The ladies I'm travelling with have all been here before, which makes for a collective of experience less requiring of explanations and interpretations. Conversations are easy and important and mindful and frivolously fun, sometimes all at the same time.
I've also had my head down in completion of sermons and reading, all for the purposes of my current course work. "Paul the Missionary-Pastor" is my focus, and the richness of this study, and its keen application to my own life, captivates me for long periods until I just need to stop and look at the mountains for a little bit. Or the faces of the children as we read together.
I confess to a gluttonous intake of free Vitamin D, the generous combination of sunshine and January's cooler temperatures making for more time outside without the need to hide inside all afternoon with the air conditioning.
We're observing a better pace for outings, both with the children and just for ourselves, with every other day being a 'home' day. Good days for catching up on sermon and Bible lessons prep, reading, and....catching up with blog posts.
The other afternoon, while we were reading with the children, I found myself quite suddenly overcome. The warmth of the afternoon's slanting sun surrounds the voices reading,
and I find myself asking again, What am I doing here?
More to the point, What am I doing here feeling so me?
Being so known and knowing so intuitively?
Being loved and loving so thoroughly?
And somehow, in the sway of all of it, being actually useful?
How did this happen?
It still seems surreal.
As if it's not really happening to me.
This Asian life is so much more than I expected.
So much more than me.
We're telling the stories of Exodus this month.
I find a reflection in Moses' resistance to God's bigger than expected ideas for him.
"O LORD, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." Exodus 4:10
Yes.
Utterly inadequate for the task.
Just me, here out in the desert of ordinary.
And You want me to do what?
This past Sunday during the sermon, I made a very rookie language mistake and switched the Thai word for "fear" (gloo-a) with the Thai word for "banana" (gloo-ay). Apparently, later in the story, Moses would stand at the edge of the sea, raise his staff with strength and authority and declare to the terrified people of God, "No bananas!!!!!"
I have never been eloquent.....
Flashback to those times in my childhood and teen years, even into my adult life, when failure was so convincing. Nothing important would come from my mediocre self.
Debilitating comparisons,coming up short. Every. Single. Time.
Dte.
But.
Here I am. How? I think just small significantly insignificant choices on a micro-daily level to simply say 'yes'. Little yeses that compound and build pathways and open doors and compel me forward until, here I am out on the porch on a not-too-hot afternoon, astonished again.
