Sunday, December 29, 2013

The days here have become so much cooler- it is so incredibly refreshing.  When we first came and it was so ridiculously hot I never could have imagined buying blankets and jackets, or actually ever turning the fans off!  Or that it would ever feel too cold to take a shower or go swimming...it's really weird.
I don't know where the days go- but they are so busy.  And at the end of the day there doesn't seem to be any great accomplishments.  We were discussing the other day how people sometimes envy those on the mission field because their lives are filled with such meaning and purpose.  I used to think that- and I think that's probably why the foreign mission field was always attractive to me.  Well, here I am- on the mission field- and I still envy the people whose lives have such clear direction and purpose. Both the people on foreign fields and at home.  I just can't seem to find that- and it's so frustrating!  Instead of feeling like I have accomplished something coming here I am afraid of going home and saying, "I don't know what that was all about.  I don't know that anything was accomplished at all!"  Not that I came looking for... I dunno, numbers or something like that.  But I expected this great sense of purpose.  But, in reality, being here is like having a mirror constantly showing me my failures, my selfishness, my inability... It's not easy. And maybe that's okay- I felt the same way doing the tent meeting, during the training program and now being here.  I am glad to have been involved in all of those things, but they certainly were humbling!  It's humbling to say, "Yeah, I ca hardly get myself to go out of my house and try to talk to the neighbor lady.... it's SO hard!"  Okay yeah- it is pathetic.
Ugh!  This language!  It is so difficult- and it's s frustrating to study for 2 or 3 hours everyday and then not have a clue what people are saying to you... and sometimes I really wonder why I am learning it- but, I keep trying anyways. What else can I do?
It is challenging to just try and be obedient to what you feel God is directing you to do, and to trust Him regardless of of not seeing any purpose in it...

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Today marks our fifth month being here. The time has just flown....
This last month has been different for me.  Totally different.  A lot has been going on with me- a lot I haven't been able to - or haven't wanted to - put into words.  
I have learned that obedience does not always come with great ease or without a great sense of loss. And it doesn't always bring about immediate peace and joy. I have been thinking about Abraham and how God asked Him to give up Isaac- to let him go with out any hope or promise of getting him back. I wonder what Abraham's thoughts were as he struggled through that.  Because he not only loved Isaac, because he was his son or even because he was his only son- Isaac was so much more to him than that.  He was the fulfillment of everything he wanted, the promise for his future, the joy of his heart and, most importantly, the fulfillment of all God's promises to him. I cannot imagine how faith-shaking that would be, how much he must have been tempted to doubt God's goodness and honesty!  I am amazed by his devotion and the faith that He had in God- to believe all He had said and promised would still come to pass even though the present circumstances made God look unjust, deceitful and even cruel. And yet he believed God. 
I have also been thinking about Moses and the Israelites.  God frees them, miraculously delivers them- and they rejoice in that.  Then they suddenly realize they're standing in a desert and that they are tired and hungry and thirsty.  Standing in the middle of that desert the hope that they had had for the promised land must have seemed ridiculous!  This was anything but the promised land.  Their obedience was not met immediately with ease and comfort,  it was met with trial. Sadly, their response to God was often exactly the opposite of Abraham's, and more like mine.  They doubted. They were angry at God.  They believed He had led them into the desert to die, that He had forgotten them and that the promises they had had so much faith in were all lies. 
And this is what I have been learning.  Sometimes obedience can leave a great emptiness. Sometimes Isaac isn't immediately returned to us.  Sometimes obedience is met with trial.  And sometimes 'the promised land' is still a long ways off.
At the end of November we spent a few days visiting American friends at the Mulamghat hospital. It is so quiet and secluded there- plenty of time to think.  I was caught in that place where you don't want to be alone because you don't want to think and you don't want to be with people because you're not really happy. And I think it was there that I just started feeling like I wanted to disappear. As though that would make things hurt less.  When we left and came home I just started making myself busy. And I haven't fully realized until now how much I have tried to keep myself busy just so I don't have to think.  But at the end of the day when I am laying in my bed I sometimes cannot avoid having to face this emptiness and void that's in me. The one I'm trying to fill up with so much activity.  And the question is constantly coming to me is, "Why do I feel so empty?"  I find many reasons for it, all connected to each other.  But I can't seem to find a clear way out of it...  
I have tried to just keep my eyes tightly shut and just hold on until it's all over- simply because it is sometimes painful to face the truth, especially when you have no answers for it.  And I am afraid to dwell on those questions, not only because they hurt, but also because I am afraid I may not find the answers...
I think the difference between the choice that Abraham made and the choice that the Israelites made was simply that the one knew God and the other didn't.  They both faced the disappointment of everything they had hoped for, and they both responded so differently.  Abraham knew who God was, valued Him above his own desires and believed him.  I want to respond like that- to not give way to doubt and emptiness and despair.  To trust that even though God may have emptied my heart, and I may feel alone, or unimportant, or unloved, or without purpose, or empty, or beyond repair... that He will set it all to rights.  And to trust Him for the answers and for the direction in time.
I have wanted to  hide and to disappear- perhaps childishly and selfishly- and I know that's not the answer.  But God is slowly and gently, but faithfully leading me along.