Psalm 37:4

We're home now.

The long, long journey back is done and I am back with my family, having already had a wonderful coffee with a close friend already this afternoon.

While the unpacking, both literally and emotionally, will take some time, I thought I'd include a moment from last week when were were just starting our time at Hot Springs.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

In and amongst the excitement and rice it’s been lingering. This trip, there’s been a feeling, a sensing, a prevailing thought, flitting around on the outskirts of my awareness, not registering completely until I identified it yesterday during a ride.

I think we were on our way to Doi Saket. The streets were familiar, the strangeness recognizable in that strange new way of normal this third time here. And I was feeling particularly happy. Happy to be on my way to see the Doi Saket kids again. Happy to be here driving on the left side of the road. Happy to have George and Starr with me. Happy to be with Tutu, talking and sharing our hearts together as if we have been friends for a long, long time.

And then, there it was. This lingering, flitting feeling that was…….guilt. Yes! I’m feeling thoroughly undeserving, completely indulgent and wholly unworthy to be here.

Third time in fourteen months! When George did the math at supper the night before, I almost sucked air. Wow! That means in the same amount of time that I’ve been to the cottage once, I’ve been to Thailand three times. Hard to believe. And rather indulgent, I’m thinking. It costs a pretty penny to get here for one thing. And others have made sacrifices to help me with those funds. It’s a sacrifice for others too, those who pick up the slack at the church and at home.

And here I am, with a heart full of joy, riding in a truck on my way to hug and be hugged and to help give our Werthers to orphans in Thailand. How selfish is that?

This “guilty” lingered for a bit, on through until yesterday, our second day at Hot Springs. It didn’t dominate, by any means. The children, kissing them, hugging them, looking into those deep, deep brown eyes and receiving wide and shy smiles all at once…..the children themselves are enough happiness to block out guilty for most of the time. But it was there.

I don’t deserve this. I really don’t. The way I behaved and the arrogance and hissy fits of the first trip….oh my goodness, I most certainly didn’t deserve to come back at all after that. Then there was last October, and the healing beauty of the simplicity of loving and being loved in a little place nestled into the foothills of the Himalayas.

I don’t deserve the love of these children, unassuming, unconditional, affectionate with reckless abandon. They give all of themselves and capture a piece of my heart.

And I certainly don’t deserve to have done all of this and experienced all of this and received all of this all in the scope of 14 months. I do not. I do not.

But in the middle of a game of “wild monkeys”, around the cement table …..with Sai snuggling her little self right into the nooks and crannies of me, part of the game, but also stroking my arm and grabbing my hand and looking up at me for approval, frequently and with intensity…..

And with Miki, whom for whatever reason has found her way especially into my affections, on the other side, showing leadership and making me proud of how she’s working the table to make sure things are fair and everyone gets a turn…and how she keeps catching that I’m staring at her, and when she does breaks into this fantastic smile that just about undoes me….

And with Fruk across from me, grabbing for the wild card with tiny hands trying hard to play hard and fast, even though he’s one of the younger ones, the cuteness factor through the roof, just because he’s at the table…..

And the palm trees and orchids and other tropical plants I now recognize by sight even if not by name, and the hot, hot sun kept at bay by the corrugated roof under which we are gathered, and the chickens running free and the dogs laying quiet…

And the whole big thing that is the excruciating honour of just being allowed here, knowing how my heart felt crushed inside my chest when I had to leave last time, and how long I’ve deeply, deeply desired, longed to be here in a moment just like this…… I heard Him say it.

“I am giving you the desires of your heart, Ruth Anne. Don’t feel guilty. Just enjoy.”

Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

I’d grown up learning that verse, but I never understood it. Now I think I do. It’s not, like I was taught it wasn’t, a way to trick God into giving Him what you want. Doing all the right things and then, well look, it was in the contract, so give me my fancy car or the right husband or whatever it was that your heart desires. It’s not even a rip off, like I felt it was when I was a child. That whole…if you delight in God, then your heart will desire Him and you’ll get what your heart desires in the end….some Matrix like quantum loop of psycho-religious logic.

Except, maybe it is a little.

Because when we started this whole Regions Beyond thing, it wasn’t really anything to do with some wild and sexy thing I had dreamed up for the church. In fact, to me, in some ways, I feared we would be going backwards into some stuffy missions program. However….God was certainly up to something in the hearts of our people for places like Haiti….and Asia, as it turned out….so we went at it full force. I led us into this with everything I have and everything I’ve been given as a servant of the kingdom. I gave God my best in this, as best I could. I delighted in who God made me to be in order to bring about the kinds of changes that would direct us to a small place just north of Chiang Mai, and the 15 children waiting there for us to be the answer to their prayers….and for them to be God’s provision of my own desire.

It’s hard to explain really. Hard to remember what happened first. Except for God, who is timeless, I guess He already knew. He knew I would fall in love, so He directed me to serve Him where my desires could be, would be met.

And here and now, in this moment of time while I’m here, yet again, much to my astonished heart, here again, He does it. He grants me what I’ve been longing for, painfully, hugely.

I’m here.

And Miki is smiling at me.

And my heart is full, undeservedly. The lavish gift of a God who does not count against me the sins of my folly, but instead, orchestrates all of this in such a way that His plans and purposes for 15 despairing kids can be fulfilled….

And the desires of my heart can be given.