Strawberry Moments

“Strawberry Moments”

   There is an old Chinese proverb about a man who was chased off the edge of a cliff by a tiger. He caught himself midway down the cliff by a branch. He looked down and saw the terrible distance to the bottom of the cliff with raging waters and deathly sharp rocks. He looked up and saw the tiger ferociously looking down at him. Then in that instance he looked to the side and found a delicious strawberry. If he had been worrying too much about what was ahead of him or what was behind him, he would have missed the delicious strawberry that God had for him in that moment.

   

   So many times in my life I have missed that delicious strawberry that God had for me in a special moment because I was worrying to much about what was yet to come. Either that, or I was dwelling too much on the past. All through these times the desire has been there to be utterly content in what God has for me in the moment. Sometimes I just miss it.

   The other night I had a dream where God was talking to me about this same thing. I dreamed that the race was over and I went home. I remember feeling cheated though because our race never got to go to the last two countries in Asia. I had missed them, and now I was home. No one at home really seemed to realize that I had been gone; life was back to normal like it always was. I remember sitting in the car in my dream wondering why I had spent so much time of the race wishing I was home. I remember wishing I could go back to the race and simply be utterly content in the moments God had for me.
   I somehow feel this is going to remain a constant struggle of mine. Why is it so hard to live in the present moment? Why do I constantly look ahead? God, make me so incandescently happy to live in the strawberry moment that you have for me.

 

Recent Strawberry moments:

~ Being in the mutatu (transportation bus) while the driver was teaching himself how to drive. It was one of our friends who was being nice and taking us, but we got off quickly none the less.
~Eating a bug- salted and roasted. It actually didn’t taste that bad.

~Randomly finding a twisty fake hair on the floor that used to be stuck to my head

~Seeing a girl at the clinic running towards me with utter joy shouting “Mzungu!!” and giving me a huge hug.

~Buying a little boy his only pair of shoes

~Seeing our contact’s little boy have a fit of hysterical laughter at this new noise I made for him

~Doing handstands and cartwheels in the middle of the sidewalk with four street kids

~Experiencing the love of Jesus as I walked home from church surrounded by 15 African children