He loves it

He was four years old. Dressed in a miniature tuxedo and carrying his baby violin, the audience cooed collectively as he walked onto the stage. His chubby face sombre with concentration, he began to play.

“Twinkle, twinkle little star.” It was just a simple tune. Perhaps it was the first the child had ever learnt; the notes were scratchy, drawn out, and missed here and there. “Twiiiiiiiinkle, twiiiiinkle….starrrrr.” Compared to the other children in the concert program, this little boy was a beginner of beginners, but he was utterly unconcerned about how his piece compared to the more complicated melodies that came before him. He played on.

It was a masterpiece. The audience went wild! The applause was thunderous. Cheers and wolf whistles rang out across the room as he took his triumphant final bow. I clapped as enthusiastically as the rest of the crowd as the boy trotted off stage, cradling his instrument.

Looking at my own life, sometimes it feels like my attempts to please God are like the four-year-old’s “Twinkle, twinkle little star” to another child’s Beethoven. Simple, scratchy, and sometimes out of rhythm. But God loves it. He goes wild for the smallest thing I do because I love him. Instead of being worried about my "melody" and my ability being compared to someone else, I should just continue to play. Knowing that God thinks it’s beautiful.

The Weakness of Champions

I used to think that heroes were perfect. Knights in shining armor- beautiful warrior princesses - strong and fearless and wise. 

I wanted to be perfect. I would try to avoid doing things I knew I wasn’t good at. From a young age I taught myself to keep my true feelings under an icy cool, composed surface. I trained myself to choke back emotion and not cry in public, so no one could see how they could hurt me. I tried to do all the right things. As a teenager rebellion wasn’t really on my agenda. I strove for a perfect appearance. Anything less was unacceptable, unthinkable, and I wouldn’t admit to it.

Then I became a student missionary. I had no idea how that experience would strip me to the core and make me face my imperfection in all its ugliness. Other people could see it too. It was terrifying. (And the process of discovering my weakness hasn’t stopped to this day!) But I needed it, and I've been learning a lot from it - a lot about heroes.

“The Bible is a strange book because it repeatedly features people as heroes who admit their weaknesses and needs.” (George R. Knight)

An aggressive and self-confident fisherman. Hot-tempered young people, nicknamed “sons of thunder.” A fearful shepherd with a speech problem. A coward from a weak and obscure tribe, the youngest in his family. These aren’t the kind of people I’d think of as hero material. But these are exactly the kind of people God pictures as heroes.

The amazing thing to me is that God sees past their flaws to their potential. When they fall he doesn’t kick them off the program, as it were. He works with them, no matter how long it takes for them to see their own inadequacies and their need of something bigger than themselves.

The champions the Bible paints are great because they admit their own faults, and their helplessness to do much about it.

They show their strength by admitting their weakness.

Then Peter became a fearless preacher who ended up dying for his faith. Moses led a nation out of slavery. James and John became major leaders of the early Christian church. Gideon defeated a marauding army with only 300 men.

Some of the greatest strength is shown in admitting weakness. Only then can God step in and do something really amazing.

“And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 2 Cor 12:9 NASB

Mum...

...you have given me so much. I don’t think I can scratch the surface, and I don’t think “thank you” quite covers everything I want to say, but I’m going to try.

Thank you for being an amazing teacher. You were a pioneer in homeschooling and endured a lot of raised eyebrows and “checks” from the authorities, answering the same questions again and again from curious or skeptical onlookers. You made my education fun! Even when it wasn’t fun (such happy memories of math…), and I threw tantrums, bawled tears of hopelessness, and couldn’t seem to understand, thanks for not giving up. You gave me my love for music, teaching me what you could on the piano and encouraging me with my practicing, even when I played the same tunes a dozen times a day because I was so nervous about an upcoming exam, or playing in church.

You didn’t throw me out of the kitchen when I had butterfingers and dropped everything, or put salt instead of sugar into the cooking, or put way too much spice in the chili. When you got sick and I had to do all the cooking with Stephen, you put up with me yelling frantic questions every two seconds about what to do. Thank you for your patience! I believe it’s paying off now J

From my earliest memories, you showed me what a relationship with God looked like. You eagerly listened to my “sermons” on a Sabbath afternoon, included me in family worship, and I learnt what a devotional life was from watching you and Dad. Thank you for all your prayers for me, and for not giving up on me when I was unsupportive of what God was asking you and Dad to do. You helped show me what God is like.

As I grew up, you told me some of your own experiences of being a teenager and gave me good advice – although I didn’t fully appreciate a lot of it until much later. You put up with slammed doors and moody silences. When I wanted to stretch my wings, or when God called me to work on the other side of the world from you, although you shed tears in airport terminals, you let me fly. Thank you.

Even when I called you “Mom”, you didn’t mind! (Or perhaps you didn’t notice?!)

Now, in times of massive change, I so often feel like an ignorant little girl even though I’m supposed to be an adult, but you continue to support me, direct me, pray for me, and love me. Thank you.

I don’t know what I’d do without you!

I did things that scare me. I feel good.

"Do one thing every day that scares you." Eleanor Roosevelt

I like to be comfortable. Anything involving pain or fear I will generally try very hard to avoid! But God is very good at getting me out of my comfort zone and catapulting me into situations where my heart begins to pound, butterflies fill my stomach, and I become painfully aware of my limitations.


This weekend I did two things that scared me. Pubbing for ADRA was first on the list. Although I know collecting money for a relief agency is a great thing to do...I hate asking people for money. I especially hated the thought of going round throbbing city pubs on a Saturday night to ask people for money. What if they were really drunk, and rude, and hated to be disturbed from their pints and footy? The guys I was going with, however, assured me I was going to have fun. "They might banter with you a bit," one of them said laughingly. "Tell you they'll give you a fiver for a kiss!" Oh joy.


The first pub we went into was small and sparsely-populated. Swallowing my natural instincts to hide behind my fellow collectors, I pasted on a smile and went up to a table of three men. "Excuse me," I began politely, "I'm collecting for a charity..." and launched into my spiel. "Would you be willing to give anything?"
"Sure, love, just a minute," said one of the men, fishing out his wallet. His friends followed suit. Maybe the evening wasn't going to be so bad after all, I thought.


People were great. Some gave first and asked what I was collecting for later! One man I approached at a snooker table emptied his pockets into my tin and then complained good-naturedly that he had no money left for a beer! I got a little bit of banter -  a table full of tipsy lads asking my age and wondering if I was actually old enough to be in the establishment. As I left them, I heard over my shoulder, "You should've tried to pick her up!" I got a few Nos, too, but on the whole everyone was generous - and I did have fun! 


The second thing I did that "scared" me was helping out in a crèche. I like kids, but when they're a bit older. I have no idea what to do with 0-5 year olds, and when they're crying they're absolutely terrifying. 

I dragged myself out of bed later than I intended this morning (bother the time change!), skipped breakfast, and dashed out to help set up the tables and chairs and play equipment. We were expecting lots of kids, while their parents went out collecting for ADRA again, but in the end we only had two - a 3 year old chatterbox and a shy 2 year old. Three hours later, and I'd discovered that I was very good at creating play-dough pies, eating plastic pizza, engaging in long games of "mamma and baby", and singing "the hokey-pokey"! And I was still alive! In fact, I'd actually enjoyed myself...




 

I love what I never wanted

I never wanted to come back to England. When I left my life in Asia, I felt like my world was coming to an end, and that there was nothing God could possibly give me that would match the joy and fulfillment I'd experienced in the past 18 months abroad.

I spent the first couple of months in the UK culture shocked, stressed, and dreaming of the day I would get on a plane and fly back to the US and university. It came as a surprise six months later when I suddenly thought, "I'm actually happy here! Not just plodding on because I know God's put me here, but genuinely happy!"


God has given me so many gifts while I've been here. Some of those gifts have come wrapped with great pain and frustration, and yet that pain has helped me to grow in leaps and bounds and opened the way for deep friendships. I wouldn't change anything that's happened. I'm so glad I came back to England!

In about three months I'll be on my way again. There are a lot of uncertainties in my future, and there are still a lot of things I get stressed about. But I can look back and know that the God who has continually given me more than I was expecting, is more than able to provide for the days ahead.

"There are always uncertainties ahead, but there is always one certainty--God's will is good."  Vernon Paterson

The Wilderness

"Our spiritual journey must lead through the desert or else our healing will be the product of our own will and wisdom. It is in the silence of the desert that we hear our dependence on noise. It is in the poverty of the desert that we see clearly our attachments to the trinkets and baubles we cling to for security and pleasure. The desert shatters the soul's arrogance and leaves body and soul crying out in thirst and hunger. In the desert we trust God or die."

Dan Allender in The Healing Path

I'm beginning my journey through the wilderness, fearing it and yet craving to hear God in the silence that follows the chaos. He has been prompting me for some time - "Be still and know that I am God." I hate being still. I'm facing all kinds of things about myself that I hate to see. But I need this time. I need Him.

Little things that made me smile

Today is a good day...I have little bubbles of joy inside...and they come from such little things...

• Being able to see my old children's class. They were having an end-of-term party today and were making chocolate cake with their teacher. When I came into the kitchen to get some water and say hi, they were all really happy to see me, and took pictures with me and delightedly fed me cake from their forks...
• Yummy food for lunch (I'm blessed to have a team mate who always seems to turn out amazing food)...
• Seeing a stunning sunset view from my classroom window. Wish I could have taken a photograph - the palm trees and city roofs were silhoutted in pitch black against a red-pink sky. I could have stood there for ages just looking :)
• Bible study with some of the ladies on the team after school - we're going through the books "Seven Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free" by Nancy Demoss. I never realised just how many lies I swallowed, and I'm excited to be going through this book...it's provided a lot of food for thought, painful at times, to be sure...but I recommend it!
• Learning more of the local language. I was a bit discouraged with that - being an English teacher, I'm speaking English all the time and don't get much chance to use what I learn. But today class was fun - I just spoke with my teacher, about all kinds of things, and learned some useful vocabulary that I think I will use.
• Quicker internet - yay! ^_^