Category: God & me

Get a peek into my daily life with God. The conversations are real. The prayers aren’t eloquent, but what I know for sure is that God is good all the time.

Timing, Tetanus Shots and Hakuna Matata???

On By Alicia McCauleyIn God & me, Other Stories from Uganda2 Comments

When I was in Uganda last summer, Colin and I went on safari. We were joined by, Mikayla, another girl working in Uganda. Mikayla celebrated her 21st birthday while she was in Uganda. She’s a champion fencer and has the energy of a hundred people. When on safari, Mikayla was absolutely delighted to see so many animals from The Lion King. She sat in the car joyfully snapping pictures and singing ‘Hakuna Matata’, which, of course, means, “Don’t worry.”

Today I want to tell you a story about listening to God’s voice, the humor of God’s timing and, yes, ‘Hakuna Matata’.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been yearning to return to Uganda since the day I got home last July. This year, several trips to Africa were planned and then fell through or were cancelled for reasons beyond my control. In the midst of being brokenhearted by all those undone plans, I’ve been trying to hear God in the quiet spaces and to heed what He’s telling me to do.

A few months ago I felt prompted to call the Public Health office and schedule an appointment to update my tetanus shot and get a prescription for malaria pills. Both are things I’d need before returning to Uganda.

Here’s the thing though, I didn’t have a departure date or a plane ticket or a plan or anything. It can take months to get an appointment with a travel nurse and so I wasn’t surprised when Public Health told me that they needed to give the appointments to people who knew for sure when and where they’d be traveling. It makes a lot of sense and I completely understood.

A month ago, Public Health called me and asked if I still wanted an appointment. Due to budget cuts, the travel health office would be closing its doors on June 30th, but one person had cancelled their appointment and I could have it if I still wanted it.

Mind you I still didn’t have a departure date or a plane ticket or a plan, but I heard that voice again and I took the appointment. The logical part of me reasoned that tetanus shots are good for two years and I could just hold onto the prescription for malaria pills and fill it when my return trip became a reality.

Almost a month passed and I still had no new information or plans. Holding onto hope of returning was becoming so painfully hard.

The day before my appointment with the travel nurse, I got a surprising phone call and before I knew it my trip back to Uganda, back to the children I love, unfolded before my eyes.

Of course it did. And of course it did the day before my appointment with the travel nurse. I should have known.

As hard as I try, I so often still miss the voice of God, but He patiently speaks to me, often in unconventional and even humorous ways.

The morning of my appointment with the travel nurse, I couldn’t help but laugh when the nurse came out wearing a scrubs top made of material with The Lion King’s Timon and Pumba romping all over it. I laughed out loud when I heard him sing a line of ‘Hakuna Matata’.

I left the Public Health office with a sore arm, a prescription for malaria pills and ‘Hakuna Matata’ running through my mind.

Okay, God, I got it. You’re timing things out in ways I can’t even dream of and I don’t have to worry.

Hakuna matata, indeed.

The End of the Dry Season

On By Alicia McCauleyIn God & me, Other Stories from Uganda12 Comments

This year has been a season of waiting. I am awful at waiting, even worse at waiting patiently. Since the day I returned home from Uganda last summer, I’ve been yearning to go back. Yearning is a powerful word and for that reason it’s a word I don’t use often, but it’s the only word that fully captures this visceral longing I have to return to the children and to the place I fell in love with last June.

It’s strange to love the people and the life I have here, but to have that same depth of love for the people I met in Gulu. It’s a wonderful kind of strange though, to feel at home in two such different places.

It’s the place where I had the privilege of facilitating students in writing stories of their lives, stories that both broke and mended my heart. It’s the place where I continually found unexpected beauty, so much so that nightly I dream memories from my time there. It’s the place where I first met my sons and began my surprising journey into motherhood.

All year my sons have been asking when I was returning. Each time they asked, I swallowed back the lump in my throat and responded that I didn’t know when, but I would return.

Each time I thought I had a return trip to Uganda planned, it was cancelled or fell through for reasons beyond my control. And each time the trips fell through I thought of my promise to my sons. I thought of how they have lives built upon the painful shards of other broken promises. I vowed not to become one of them.

Last year I went to Uganda with the words of Isaiah 30:21 as a guiding thought for my trip. The verse says, “Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”

As bad as I am at waiting, I’m even worse at waiting and listening for God’s voice. Then there’s the whole issue of hearing God’s voice and choosing not to be obedient.

Can I be honest with you? Even the word ‘obedience’ makes my spine prickle. It is a word and a concept that feels as easy and as appetizing as swallowing rocks.

But I love God.

More than anything else.

And here’s the great part, He loves me, too, and wants to work in me despite my impatience and disobedience. Because God is a good parent, a good Father, part of His love means helping me move beyond impatience and disobedience. Part of that love means giving me time and space to practice patience and, gulp, obedience.

So this year, I prayed and tried to listen for God’s voice telling me what to do. I don’t really relate to pious prayers filled with thees and thous. Wanna know the prayer I prayed most this year? Six simple, but not so easy words, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

Sound familiar? It’s the prayer of a father who had a son inflicted with a spirit that gave him such massive seizures that on more than one occasion the boy seized so violently that he fell into burning fires and deep waters. The father brought his son to Jesus and the father said, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” Jesus responded, “If I can? All things are possible to him who believes.” And this is the part I love, the father doesn’t pretend to be pious. He doesn’t pretend to have faith that he doesn’t actually possess. The father says, “I do believe. Help my unbelief.” Jesus healed the little boy, which I think is the bigger reason that particular event was recorded in the Bible, but it’s not why the story captivates me.

What captivates me is the desperate honesty of the father who looks into the face of Jesus and admits he both has faith and lacks faith and then he asks for help. Now that’s a guy I can relate to.

Each time my return trip to Africa collapsed beneath me, I was left brokenhearted. I felt like a failure and a liar and it was hard not to lose hope of returning. So many times in the middle of the night, those words ‘failure’ and ‘liar’ looped in my head. In the middle of the night, with the sounds of the quiet house around me and my sleeping husband snoring next to me, I’d pray that father’s prayer. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

And each time I prayed, the words of Isaiah came back to me. “You will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’ I listened for that voice, listened with such desperation that my heart sometimes felt like it was going to pound out of my ears. Do you know that kind of desperation? I imagine you do. It’s the kind of desperation that comes when we are broken with such acuteness that praying six words and then being quiet enough to listen is all the faith we can muster.

I needed to be broken this year. I needed to learn to wait, to wait and cling fiercely to the promise of hope. I needed to learn to have faith that there is so much more happening than I can see. I needed a year to learn to listen for the voice behind me guiding my steps.

I listened and it was how I knew that I was supposed to begin getting my classroom ready for the next school year in June instead of waiting until August like I usually do. It was how I knew that I was supposed to book an appointment with the travel nurse and get the one last shot I needed for my trip, even though I didn’t actually have a departure date.

Last Wednesday my waiting came to an end when plans to return to Uganda came to fruition. Last Thursday I had my appointment with the travel nurse and booked my plane ticket. Last Friday I gave my sons the exact date I’d be returning. I leave in a little under two weeks and am counting down the days until I get to hug my beautiful sons.

This is one of my sons, Geoffrey, and I last summer.
With my son, Geoffrey, last summer.

These seasons of waiting, these times of fervent yearning for things that are yet to come, are sometimes called dry seasons. They are desert times when my spirit feels parched through to my very bones.

Here we have four seasons; winter, spring, summer and fall. Did you know that in Uganda there are only two seasons? There is the dry season and there is the wet season. The dry season ends in June, giving way to the beginning of the wet season in July.

After a year of walking through my own dry season, it is only fitting that my return to Uganda, my return to my sons, coincides with the start of the wet season when the rain in Uganda falls heavy and hard onto the parched earth.

Today I prayed a different prayer. I’m sure there will be many times in my life to come when I again pray, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” But today I was able to honestly pray three beautiful words, words that have been a long time coming, words that have never rung more true for me.

“Lord, I believe.”

D’s Gift

On By Alicia McCauleyIn God & me, Other Stories from Uganda3 Comments

In the tent of my mosquito net, I lay thinking of just where to begin, dear reader, to tell you about the amazing adventure I’m having in Uganda.  As so many wonderful things do in my life, this story begins with my grandmother.  I’d been missing her like crazy as I prepared for my trip, brokenhearted that I couldn’t tell her all of the little details.  Like so many of my adventures with my grandma, this is a story that I wouldn’t have believed had I not been there.

Did you know I’m named after my grandmother?  Yep, Alicia Jean.  When I was a kid in serious trouble, my mom could really stretch my name out when she felt that my first name alone wasn’t doing the trick.  Alicia Jeeeeeeean!!!  Few people outside of my family know about my birth middle name because when I got married many years ago, I replaced Jean with my maiden name.  What does this very boring namesake lineage have to do with anything?  I’m getting there.  Promise.

My grandmother, Betty Jean, loved to travel and she loved a good adventure.  In fact she loved adventure so much that she kept $100 pinned in her bra at all times “just in case”-not just in case something bad happened, just in case something good could happen with the help of a little spare change.  Be it treating the table for lunch or splurging on ice cream sundaes, her bra money came in handy on more than one occasion.  Is this really a story about your grandmother’s undergarments?  Fine, I’m done talking about my grandmother’s bra and I’ll get on with the story about what happened the day before I left for Uganda.

The day before I left, unbeknownst to me, the local newspaper re-ran the story about my trip that was printed a few weeks ago in the Anderson Valley Post.  This was a pleasant surprise and it filled my inbox with well wishes from friends and strangers alike.  One particular email caught me by surprise, an email from D.*

D is a local who has been a missionary off and on in Uganda since 1991 and after reading the article about me, she wanted to meet and answer any questions I might have as well as give me some Ugandan Shillings she had left from her last trip.  And by some, she meant a LOT, as in an amount that was exceptionally generous, especially from a complete stranger.  D told me about her time in Uganda and I told her about my trip that was mere hours away from beginning.  Then she took out the envelope fat with money and in her other hand she held a singular knee-high pantyhose.

“Do you know where you’re going to keep your money?” she asked.  I told her the variety of locations I planned on keeping it.

“Well, I always kept my money in a pantyhose and then pinned it inside my bra and it worked for me.”

Of course she kept her money in her bra.  I laughed when she told me that, but kept the reason to myself, knowing that my grandma would have been nodding her head in staunch agreement.

I asked her if she was sure she wanted to give me all of this money.  She did and all she asked in return is that I deliver a kind message to her pastor friend in Gulu.  If I felt compelled, I could also give him some of the money.

Before she left, D prayed for me.  In my book, the more prayer, the better, especially when it comes to big adventures that leave my stomach snapping with excitement and nerves.  After praying for me, D told me God was giving her a word for me and that word was ‘special’.  I appreciated the sentiment and the care D bestowed on me, but in the back of my mind I was thinking, “Yes we’re all special in God’s eyes.  What’s the big deal?”

And then, because skepticism never, ever trumps love, D paused and said, “I have a second word for you.  ‘Jean’.  Your name is Jean, isn’t it?”

“It was.”  I stammered, too surprised to tell her anything else.  I started looking around my house for anything visible that said Alicia Jean.  There wasn’t anything, since it’s part of my name I haven’t used in over 15 years.

“God wants you to know you’re special and that he knows you, right down to your very name.”

I swear I almost broke my neck careening it around the room to see where she pulled ‘Jean’ from.  No Jean anywhere.  Coming up with nothing, D and I hugged and she went about the rest of her day, leaving me in a cloud of disbelief and wonder.

The money D gave me was an incredibly generous gift, but the real gift she gave me was the knowledge that my grandma was with me in spirit.  And also in the Shillings I tucked into a pantyhose and pinned in my bra.

*I’m calling her D because I didn’t ask before I left if she wanted to remain anonymous or not.  Plus it’s late here and I couldn’t come up with a more creative name, like say one with more than one letter.

The Stars on My Feet

On By Alicia McCauleyIn God & me, Other Stories from Uganda, Unconventional Motherhood1 Comment

I dream every night and every morning I remember upwards of five or six dreams.  I’ve always been that way, the owner of a mind that meanders freely down the dark streets of night.  My dreams range from the bizarre to the completely mundane, but this dream was so specific.

I dreamed that a friend hennaed stars on my feet, twelve stars to be exact. I woke up recalling every word of the dream, every stitch of clothing, every detail right down to the conversations we had.

A few days later, I sat in church while the pastor taught about the blessings in the book of Revelation.  My heart stopped at this verse:

“A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” Revelation 12:1

Wait, what???  I snapped to attention because, let’s face it, my mind sometimes wanders in church.  Did the pastor say 12 stars?  I flicked to the right page of my Bible on my phone.  Sure enough.  A crown of 12 stars.  Who was this great and wondrous sign of a woman?

Over the next few days I did a little digging and found that some people think she represents Israel, God’s chosen nation.  Others think she represents purity and still other Biblical scholars think she represents motherhood.

As I studied I had to laugh because the meanings are so opposite of me.  Pure?  Not really.  I fight to tame my tongue every single day.  Motherly?  Not even close.  This uterus is a No Baby Zone.

The only part I could relate to was being like Israel.  In fact, I could relate to that part big time, being chosen in spite of my stubborn nature, loud mouth and a gazillion other less than desirable qualities.  In fact that sounds a lot like me, a sometimes petulant nation loved beyond measure and mercy.  Yep, I fit that description well.

I told my henna artist friend, the one from the dream, all about my dream stars and she offered to come down and henna a blessing on my feet.  A few days passed and our schedules never matched up.

Until.  There’s always an until, isn’t there?  I let the dozen stars fade into the recesses of my mind until last Sunday at church again when the pastor read Psalm 147:4.

“He counts the stars and calls them all by name.”  

There were those stars again.  I had a little moment with God.

Seriously, God, what is it with these stars?  What am I not getting?  I have conversations like that a lot with God, wherein I am dense.

I asked another dear friend if she’d henna my dream stars onto my feet.  I’ve known this woman since she was a teenager and I was a young adult volunteering with her Friday Night Live chapter.  She’s creative and kindhearted and I’m filled with love for her every time I see her.  She’s grown into an amazing woman and last night as she sat on my patio telling me about upcoming job interviews and painting stars on my feet, I was filled with pride.  I couldn’t love her more if she were my own.  Maybe, just maybe, I’ve got a smidge of motherly tendencies in me after all.

People ask me all the time if I’m afraid to go to Uganda.  I’m not.  No, really, I’m not.  Trust me, I’m as shocked as you are.  I’m anxious about little things like making sure I remember to take my anti-malarial pills and making sure I don’t miss any of my connecting flights.  But I’m surprisingly not scared of much else.

And it’s because of those stars.

I feel chosen to work with the kids at in Uganda, chosen to be the one who helps them tell their stories.  That’s not a privilege I take lightly.  I know that the God who counts the stars and calls them by name walks with me in this work.

I’m so excited about the work and the stories and the things that I’ll learn from these children that there’s just no room for fear.

There’s only room for stars, both in my dreams and darkening on my feet.

The Sweetness of Lent

On By Alicia McCauleyIn God & me, Teacher Tales10 Comments

I’ve never honored Lent before.  Shoot, you’re going to take away one of my Christian cards, aren’t you?  Darn. I was already down to so few.

Every year I kick around the idea of Lent.  And every year that’s all I do-kick it around and leave it for dead.

This morning, at our classroom morning meeting, where we take care of Very Important Business like ‘Look at the New Tooth Hole in My Smile’ and ‘Check Out My New Fast Shoes’, one of my little ones raised his hand.  This kid is one of my favorite people on the planet.  He keeps me on my toes and always, always has something interesting to contribute.  I called on him, expecting a question about our day or a comment about the reading program we’ve just started.

But no, this kid is never what I expect.  That might be what I love most about him.

“I decided I’m giving up playing video games for forty days.” he smiled.

“Oh, for Lent?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise.  After all, this kid eats, breathes and speaks video games.

“Yep.” he nodded.  “What are you giving up for Lent, Mrs. McCauley?” he asked, his innocent eyes piercing right through my sooty, sinful soul.

“Well, I haven’t decided yet.  I’m thinking of giving up watching tv or eating candy.”  I admitted.

He shook his head at me, completely disappointed that I hadn’t decided yet.  “You should give up candy.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, intrigued by what led him to choose one over the other.

“Because candy is bad for you and God is good for you.” He shrugged like this very basic knowledge really shouldn’t have eluded me.

And I couldn’t argue with his rationale.  God is good for me.  Candy is bad for me.  Simple as that.  I thought about our conversation all day and into the evening.

And I thought about candy.

I loooooove candy.  It’s my favorite food group.  I dream in candy.  Especially Easter candy.  Just the thought of Mini Eggs sends me into a euphoric state.  Mmmmm, Mini Eggs.

Wait, where was I?

Oh, dear God, I remember.  Giving up candy for Lent.

I thought about the times I tend to eat candy.  I usually eat candy after a stressful day.  If I’m honest with myself, I also eat candy when I’m lonely.  How much better would God’s presence be in those times of stress and loneliness?  Much better.  And much better for me.  Good for me even.

And so tomorrow begins my Lent sans candy.  Not a harsh religious Lent as depicted in Chocolat, but a Lent wherein I give up candy in pursuit of the sweetness of God.

And when I have the opportunity to eat candy, I’ll instead think on this:

How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119:103

So, dear friends, however you celebrate the Lenten season, I hope you find yourself overcome with sweetness.

P.S. Do yourself a favor and give me a wide berth for the next forty or so days cause I have a feeling it isn’t going to be easy and it sure isn’t going to be pretty.  When I stop to think about it, I wouldn’t want it any other way.