An image comes to mind. That moment in the car – Mom, Dad, Andrew and me – sitting still in the Subway parking lot just a few miles from the airport…just a few miles from saying goodbye…my hands clasped in Dad’s large one and Andrew’s roughed from hard work. And we pray. As tears escape from every eye, we pray. As my mind remembers, so does my heart. It remembers the anticipation and dread of hard goodbyes. It remembers the difficulty of trusting God that it WILL be okay. It remembers the sorrow and grief already present even while still with them, clasping hands with them at the foot of God’s throne, holding tightly, not wanting to ever let go. And the tears escape again, except this time 40 days later. After days of depression and days of renewed thanksgiving, after hundreds of tears, they still come at the memory of that one beautiful moment. Oh, to be able to clasp those precious hands again and give thanks to our God who sustains us even when it hurts! What I wouldn’t give to have another of those moments.
But they are not what sustains me. If they were I would be finished here, unable to go on. But they are not. My sustenance comes from my Lord Who gives me all good things and deserves all my thanks. Thank You, Jesus, for that moment of praise 40 days ago. You are good to me!
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Doing things on my own…defeating each city block as I walk the trails made by concrete, flattened trash, and abandoned shoes, I feel strangely alive as sweat pours from each pore under the unmercifcul heat of the sun. I thank Jesus for each moment of shade. Walking. Doing this gives me confidence. Doing this makes me feel like I am accomplishing something – I am becoming part of this strange and endearing new world. But why do I need to feel like I am accomplishing things each day? Why do I need to be productive? Is this a ghost-habit of my American self? – always working hard, always needing to DO. This is the attitude I have grown up with in a culture that frowns on laziness and days, hours wasted. True, God tells us laziness is destructive, but being content doesn’t mean being lazy. Can I learn to be instead of always do?
I think this feeling strangely alive in accomplishment…well, I’m not really sure what to think. It is a good feeling and if it seems life-giving to me and helps me draw closer to God, I should do it, right? But if God is trying to teach me to be less concerned with accomplishing, where does that leave me? Maybe being content in both – accomplishing and being unproductive. How does contentedness look different in those moments? I want to savor life. I rush through each moment of each day, waiting for the next best thing, ungrateful for the time I have now. Then, when I am in the moment of that next-best thing, as soon as it begins, it ends, and I am again looking toward the next one, just wanting to get through the mundane minutes until then. What is time, then? Time is a way of keeping me from enjoyment and contentedness. It is a constant each day that I only endure because I have to. What a miserable way to live!
I have but one life. I have but one year here in Cambodia and then it will be gone. What a waste it would be to go through this year, always waiting, always wishing for time to go faster. I want to enjoy my life. I want to enjoy each moment…even the moments that seem like all they could be are just in-between moments because nothing substantial is happening. But they are still moments of my life that I don’t want to waste.
Moments like sitting for hours each day watching TV with the family. I tried. I tried to stay present in each moment of today. But it is so difficult for me to find something life-giving about sitting in front of the television. I feel like this period of time before I start work at Daughters of Cambodia is to get to know my family and to study language. So I spend time with them, doing what they are doing. Is that what God is calling me to right now – watching hours of TV? How do I make sure I feel good about how my time is spent during the day when I am so used to accomplishing?
Again, God says to me “Abide in me. Just be. Don’t be concerned with doing because that only leads to feeling like you need to prove yourself to others, which you already do too much. Always accomplishing, never resting leads to drained hearts and empty days. As you sit, listen to My voice. When Sa-Sa climbs on your lap and messes up your hair, instead of fuming in your mind “why am I sitting here watching TV? This isn’t why I’m in Cambodia!”, ask for eyes to see Me. Ask for a heart to listen. And then do that. Listen.”
In this listening and this learning to be content, God reminds me that the things I left behind are not what sustains me. It is God and God alone. Thank You, God, for the pain of being stretched and struggling through moments of frustration so that I might learn what it is to be content in each moment. So that I might learn what it is to just be.