It's October and I'm dying in this heat. I had tried to plan for living in such humid, hot, sweltering, burning, blazing heat by spending a lot of time in the sauna at Lifetime. And this is their cool season. Thanks, God! I'm missing my fall and thinking about how beautiful Michigan is right now. There are no apples, red leaves, pumpkin patches or donuts and autumn breezes where I am.
I couldn't help but to think about Stevie Wonder's song about no autumn leaves or giving thanks when I was driving up to Pai in the mountains. We were crushed in the back seat of a 18 passenger van, boiling of course. There were 762 curves that wound around the mountains. It was suggested to me to take a Dramamine and wear an eye mask. So I willingly did. There I was blind, a bit loopy, swaying back and forth and I began to feel my inner Stevie Wonder come out as I sang I Just Called to Say I Love You.
I've spent a lot of this month in a "woe is me" type of mourning. I took a day to fast an pray about my mopey attitude. I've spent a lot of time also calling my friends and family just to say, "I love you," like Stevie Wonder said to. I mean after all there are no autumn leaves and giving thanks on this trip, so I might as well just call to say I love you from the bottom of my heart.
In fact I've spent a lot of time questioning how I got here and why I'm here.
The truth of my struggle is that community is really tough. We have had to focus on each other as a team so much more than I expected because our task this month is more future oriented and less about building relationships with people here in Thailand.
Here's the problem. I am wanting to love these people here in Thailand so badly or my family back at home, but I'm forgetting that I really can't do that well if I can't even love my 6 sisters who are traveling alongside me well.
It's so true that Stevie said you don't need a special occasion to share with others the simple fact that you love them. I have come to recognize that living with my team is a bit like a marriage. I must choose to love and honor them and not shut down if I don't like something or don't agree with something. Living in loving community is a choice and each one of these Godly women is facing her own challenges and because of that we desperately need each other, especially on those days that are special back at home like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So each time each one feels the loss of missing home
Thanks, Stevie.
I know he said it pretty, but Jesus says it best when He tell me this:
Philippians 2:1-11
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
