As I sit here before 8 AM trying to bring myself to write this stupid blog, I am finding anything to distract me. Whether it is
watching the Vietnamese girl open her little booth in the front of the grocery store or watching a video about tractor pulling that my sister saw on Good Morning America (for those of you who don’t know what tractor pulling is, you should watch the video entitled A Look at an American Tradition in Whistle Stop here! – and know that it is one of my desires to actually go to a tractor pull in Hicksville, Ohio, where the video takes place!!)
watching the Vietnamese girl open her little booth in the front of the grocery store or watching a video about tractor pulling that my sister saw on Good Morning America (for those of you who don’t know what tractor pulling is, you should watch the video entitled A Look at an American Tradition in Whistle Stop here! – and know that it is one of my desires to actually go to a tractor pull in Hicksville, Ohio, where the video takes place!!)
So, back to writing a blog.
I am grieving again. Grieving the loss of my desires, hopes and dreams. You see, Jesus has been teaching me that my dreams, hopes and desires are not big enough. He wants more for me than I have ever imagined.
Yet I have still been clinging to what I want.
Vietnam has been a struggle for me because the reality of being on the other side of the world from my safety net and home (Ohio) has set in and it stinks, in more ways than one!!
My view from the back of the room, from Ohio has been stripped from me. I like to go unnoticed, to refrain from being in front of people, to be invisible in a sense. But the Lord is calling me out of the back, away from the comfortable place that I have made for myself in the corner. He is stripping away all that I have worked so hard to create, and it hurts.
He wants me to be a large Aspen tree, and I was content with being a little oak tree (by the way, I just learned that the Aspen tree is the largest living organism on land). I was content being my little oak tree until He invaded me, and now I have been asking “why me!?”
I just want to sit in the back corner where I know it is comfortable, but He is making that just as uncomfortable because He is asking me to move from that place.
What if I had just stayed in Ohio where everything was comfortable and the people loved me and were able to speak my language!???
This question has permeated my mind in the last few days, and I struggle with the answer. Because there have been moments when I just want to jump on a plane and get the hell out of this place.
I don’t want to see any more homeless people.I don’t want to eat unfamiliar food.
I don’t want to struggle to communicate.
I don’t want to have to deal with the fact that there is prostitution going on in our hotel.
I don’t want to face my Jesus because He is requiring more change from me, and frankly I am all done with change in this moment.
I am all done.
I was content with my little dreams, hopes and desires.
But He went and wrecked them.
This is what I know:
My God is good.
And He loves me.
And for today, it has to be enough.
