There are three things that have been the most challenging for me this year: living out of a moving backpack where your things never have a home. I hate this actually. I can't ever find anything, and I don't even have very much. Another is lack of alone time. There is always someone with you in a building. Yes, you might be alone in a shower (except Japan) or the toilet, but when you come out, there they are again. I was alone in our church for 30 minutes this month. It was a first for me to be in a building all by myself. And the last thing that has been very hard is sleeping. The environment is different every month, but one thing is consistent: your sleeping pad.
We were told to get the best. And I did. I got the largest one possible and it inflates easily. It takes up quite a bit of room in my backpack, but it's worth all the less shoe space in my pack.
I'm a picky sleeper. I like a really dark room with no noise. I enjoy a soft mattress that provides ample support. I love lots of blankets and really cushy pillows. Not one of these things exists this year, but God has given me a bed regardless how much I dislike it.
But what if that bed gets popped by a little Serbian child who found a handful of thumbtacks?
For the first time in my life, I am participating in the season of Lent. It is not a practice I'm accustomed to, but I wanted to fast something in order to find no other replacement other than Jesus.
The moment I decided what I would let go of on Ash Wednesday, I grieved it and then something happened in my heart. The thing I was letting go was completely gone from my heart and mind. To me it was indescribable how miraculous it felt to be free of it for the season. And then something else happened. It was replaced by an unspeakable joy.
This joy was like nothing I've ever experienced because it shouldn't have been there in my heart. But there it was and I knew nothing could take it away.
But what if your one bed for the year gets popped by a little Serbian boy who found a handful of thumbtacks? Surely that joy gets popped too.
On the third night of our English club, it was me and Brian's turn to watch the children of the parents downstairs. It's only a couple hours. I haven't met them and they don't speak any English and I don't speak any Serbian, but it's only a couple hours. Yes, it was wild and nuts and I was able to gather that most of these kids were family. And then there was the boy who wasn't and he also was a couple years younger than everyone. And I could tell he was driving the other kids mad. I was able to learn his name quickly since I heard it being shouted over and over by the others.
The kids couldn't be organized and they had quite a bit of energy. So we tried plan D. Build a fort. It was just like the kind you would build out of your couch at home when you were a kid. We didn't have enough blankets for a roof, so I thought, my sleeping pad would be perfect. Yes, I had calculated if there was a way they could destroy it. Surely they couldn't since Brian and I would be constructing the fort and holding it together the entire time.
But kids are small. They have little fingers and find little things and are very curious. So the smallest one and most mischievous, found 4 thumbtacks. We had 5 minutes left to contain the wild children in the fort and then I saw it. The roof caved in for a moment and when I went to fix it, it was already too late. There were 4 gray thumbtacks sitting nicely in my sleeping pad with the culprit laying down underneath his artwork.
I took the child aside and asked him why he did that, a question he couldn't answer let alone understand. He's 6 and Serbian. I ushered him and the other kids out to their parents because I had to decide how I felt.
I know how I would feel month 2, 3, 4, or even month 6. I would be crying. I would be furious. But that day I analyzed how I felt. And that joy was still there. Of course naturally I was irritated and I began to think what am I going to do? I still have four months left. But I remembered that God provided me a shower this month, so if God wants me to have a bed, He will provide a bed. *http://jenmchutchion.theworldrace.org/?filename=serbia-to-pray-or-not-to-pray My heart on the matter had been completely converted by that unspeakable joy.
Yesterday, marked two lovely facts: my mom was able to buy her tickets to come visit me in Romania next month and I woke up on my FIXED sleeping pad. Nine holes later after finding and repairing each one this month, I woke up this morning not on a deflated bed, but full.
Once again, my perspective has changed. I've always hated this sleeping mat. That is until I almost didn't have it. I'm grateful for it and I now know it was never mine in the first place. It was always God's, and He gave it to me, twice.
