughts in my head. The last few months especially have been such a whirlwind of events that my mind can't quite keep up with it all. Finally though things have been slowing down a little bit. Or maybe I've just been shutting down. But either way, my ability to process and think and write is slowly returning again.

It was about a year ago now that I was getting ready to move to Valdemarpils to open the Women's Center. Easter was the first weekend I was living there. Lonely and overwhelmed, not entirely sure what I had just gotten myself into. So much has changed since then, although, to be honest, I still wonder sometimes what in the world I have gotten myself into here. 

You know how sometimes you watch a movie or read a book and suddenly you realize that you relate way too closely with what is happening in the story. That was me this last Thursday watching Top Gun, of all the movies. 

*Warning, if you haven't seen it, I'm going to give away an important part of the story.*

Well there's this part where the main character, Maverick and his friend and copilot, Goose, are in the air doing some sort of training exercise, and the engines on their plane stop working and they have to eject and get out of the plane to get to safety. In the process though Goose gets hurt and ends up dying. Truly, it was tragic. If I wasn't conveniently trying to eat an orange while this was all happening I would probably have been dying of tears. After this happens Maverick has to decide whether he will continue with his training or not. He has to battle through his pain and fear and get back into the plane and fly. Later, finishing his training, he had to then go into a real scenario and his choice to engage in the battle would mean life or death for his wing-man in another plane. 

Talk about a lot of pressure and responsibility. I mean, this guy recently watched his friend die, then he has to go again into the same scenario and his choices and actions will determine whether another friend might die or not. I can't even. 

While I was watching I kept thinking how I would never want to be placed in that kind of situation. How I would never be able to handle that amount of pressure and responsibility. But then I started realizing how in a lot of ways I am in a similar situation with my work here in Latvia. And I am hardly standing. This weight of responsibility is truly almost too much to bear. 

Over this last year I helped open the Women's Center, then worked there for six months, having two women there over the middle two months. I then moved back to Riga where I predominately focus on the ministry cafe and serving the women still working on the streets. Since I moved back to Riga we have had three women at the Center for a time as well, although over the last week and a half they are now all gone, for various reasons. If I'm not careful I can get so weighed down by all these things. 

The constant rejection from the women on the streets. Their happy smiles but hopeless stares as they say they want Jesus and a different life, but then continue living as they always have. Every night that we go out I never know what to expect. I have to choose to open my heart again to these women who I never know what they might say or do. They may say they want to accept Christ, so we pray with them, then watch them go out to work again. They may say they want to go to the center, so we walk them through that process for them not to show up the next day. They may even go to the center, but then leave two weeks later. They may come in one night so full of hope and life, then you find out a week later they have died since you last saw them. You never know.

It's a constant cycle of uncertainty, and it is far too easy to take on more responsibility than I ought.

But as soon as I try to take on this responsibility for the women or the cafe or even the center, it crushes me. I can't handle the weight of knowing that my being in the cafe one night may affect whether a girl receives hope that night or not. I can't handle the weight of making sure every women has heard the gospel or not. I can't handle the weight of the choices of a woman who is living in a constant downward spiral. 

I have to remember who holds the full responsibility for these women. I have to remember the hope of Easter, of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus is alive so that we can be made alive as well! 

It's true I can't handle this weight. I'm not made for it. I'm not Maverick with the guts to fly a fighter jet and save people's lives, even after watching his own friend die. But I'm also a lot stronger than I probably even realize. And as I constantly put the responsibility back into the hands of Jesus who is Lord over all these things, I can continue being faithful here even in the midst of all this uncertainty.