The Loss of the Ordinary

What if you woke up tomorrow?

.....and everything you never had to think about suddenly demanded all of your attention?

What if you reached for the faucet, and you weren’t sure the water would come — or whether it would be safe if it did? What if you flipped the switch out of habit, and nothing happened, and you had no idea when the power might return?

What if you stepped outside to run a simple errand, and the street signs meant nothing to you? What if every conversation around you was a wall of sound you couldn’t decode? What if the cashier asked you a question, the people behind you began to sigh, and you stood there feeling like a child in an adult’s body — capable your whole life, and suddenly unsure of everything?

What if buying groceries became a problem to solve instead of a task to complete? What if a single piece of paperwork filled you with dread, because you couldn’t tell whether you were signing something helpful or harmful? What if you needed a doctor, but you couldn’t describe what was wrong, and you couldn’t be certain you understood the answer?

What if the unease never fully left?

Now add a layer underneath all of it.

What if some quiet part of you stayed afraid? Not dramatically — just a low, constant hum that never quite switched off. What if you found yourself scanning the street before you walked down it, double-checking the lock, wondering whether that gathering crowd was nothing or something? What if you lay awake doing the math on every exit, every contingency, every “what would I do if”?

What if your children were the thing you feared for most? What if you watched them step out the door and felt your chest tighten in a way it never did back home? What if the safety you once took for granted now had to be calculated, managed, prayed over — daily?

What if the heat pressed in, the noise never stopped, the traffic followed no rules you recognized, and the internet flickered out exactly when you needed to reach someone? What if your body simply never settled, because alertness had quietly become your resting state?

What if you started to wonder?

And then — what if the hardest question of all began to surface, usually late at night, when you were too tired to push it away?

Did I actually hear God in this?

What if the call that once felt so clear, so certain, so unmistakable, started to blur at the edges? What if the exhaustion made you wonder whether you’d mistaken your own ambition, or someone else’s expectation, for the voice of God? What if you found yourself replaying the moment you said yes, searching it for proof that you’d heard correctly — and coming up uncertain?

What if you couldn’t tell whether your doubt was a spiritual failure or simply the honest sound of a worn-out soul? What if you felt you weren’t even allowed to ask the question, because everyone back home was praying for you, supporting you, believing in you?

Because here’s the part that makes it so heavy: what if, beneath all of this, you felt you were supposed to be fine? Grateful. Strong. Spiritually steady. What if you carried a quiet pressure to smile and say you were trusting God — even on the days you felt completely worn through, even on the days you weren’t sure you’d heard Him at all?

What if it was all at once?

And what if none of this happened one piece at a time?

What if you were grieving home, learning a language, decoding a culture, guarding your children, carrying ministry, managing fear, and questioning your calling — all at the same time, every day, for months on end, without the invisible supports that once made life feel stable?

What if you eventually realized that the thing you missed most was not comfort, or luxury, or convenience?

It was something simpler.

The ordinary ease of being understood. The ordinary relief of not thinking about every small thing. The ordinary safety of feeling unwatched. The ordinary comfort of belonging somewhere. The ordinary, unremarkable feeling of being home.

So here is the question worth sitting with.

We tend to picture missionary stress as something dramatic — danger, persecution, crisis, the kind of story that makes a good newsletter update. And for some, those realities are very real. But ask missionaries what wears them down most, and many will describe something quieter and harder to name.

It isn’t usually one catastrophic event. It’s the slow erosion of the ordinary.

Most of us move through life supported by thousands of invisible assumptions. We assume the water will run and be safe to drink. We assume the lights will stay on. We assume we can read the sign, fill out the form, ask the question, and be understood. We assume we know how things work. These supports are so constant that we never notice them — until they’re gone.

If that became your life tomorrow, how would you respond? Where would your strength actually come from when your certainty ran out?

And how might you begin to pray for — and genuinely lighten the load of — the people who are living this right now, today, while you read these words from somewhere comfortable and familiar?