I battled with a lot of thoughts and questions in Thailand.
About prayer.
About privacy.
About love.
About friendship.
It has taken me awhile to come up with a way to write a blog about my new friends from Chiang Mai, without stereotyping them, without giving away their stories, without betraying their trust. But here it is, sensored and more focused on myself than on them.
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For those of you who don't know, I got engaged about a month and a half ago. I, obviously, talk about it regularly with my sisters on the race. Many of them, like me, have been in a plethora of terrible and ungodly relationships in our past. It is a weird thing to try to explain how different it is when you are in love with someone who loves you unconditionally, who you know God has intended for you. It is especially hard to explain when you are talking to someone who thinks that love is being financially taken care of by a foreigner.
I struggled with this time and time again during our ministry in Thailand. I fell in love with three of the girls that we met in Chiang Mai, and my fiance is the epitome of what they are looking for in a boyfriend/husband. But for completely different reasons. When you ask Sam what she wants in a husband she says she wants a foreigner, a white man, who has a job and who will take care of her and her daughter. When Na tells you about her many boyfriends, she says they love her because they send her money, and they come back to visit her often.
Their view of love is so distorted.
It is hard enough to explain the overwhelming feeling of unconditional love, comfort and peace that is in a Godly relationship to someone who knows the Lord but hasn't felt it before. How could I possibly explain it to three women who don't know the love of God?
These women know that there is something more than working in the bar. They know what they are doing isn't "right". Sam even said "I don't want to bring my daughter to the city because I don't want her to see what I am doing."
They know how to give unconditional love, they give it to their children everyday. They sacrifice their lives, their bodies, so that their children, for Sam a daughted and for Dew a son, may go to school and not end up in the same position they are in.
But when will they know what it is like to feel unconditional love?
Even after spending almost everyday for three weeks with them, I still didn't know the correct words to say. When they say things to me like "You are lucky. Your boyfriend is perfect. When will it be my turn?" I have no appropriate response.
God taught me a lot through my lack of words to say. I have always been the person who wants to encourage you, who wants to stand by you and walk you through things. I am willing to drop it all and spend the entire day at your side when you are hurting. But saying "I'll pray for you" never came out of mouth.
"What a cliche-Christian thing to say," were my thoughts.
But in Thailand we had prayer/intercession time built into our schedule. Every day we had time to pray for our girls, to present to God what we desired for them, what we desired for their lives. I learned that even if I can't say something to comfort them, to help them see the right path, God can still make it happen. God can give them peace, God can show them what they are searching for, God can teach them to receive unconditional love.
While I still struggle with the balance between trusting God that you don't have to see the results, and using "Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it didn't make a difference" as a cop-out for not really doing anything, I learned a lot about putting my full faith in God to work.
I went to Thailand.
I was obedient to what He asked me to do.
I trust that He will continue to stir the hearts of my new friends.
I trust that He will love them unconditionally.
I trust that He will change their lives.
