I am a really lucky girl. Just really, really blessed. Before I left on the Race, my Mom and I went camera shopping with some extra money we had been given. We ended up at Best Buy and –such a small world we live in- an old friend just happened to be the camera expert there. Surprise! After much inquiry, conversation, and debate, and a quick check to see if I could get approved for a “credit card” there, my Mom and I decided on a Canon EOS Rebel t3i- an amazing camera. We paid half down, and my Mom- being as awesome as she is- is going to pay monthly on it until I get home and can pay whatever is left.
I’ve used it often. I love it.
And as of this morning, it’s gone missing. I don’t know if it was just lost, or stolen, but I do know that it’s gone. I looked around in a panic for nearly an hour until we had to leave for the day, employing the help of most everyone living in the house with me this month. We found nothing.
I’m devastated.
Growing up poor, you don’t own many really nice things. This was something I was really proud of, and something I loved very much. I was so blessed in having it, and in having the ability to capture forever the people and places we have been so lucky to see.
I’m really devastated.
I’m still praying that Jesus will manifest it out of thin air, that it will appear in a place I could never have thought to have looked, or even that it will show up in such an obvious place that I feel embarrassed. Anywhere, really. Our teams are preparing to move to a new country in 2 days. So I have 2 days to locate it, or to move on and prepare myself to finish paying for something I no longer have.
It’s currently 12:36 in the morning, and there is nothing for me to do. Another girl, in her great love for people, searched high and low today while we were gone, and I’m confident she left no place unmolested. I have no doubt that it is not in this house. There is nothing left for me to do tonight, but I can’t sleep.
So I’m playing the thankful game.
I am so thankful for my health. I am thankful that I have sore muscles from hiking up a beautiful mountain today.
I am so thankful that the people I love most in this world are alive and well, and also very healthy.
I am so thankful to have my sight, to be able to see the things God has created. It is such a beautiful, wonderful world in which we live, and I am so grateful to experience it in all its fullness.
I am so thankful to be here- now- to be God’s hands and feet in a place (in numerous places) that I never even dreamed of going.
I am so thankful to be part of my team, a team that constantly challenges me to grow and mature and become more like my Jesus, even (and especially) when it’s really, really tough.
I am so thankful that my teammate Freweini had such great grace for me that she took it upon herself to take photos of and for me all day yesterday, because she knew I was upset about not having my camera, and she wanted to love me.
I am so thankful that that same teammate has a desire to train for a 5K, so that I now have motivation and accountability to run, too.
I am so thankful to have the ability to run, and dance, and jump, and move my body in complete freedom.
I am so thankful to have the support group I have at home- not just financially, but emotionally and spiritually.
I am so thankful to have my laptop- to have a way of listening to music, watching movies, skyping with my family, and emailing my friends.
I am so thankful to have the mother that I do- a woman who is so proud of me and supports me in everything I do, even when it is as painful as a Race which takes me far away from her. I am so thankful to have a mother who lives to love me.
I am so thankful that, as of just this evening, I was able to download all the sermons I’ve missed from my church this year. Hearing my pastor’s voice- my pastor who is just like a father to me- is the sweetest part of home.
I am so thankful that tomorrow, when I wake up, I will be given the chance to choose love, to choose preference, to choose grace and kindness and mercy and gentleness. God has placed a new family in my life for this season, and I’m so thankful that tomorrow I get another opportunity to wake up and show them love, especially when so often I fail to prefer others over myself. Tomorrow is a new day. A new choice. I’m so thankful.
I am so thankful that my Jesus loves me so much, and that this moment in time, as painful and frustrating and emotional as it is (all you poor people out there can attest to how it feels to halfway own something and then lose it), it is just a moment in time, and life will move on. And it will move on beautifully. Jesus will see to it that my life is- and continues to be- blessed. Joyful. Awe-inspiring. Humbling. Incredible. Overwhelming. Soul-changing. World-changing. Abundant.
I really am so thankful to have had a really nice camera, even for 2 months. That’s so much more than I ever dreamed I would have. It’s so much more than I deserve to have. Daily I meet people who live off practically nothing and, sometimes, far less than that. I would love to have my camera back again, to document the things that happen around me, to make permanent these places in my memory. And if Jesus chooses to bless me in a miraculous way, to Him be the glory. And if not- if I finish this Race without a camera- then to Jesus be the glory. Forever and ever. Because He is worthy to be praised. And I will praise Him, and He will give me a memory for the things I need most to carry with me. I am so thankful for my Jesus, and how much He loves me, and how much He loves all His children. I am so lucky. I am so blessed.
To God be the glory, forever and ever.
Amen.
