Anything But A Whim

It's been there since I was eleven and it's never left me.  It's as much a part of me as any earliest childhood memory, any earliest sense of identity, any first sense of calling.  This deep that calls to deep is as much a part of me as is the colour of my skin.  This magnetic pull to Asia is hardly new.

It looks new.  In fact, before our first trip in 2008, I had never been anywhere that required a passport.  I hadn't experienced any culture but my own.  Never been really all that far away from home.  Hawaii doesn't count.  Wonderful place.  Totally western, really, and everywhere it's about the tourists, so.

I think in those in between years, between 11 and 51, my soul forgot about Asia.  Somehow we forgot all about that earliest of callings.  I got busy getting married and having children and watching God unfold a ministry life I honestly never really set out to do.  But there I was, minding my Father's business, more or less, and the unfolding kept unfolding itself all the way back to half way around the world. 

And now?

I think that if you lived in a house for your whole life, and suddenly one day discovered a door you'd never known was there before.  And if you were more curious than you were afraid, and you opened that door.  And if you stepped into a room completely different from the rest of the house, but full of colour and sound and smell and love and wonder.  Then it would probably be like what it's like for me to know and be known by my Thai family.

The ministry there, at Hot Springs, is one that welcomes orphaned children into lives of sustenance and hope and love.  And for some unexplainable reason, it seems I have been adopted too.   And God is unfolding something there for me.  And I have so much more to learn and receive.

So I'm going by myself this fall.  In about four weeks, actually.  From October 22 to November 3.  Just me.  I am so looking forward to going with the Team again next March and for all God would want to do through our ESL Day Camp and any other opportunities to love and serve not just our kids but the neighbourhood around them.  But this trip is just for me. 

I am grateful for how Highview gets it.  How they let me go sometimes by myself like this.  I hope it's because they receive the benefits of a pastor who, bit by bit, understands more of God's whole-earth heart, and brings back something more than she left with. 

From Forever to Forever

As promised....some pictures from the great-gramma surprise.  Four generations of 'Ruth's'.  My Mom, Ruth Elaine; me Ruth Anne; my daughter, Kristyn Ruth, and my granddaughter, Abby Ruth.


And it all just reinforces what I've been meditating on of late.

Praise be to you O LORD
God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
1 Chronicles 29:10

This is only a small piece of a bigger prayer King David prayed at the beginning of something very important for the people of God - the building of the Temple.  And while the broader portion brings rich imagery and lots to ponder, it's this 'everlasting' bit that's caught my attention this morning.

"From forever to forever" is the more literal translation from the Hebrew.  Either way, it's a long time.  A long time to be God.

The eternal nature of God is beyond our understanding as finite beings.  For us, everything has a beginning and everything has an end.  At least in our physical realm.  But spiritually, we have the opportunity to unite ourselves with this Eternal Being.  And when we do, everything changes.  Time itself takes on entirely new dimensions.  What seems so urgent isn't so urgent.  Priorities realign themselves.

Even my own safety, my security, is altered in this timeless reality.  For is God is love and He is for me, then in every circumstance that has come before and every circumstance I will face ahead, and even in this moment, no matter how I'm experiencing it, Eternal God is right here, right 'now'.  And as I remember what has happened before, the hard times especially, but also the joyful, Eternal God was right there, right then.  And as I look ahead, Eternal God will be right there, right then.

I'm a summer girl.  And summer is unofficially over starting tomorrow.  Right now in my daily responsibilities there are some significant adjustments required with some potentially challenging unknowns ahead.  Standing on this particular threshold, I could feel anxious.

But today, at least, I am not.  There is a forever God watching over this entire process called my life.  And bigger than that, everything that seems so enormous and important to me is framed within God's broader plans and purposes.  His forever purposes.

My Mom's 86.  I'm 56.  My daughter's 31.  Abby's 7.  And God is forever watching over us all.  Time dimensions.