I can't believe we've been here more than two months already. In many ways it feels like 2 years and in other ways 2 days. There's so much to be learned and this process of adjustment I'm learning is slow. But steady. There are so many facets of life here that thrill me and a myriad of ways the Lord has provided sweet graces as we plod through life here. But I will say after two months we are still very much in process. Though each day and each new experience brings us closer to feelings of familiarity, we aren't "home" yet. New friends bring comfort and laughter to our house, yet we are still very "uncomfortable". Uncomfortable as I figure out how to cook for my little family with more work than I ever have put into preparing food for us, and yes uncomfortable as I stretch and strain to push myself in gaining more language...but I don't think these things are dominate in my thoughts. I think it's mainly uncomfortable spiritually speaking. As I am placed in circumstances that come from living overseas: being humbly dependent on others, living in tension of a busy season, juggling tasks, all the "little moments" that go into a day. I am realizing just how true these words are:
A good Tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree
can't produce good fruit. A tree is identified by it's fruit...
A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart,
and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.
What you say flows from what is in your heart.
Luke 6:43-45
AND
A cup of sweet water could never spill a drop of bitter water, no matter how heavily it was jolted.
-Amy Carmichael
-Amy Carmichael
I would have to be honest and say when I've been squeezed by life these last two months, some bad fruit has come to the surface. Some things like...
Seeing how much I want to be Sovereign and in control instead of God.
Seeing how quickly I turn to self-reliance when push comes to shove.
Realizing how needy I am as a wife and mother - did I start to think I instinctively knew how to love well?
Seeing How deeply I've found my identity in being a "good" homemaker instead of in the Cross.
Feeling the weight of brokenness as I look at life here.
All of this has left me coming to grips with the fact that I am a desperate woman in need of a BIG redeemer.
You see I feel like I can see clearly how life here is a gift. It's a gift because it's pressing me on all sides to see myself as I am before God: broken, needy, dependent. I have always been yet have not always felt so. Doesn't the Lord put us in situations anywhere that seem to do press us this way?
I am not Sovereign. This is good news! Someone far wiser knows better what I need than I do.
I am much worse than I ever thought. Painful, yet good news! For here I mine greater depths of what Jesus has done for me and fellow sinners like me. The cost and gift becomes all the more real.
I am so utterly inadequate in my marriage and parenting to do any "good". Good News! It's here I find genuine humility as I bow under the reality of my desperate situation. It transforms me in ways the "good" I thought I had down never was effective on my heart.
I cannot accomplish all I would like to in my home in this season, nor "control" life. Good News! God is working all for my good. I can rest. I can stop resisting. What Jesus has purchased for me frees me from restless running to empty identities. He exchanges my dark, soiled and tattered robe with His Own spotless, clean righteousness. This satisfies my heart like no other fleeting stolen identity could. I am His.
Life is difficult, ugly and broken - any of us would agree. Good News even in this! I can face broken life without flinching away at it's rotting, I can weep with those who weep and mourn. Yet I remember this is not my true home. I see God's beauty displayed in His redeeming the mess sin's made, mine included. Even as he mends my broken ugliness, He is mending the Worlds. He's purchased it's restoration with blood.
These are such good things for me to learn, in new ways...in this new culture.
Thank you Lord, for loving me enough to "jolt" me! For so violently loving me that you press me into situations that shatter every idea I had of good and show me how small I've thought Your good is toward me. Continue opening up my eyes to see the glory of the vast skies of walking near to you!
