Three Months and Two Weeks

Just three more days for this visit.

After staying at Hot Springs for three months of concentrated study last fall, these two weeks have seemed like nothing more than a whispered thought.  Just a whisper of the language.  Just a whisper of the culture.  Just a quick touch of souls my own misses so painfully every day at home.

So I'm doing my best to be fully present.  Everything's precious.  Take nothing for granted.  These moments will pass and these whispers will be the stuff that lives are made of.

And I am so grateful to be here again.

Coming home last December was lovely.  I found the transition time to be exceptionally smooth, coming into Christmas and having the luxury to unpack not just my suitcases, but my experience in Thailand over a slower four week re-entry.  But then January 11 threw me a curve ball and I spent the next eight weeks trying to get my head around a completely NOT normal "normal" that wouldn't settle into something efficient and calm, no matter how hard I pushed and wrestled and yelled at it to do so.

I arrived at Toronto Pearson on March 9 in terrible shape.  Excited to be going back to Thailand, but physically, mentally and emotionally spent from eight weeks of frustration.

It was good for me to be required to just sit down for two long flights.  In my exhaustion, with the hum of the engines relentless in the background, I sat whimpering before God and just asked Him, "Okay, so now what?"  And in the way we sometimes hear these things, I heard Him respond, "Ruth Anne, just let Me fill you."

I probably slept more on the way over than I have in any other trip to Thailand.  I sat in the filling of my Saviour, His grace and patience and mercy and love washing over my weariness every mile of the way.  By the time I arrived in Chiang Mai, I was remarkably better rested than when I left Canada.

And then...seeing their faces....that first glimpse at the airport.  And then the first car ride in where we try to say so many things, and realizing that my Thai wasn't quite as rusty as I had feared.  And sharing in the jokes and stories and memories.  And feeling filled to over flowing just being with them again, just in those first hours.

And these weeks, these two short whispering weeks, where so much has happened that it will take more than one sit down at the computer, more than one open heart time with God to figure it out.  And it's been so demanding in some surprising, even shocking ways.  But even in the demandingness, He's been right there, filling me up.  And it feels so good to be in His presence like this.  Here.

And there.

When I get back I'm thinking it will be like 'Returning Home from Three Months In Thailand Part 2", only I guess it's Three Months and Two Weeks.  Like another reboot of the re-entry.  And I get a do over.

Here's the thing.

I am inadequate in every way my life requires anything from me.  In and of myself I don't have what it takes.  Not to do ministry here.  Not to do ministry at home.  The demands are too great.  The wisdom too essential.  The composure and strength and patience and calm and nurturing and teaching and guiding and tenacity and clear-headedness that's required for this is all way over my head.  Way over.  If the two months without a license taught me anything about myself is that I don't have what it takes to do my life.  Not just me.

I need to be filled up with a Presence bigger than myself.  I need the loving gifts and guidance of the communities within which He's placed me.  I need a lot.  I am needy.

And all that I need I receive as I give way to the giving of it, and let this whisper of a two week stay be the answer to why those last two months at home were so stupidly hard to do.

Reboot.  I get another chance.  Another kick at not kicking at life quite so much.   And how wonderful that I am allowed to come back to this place to figure this out.

For three months and two weeks.

For now at least.