You hear a lot about it when you first get here.
Dubai isn’t a place where most people settle and spend the rest of their lives. It’s a turnstile city, where people come and go all the time. They’ll spend a few years here and then leave. It’s a transient place, a place of constant change and impermanence.
I never fully appreciated this in my first year. I was one of the new people, excited about living abroad for the first time. A few people came and went, but I hadn’t settled in enough to really feel much of anything when it happened.
But now I’ve been calling this city home for 2 years. In the past year, I’ve made some amazing connections. I’ve found a real family here, mainly at Fellowship. I’ve finally managed to let my guard down, let so many people in open doors where there were once barbed-wire fences and steel walls.
And with that comes the pain of losing loved ones when they decide to leave. When so many of them do, almost all at once, it’s nearly too much to bear. When you refuse to love, you keep yourself safe from this kind of pain. It’s why I closed myself off for so long. I was a coward, afraid to risk getting hurt, “safe” and comfortable in my little box of selfishness.
But now this pain – this exquisite pain – I thank God for it. Because it reassures me that He has made my heart whole again. It tells me that He has restored my ability and expanded my capacity to love.
I don’t have to be afraid of this pain anymore. Tiny tingles, sharp pins and needles in a heart that’s been numb for far too long. I feel alive.
Love is risk and love is sacrifice. To love with passion; complete, reckless disregard for your own well-being, is the only way that’s worth doing. Otherwise, what’s the point? This world is so full of mediocre pseudo-love; selfish “love”, the kind that seeks its own pleasure, comfort and happiness.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
1 John 3:16
So this is that time of year in Dubai. People are leaving, and it sucks, but that’s okay.
That just means that there are others coming in, and they’ll need love just as much as the people who have come and gone before them. I’ve been placed in a unique position to care for so many people, and it’s such a humbling privilege to meet and love them all.
And now that doesn’t scare me anymore.
