Re-challenged

Hi.

It’s been awhile, huh? I said I would keep you posted, and I have yet to do any posting. One of the reasons I wrote that in my last entry  was to try to hold myself accountable to actually doing it. I knew if I didn’t say something about that I probably would never write on my blog again. But I want to. Writing is therapeutic for me. It’s how I process things. And when I’m writing in a space where I think other people will read (i.e. not my personal journal), I try to make myself think positively instead of just complaining, so that means I usually end up challenging myself more than I expected to. It’s a good thing, this creative writing/processing.

So I guess this entry is supposed to keep you posted on how I am incorporating what I learned in Cambodia to my life here in the States. First of all, I’m going to be honest. I feel like since being back, I’ve just wanted to forget about Cambodia. It feels like such a long time ago and I’m okay with that. I am very content being here in Lancaster County, living with my parents, and working at Bethanna (a foster care/adoption agency) as a visitation social worker. But I have also recognized that I’m too comfortable again, just as I predicted from my August post. And God knew what I needed.

Over the last week, I have been reminded of Cambodia much more than any other week since returning stateside. I skyped with my good friend Jenny (who I talked about in two other posts) and that was SO life-giving and spirit-lifting for me! That was the first time in a long time that I have kind of re-lived Cambodia through words and memories and it was a good feeling. Then tonight, I went back and reread all of my blog posts. Wow. Talk about a flood of emotions and memories! AND talk about challenge after challenge! I re-challenged myself all over again! Living a life of passion and uncomfortableness (which I don’t think is a word) and talking to Jesus and prayer for broken lives and embracing brokenness and being thankful when it’s hard and keeping my head up when it starts to droop…do I need to learn all of these things over again? Maybe I’m just a little rusty and need a tad bit of oil in my spiritual joints.

I am reading a book of quotations I bought at MCC’s Gift and Thrift in Harrisonburg, VA called “Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity.” I really liked this quote from Frances Irene Taber, 1985. She’s talking about the way Quakers “came upon” their faith of simplicity.

“They saw that all they did must flow directly from what they experienced as true, and that if it did not, both the knowing and the doing became false.”

My we seek out Truth so that all of our knowing and doing is genuine and sincere.