a long obedience in the same direction
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6 months.
Our container of furniture finally arrived on our doorstep yesterday, six months to the day of being back in the U.S. We’ve been back for six months, and that’s a thought I can’t quite wrap my mind around. Six months? That’s half a year. That’s a third of the time we spent overseas. If you’d told us this summer when we found out we couldn’t return to South Asia, that by the beginning of December we wouldn’t yet have our next ministry position, we’d be horrified. But now it’s upon us and, while not easy, it’s not the horrible prospect we’d feared. It takes time. Time to start over, to…
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confession.
Almighty, eternal, most just and gracious God, help us to know that all things are shadows, but you are substance; all things are quicksand, but you are mountain; all things are shifting, but you are anchor; all things are ignorance, but you are wisdom. You are thrice holy, yet my life abounds with apologies not made, repentance not completed, forgiveness not offered, brothers not respected, reputations not defended, peace not pursued, neighbors not loved, Sabbaths not kept, appetites not restrained, parents not honored, spouses not cherished, children not trained, prisoners not visited, strangers not clothed, hungry not fed, providences ignored, envy unchecked, prayers unspoken, fears not conquered, truth not defended,…
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the waiting.
It’s coming up on five months now, which you’d think is plenty of time for news like ours to sink in. But sometimes I still lay in bed and feel shock wash over my entire body, feel like I’m drowning in the ocean of what’s happened. How is this possible? How did our entire long-worked-for, much-prayed-for, short-lived life in South Asia just end, in the blink of an eye? And how did it just end over my health? On my best days, I’m incredulous. On my worst, I want to sink into despair and shame. It was a nightmare of mine, you know. I remember, newly married, sitting down to…
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an unhurried life.
A few weeks I wrote about my desire for a simple life. Over time I’d love to flesh that out on the blog, as these thoughts take form in my heart and, hopefully, in my life. The idea of wanting an unhurried life has been growing within me these past couple of years, but I can reach back in my memory to find that I first began learning it from a pastor’s wife and friend here in Lititz, Sandy Johnston. I moved here and had no friends and a baby on the way. Sandy would call me every so often just to see how I was doing. She’d stop by…
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interruptions.
God uses pain more than anything else to teach and shape us. One definition of “irritation” might be “a lesser pain.” In my case, interruptions have become an extreme irritation for me. The succession of small hurts that continue to keep me from my “real” work are beginning to profoundly affect the way I see myself and those around me. This sort of severe schooling is what the Lord is best at. . . . . My mentor, Bill Lane, used to say, “Interruptions are my business.” Only now does that lesson begin to really make sense. The Lord is less interested in our gifts than He is in His…
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a simple life.
We’re a family in transition, which all of you know full well. There are about a hundred stressful things about being in transition, all of which we experience to some extent about every day. I like to complain a lot about these stressful things. I think, if I’m brutally honest, I even like to some extent to be stressed, because then lots of people feel sorry for me. But when the complaining in my heart dies down for a moment, and I make time to just sit and be, I see that there are also gifts that come with being in transition. One of these gifts is a chance to…
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jeremiah.
Notice how realistic Jeremiah’s perspective has become. It contains a reality that didn’t exist before. He allows for more suffering in the future, more slaps in the face, more moments of unbearable aloneness . . . Jeremiah wept and God saw. He cried and God heard. He is not the God who waves the magic wand and makes the Babylonians or the cancer go away. He is the God who sees and hears and enters into the suffering with his suffering people in the wilderness. This God, Jeremiah could never have known in the marble palaces of Jerusalem, only from the windy cave that now overlooks the ruined city. The…
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april first.
It is the first day of April, and I am sick. You know what? On the first day of March, I was sick. My sinus infections still pop up monthly, more regular than PMS it seems. So here I am, at the start of another month, trying to hold off until the last possible minute to buy the Dreaded Antibiotics. This is a difficult place to be in. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have taken antibiotics almost every single one of the seventeen months I’ve lived in South Asia. And, on top of that, I pick up a random GI virus almost as often. You’d…
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15 months.
I’m celebrating 15 months with my faithful companion. And with a blog post, of course. It’s moving on towards the end of February, and, in true South Asia-fashion, it’s getting hot. I can say things like, “in true South Asia-fashion,” because this is the second February I’ve spent in this country. That’s long enough to experience a full year of seasons in a place. To begin to wrap my head around the unfamiliar rhythms of a April-May summer vacation, the need to eat as many mangoes as possible in May and June while they’re at their peak, and what “monsoon season” means in our part of the country. I can…
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The sky is blue. The day is deep and possible With heartbreaks yet to be and Wounds still uninflicted by Man and earth and all that is fallen. And yet. The sky is blue. And I, I am hopeful that this day In all its glory bestowed by God Will prove beautiful In the end. – Maggie I.