Well, the time has come and I can finally say that I am living in Cambodia! My team and I have just finished our first week of ministry; you can call me Teacher Shelby!! I get the joy of teaching English while incorporating the word of God every day for the next 3 months. Never in my life have I thought of being an English teacher, or even thinking I would enjoy teaching it; but here I am falling in love with 100 humans who call me Teacher Shelby every single day.
I’ve spent weeks at a time away from my family but let’s get real, this past week has been the hardest week of my life. I’ve found myself wanting to talk to my parents and siblings multiple times a day because that’s what I usually do. When I need advice, I talk to my family. When I’m not feeling well or I’m frustrated I want to be near my family. That’s what I’m used to because they are my safe place outside of the Lord.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
While the high of living in a new country has worn a little and real life is being set into a routine, I’ve been studying how to find comfort when you are lonely and longing for comfortable things. I’ve found that there are two different ways to go about finding comfort; temporary and sustaining.
The temporary ways; eating, sleeping, social media, and shopping. The sustaining ways; spending time with your teammates, setting aside time to praise the Lord through worship, reading the Bible, taking at least 20 minutes of your day to thank the Lord for all that he’s done for you, finding restful things to do that will make your routine familiar (whether that be going on a walk or sitting at a coffee shop ready.) And as my squad mentor says, “Accepting the grace God gives you for the season your in.”
Grace. I have a key necklace that I received at launch and it says “grace” on it (when I bought it, someone asked the Lord what word should be put on it.) At first I had no clue what it meant, so I asked the Lord and he said it’s for you. I was thinking well duh it’s for me God, I bought it; but what does it mean? Well it took a few days of pondering what I needed grace for and I was soon hit in the face with the answer. I needed to give myself grace for this next season of being away from everything I’ve ever known. So I asked God, “Okay, how do I give myself grace?” And all I heard him say was “Give other people grace where it was given to you.” Funny thing is, a speaker at launch mentioned, that in the past he had a hard time with giving grace to others where it was given to him.
I’m still thinking and praying about what all of this means and God is still helping me unravel it all, but I’ve found that loving and honoring people well can look like being gracious to them through their good and hard times. So for now, that’s what I’m trying to do. And I’ve also found that when you obey the Lord, you find comfort. It’s just who he is, he is the greatest comforter ever.
Well those are just a few of my thoughts, and I hope they made sense & you enjoyed them (: The Lord is teaching me so much, this is only a sliver of it. So I will be be blogging more about them soon. Keep your eyeballs peeled for a blog about my ministry here in Cambodia!
Thanks for loving me enough to believe in this wild dream of mine and helping me get here. I can’t thank you enough.
