Listen to Your Heart

We watched an old movie last night, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness with Ingrid Bergman. It was based in China, which I’ve developed an interest in after meeting a Chinese futures trader who moved to the US in his twenties and became Vice President of Chase and JP Morgan Banks. Our friendship sparked interest in his homeland which is rugged in its beauty and towering mountains just like Washington State is. I’d love to see it one day…

The movie’s story line is fascinating and quite empowering for women in particular, but watching the heroine, Gladys Aylward's life actually another, deeper tale emerged for me. When we look at Gladys’ life, complete in fulfillment on every level at the end, we see incredible supernatural intervention literally on a daily basis.

All she had to do was listen to her heart, which was entwined with God’s own, and follow the direction that came from it with persistence, unwavering and despite appearances to the contrary.

All Gladys ever heard coming from her depths was – get to China. No matter that she kept being told she was “unqualified” and “lacked the proper education”. No matter that she was a maid in England, dirt poor with all her belongings filling one single suitcase. That exact position allowed her to meet the director of missions in China, working as his maid and sneaking his extensive library on China into her room to read at night after she finished her daily duties in his house. He played a significant part in crushing her dreams by telling her she didn’t have proper qualifications to act as a missionary in China. (There’s a lesson in that….take care with the dreams of others- they are usually God’s own…) He did, however, open doors to Gladys when it became clear she was going anyway to help a friend of his who ran an Inn in China as a front for missionary endeavors. At the end of the movie she meets him again in China as she leads 94 war orphans over rough terrain to deposit them at his mission to his utter surprise and embarrassment having told her she was unqualified…

At the end of the movie, what emerged most for me is the fact that there are simply no accidents in our “station” in life, the education we receive or do not receive, the employment we secure and the people we meet along the way. Our lives are a very richly woven tapestry which makes no sense at times until the whole of the fabric is seen in light of the passage of time.

Our part is so simple: listen to our heart and trust God despite circumstances, logic or anything else that comes between our heart’s desires and accomplishing them. We just need to persist. To continue to hold fast to our heart’s dream which – if we are aligned with God – is really His dream for us.

Gladys, who was an uneducated maid in England, ended up participating directly with the head of government in the province she lived in; she stopped prison violence and revamped the prison system providing meaningful labor and the assurance of food to the prisoners when no man would enter the riot zones for fear of losing his life; she stopped the cruel practice of foot binding of women; ultimately she led 94 orphaned children herself through mountains that would daunt most highly trained mountaineers during the Japanese invasion of China amidst air raids and shells exploding around them.

Originally her work began as she took over the Inn after the death of the owner. It seems that would have been her life’s work in China fulfilling all her desires. Mule train drivers were housed at this Inn as they passed through to the next province, receiving not only food and shelter- but stories of the gospel as the Chinese like a good story during their mealtime. They were the pony express of their day; a living newspaper carrying messages to the people in the neighboring provinces. An easier, more direct way to accomplish her mission work- although it appeared she was running an Inn- couldn’t have ever been invented. But God had so much more in mind for her.
The “illogical” methods of God amaze me. She was simply “an uneducated, unqualified maid” and yet became one of the most powerful women in China.

Her Chinese name was “Virtuous One”. Her self- sacrificing life spurred the conversion of the head of the Chinese province to embrace the Christ she believed in although she never actively sought to convert him. In fact, she wasn’t really about preaching. She just worked to help others to experience their value and she tried to ease their suffering and make their lives more meaningful.

She accomplished all her goals and more simply by staying close to the desires of her heart. What a way to live…In my mind, I’d have thought she needed to bring 100% focus to bear on the Inn which was the center of her work. When she arrived it was in a dilapidated state, there was a concern of where to get the money to feed the travelers that would stay there, and white women were viewed as “foreign devils”. That seems daunting enough and worthy of complete attention to make it work not only as a business, but an endeavor for God. Interesting that God took quite a bit of effort from Gladys but then she was off, becoming an official “foot inspector” to enforce the new anti-binding rules, then she was involved in politics….everything but what it seemed she came for. And it all worked perfectly for achieving her overall goals.

Her life became Love in action and the further and wider her audience, the better. God didn’t want her contained to the Inn. Her influence spread further and further into China, her life speaking louder than her words. She didn’t seem a missionary in the sense I would have thought of one. Living “love” is more important than speaking about it. Actions do speak louder than words in any language- and yes, she had to learn Mandarin…one of the hardest languages to learn.

This movie was obviously a strange pick for us, and in retrospect: a supernatural pick for us not only in content, but in the timing of its arrival. Just when we are “this close”- an inch away from opening Adytum~The Sanctuary Bed and Breakfast at Mossyrock, I have to return to full time work due to a staff member leaving. It confused and depressed me at first. But over the years I’ve learned that I can trust God even when things just don’t look right at all. I am such a point A to point B person, and we were clearly reaching point B.

The long awaited hardscape will begin completion in a few days; we are on target in every way for turning the cellar into a luxury suite with kitchen and bath…all my focus turned to assisting in the birth of our Inn with laser like intensity. And now this….I’m hardly even at Adytum anymore.

God has given, in the form of this movie, more direction to us. We can trust that Adytum~The Sanctuary will open on schedule even if I’m working elsewhere for a time. Everything is for a season, like Solomon said. My work, my focus, my influence is needed in another place just now. After that, there may be other areas that God leads us into.

We can trust that He will provide all the help we need to finish what we know He began 14 years ago with Donn and my meeting to share our common dream of starting a Spa with Soirée overtones- a place of beauty, rest and relaxation but with intellectual leanings, spiritual overtones where deep discussion is a natural out flowing when the body is allowed to be at peace. This is our version of the Inn of the Sixth Happiness. He wanted us to see that He’s used this model in the past and He’s recreating it again here at Adytum now.

Illogical as it seems to turn focus away when the birth of our dream- His dream- is so imminent seems ridiculous. I have learned to trust implicitly the ridiculous, the illogical. Working full time in the village town of Morton running our Medical Vision Center optometry practice with Donn ten miles up the mountain highway is precisely where I am to be. What appears to be the death of our dream is simply an opening to an expanded dream we hadn’t counted on. God assures us that the Cellar suite will open and we will have all the help we need to allow us to work in Morton and here too. I trust it will all unfold exactly as it was intended when He gave two hearts a shared dream in the first place.

When I had lunch with the staff person whose departure created this volcanic eruption of change in our plans, I shared the story with her of being in my twenties and asking God one of the most important questions in life that could be asked of Him: “Reveal to me my destiny in this life”. I encouraged her, on the threshold of trying to find her own Inn of the Sixth Happiness to involve Him so that she didn’t miss out on the intricate tapestry weaving that He offers. In other words, don’t waste time trying to create a fulfilling life with work we love. Let Him speak it into the heart and then we can be assured it will be just like Gladys’s life: full to the brim with everything her heart ever desired and more. I shared that I know of people in their fifties that have never asked for their destiny to be revealed. The shallowness of their lives is evident; the unfulfilling work, the lack of real purpose and direction quite clear.

Of course, at the end of the movie, Gladys also finds love as well as a house full of children- two things she had never factored in for herself. God always tops our life off with more….and I know that He’s in the process of doing that for us right now too even though it seems this turn of events seems such a setback to opening Adytum~The Sanctuary.

I’m going to keep listening to my heart and refusing to give up on my dreams. I trust that in my absence, things will continue on here in supernatural fashion getting done despite all odds. When I get to the end of my time on earth, the tapestry will be complete in loveliness. All I have to do is listen, trust, and keep aligning my actions with what I hear.