Text Affection

Boy oh boy, do these people just LOVE to send texts.

It’s a level of affection that I’m just beginning to grasp, even after a year of living here. I could have seen a friend 2 minutes before, and receive a text as if it’s both of our last day on earth! Drama drama….Among some of my favorites received are:

"I eat TV and watched food, I baked books and studied cakes, I switched off the bed and slept on the fan. This is how I get CRAZY when I MISS YOU..."

“Birth is the start of life, beauty is the art of life, love is the part of life, death is the last of life, but best friend is the heart of life.”

“When the sky looks blue, I miss you…when the dreams come true, I miss you….when the flowers are covered with dew, I miss you…when the day comes new, I miss you…”

“When you wake up in the dark, and the room is shaking, and the walls are covered with blood…just know that you are in my heart.”


Gee, I feel loved.

Grammar Slammer.

My grammar has gone down the toilet ( I initially spelled it g-r-a-m-m-e-r).

And not in a cute&sexy southern gal kind of way, but in a freakishly caught-in-between-two-worlds kind of way. The things I catch myself saying here really worry me sometimes. I'm already envisioning the looks I'll get when I head back to my small hometown and say things like "I'm going on holiday" or "You are looking so good" or "I'd like that in a shopper, please" (grocery bag) or "I need to buy some new joggers" (tennis shoes).

I'm going the be the freak who lived overseas for a while, I just know it...

Small Miracles.

There’s no such thing, really. Miracles are miracles. But I love when God does something seemingly small-scale and magnifies it to apply a larger life lesson to a larger life issue.

Case in point: Today I prepared to dive into my “to do” list, 99% of which involved the use of my computer. I sit down at my desk and pop open my laptop, only to be greeted by the dooming reality that my keyboard is failing to function properly….or at all. And for you smarty pants out there who are thinking, "uh, num lock moron."---I tried that.

… So ok….lets try again…..
…..nope…ok….again…
…uh…

**And in sets panick mode**

So I can’t even get past my stupid encryption program to get onto my computer, which does not make me a happy pappy. What would I do? My whole life is on my computer---my communication to family and friends a world away, not to mention my bank access and company email….

My poor roommates tried to comfort me, and even prayed for my computer, bless their hearts (even though my prayer was more like one big question: GOD, HOW COULD YOU LET THE HAPPEN TO ME???) But the truth is, this problem was only the tip of the ice burg of some much larger issues in my life. And believe me, when living on an emotional edge, when one thing goes wrong…it all goes wrong!

So I load up my handicapped computer and head off to the local computer store (quote unquote) like one big sour grape. Already I’ve calculated in my head how many times I’ll have to return to the store before they fix the problems they’ve caused by trying to fix the original problem, and how much money that I don’t have will be spent in the process.

Then God smacks the conviction on heavy—have I even sincerely taken the time to ask for His help? Have I relied on Him to fix this—really in the large scheme of things—rather insignificant problem? Nope (tail wag). So right then and there I asked forgiveness for my miserable failures to trust the One who holds all computers and lives in His awesomely sovereign hand.

Now I love this. Sometimes God speaks in different ways, but today He spoke in a way that I couldn’t miss. “Take out and turn on your computer,” He said. So I let out a sigh, and do just that….

Voila! Working computer.

Small miracle to some. HUGE to me. I continued on to squawk like dying chicken in attempt to tell my driver how great God is and how He has Cured my computer. The guy's nice enough....and pretended to understand my broken language. He probably assumed I'd mixed up my adjectives and verbs like every other day. But this chick didn't mind.

So long story short (er...not really...) I've had a wakeup call today to trust Him in things that I can't change anymore than a non-functioning keyboard. I can pound and scream and cry and pound again, but His Will is good stuff. and its certainly worth waiting for (especially if a miracle is in the outcome!)

Altogether, this is one of those posts that you will only “get” is something familiar has happened to you before. Otherwise I’ll surely sound like a rambling idiot, which is a definite possibility (for proof, see past blogs.)

Learning.

"God is easy to please and hard to satisfy." -C.S. Lewis

Learning from mistakes is such a painful process, eh?

(and relearning..and relearning..and relearning...)

No Comparison.

As it is now, I've got about nine more months before my time here comes to an end (for now, that is.) Some days feel like I'm at the starting line of a marathon, while others feel like I'm on the home stretch, and I'm urged to finish strong. I fear that there have been times that Apathy has crawled into my bed and cuddled, and I've allowed this. But God forbid the day that I look back on my time here and wish I had just given more...

I think more than anything else, God's really been teaching me of the unmeasurable understanding that He has for what we experience, because He pretty much has experienced and surpassed it Himself in every possible way. So here I sit whining about no electricity or being cold or being lonely...or missing last night's American Idol....and He's pretty smackin' it to me--"Child, I've been there. No comparison. I hung on a cross for you. I went through years of lonely ministry--years of being misunderstood, of being unloved by many, and carrying the world's burdens on my shoulders--for YOU." For us, so that we may have hope in our time of need. For that darkest hour, He's already provided.

So its pretty much one thing to sit and rant about these things on a blog, and its another thing to live it out during the good seasons and bad. I'm really trying to let this anchor me this year. To go the extra mile for Him who went the marathon for me.

On quite another note, I recently was blessed enough to visit the nearby country of nepal, where I conquered one of my greatest fears and bungee jumped off a steel suspension bridge over the Bhote Kosi river ( www.tlrnepal.com ). It was a 525 foot free fall--head first--which even the best imaginations will fail to comprehend. I had many valid fears, shallow among the deep....would my shirt fly up? Would i wet my britches? Oh yeah, and would I live to welcome the New Year? So I pretty much made a promise to myself that if I did make the jump, I would reserve the right to talk about it for the rest of my life...to old friends, to strangers in the grocery line...you name it. So here I am already fulfilling that promise--bear with me.

I also had the chance to fly over Everest (no, I didn't climb...but I touched it with my heart), and take an elephant safari through Chitwan National Park, and survived an adventure with a rinosaurous during a hike with friends! Good thing I'm a farm girl, I've got some tricks up my sleeves (note to others: always run zig zag when being chased my animals with peripheral vision).

love to you all. gosh, i miss you!