still

My mind and heart have been swirling with questions and emotions lately. I want answers. I want a plan. I want a vision for the future. I want joy, and adventure, and anticipation.

So, I've cried, I've pleaded, I've talked to God. And over and over, He keeps telling me to be still.

For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:15

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3: 25&26

God knows my heart. Even if he weren't omniscient, I think I've told him my fears and desires, my doubts and questions hundreds of times. And there are moments when I want to demand answers. I want him to show up NOW in my life and take away the confusion.

But this is the verse God has put in my heart these past few days:

"But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me." Psalm 131:2

Like a weaned child. Not seeking anything. Not demanding to be fed. Not waiting for its physical needs to be met. Just resting in the safety and security of the arms of the one who loves you. So, I am trying to calm and quiet my soul. To rest in him. To trust that he loves me, he has a plan for me, and he won't let me miss it. When it's time, he'll answer. Until then, I need to trust him, rest in his presence, feel secure in his love.

The smallest gifts

Today we celebrate women's day in Colombia. One of our new students walked in this morning, her smile beaming above a handful of minature roses. She carefully handed a single tiny rose to every woman who works at Luz y Vida. "Feliz Día"(Happy women´s day!) she said to me as she gave me a hug. I lifted the little rose to my nose and breathed in. The scent from that tiny rose was amazing, transporting me to a summer full of sunshine. In a week that's been challenging for me, her offering of love brought me joy.

As I looked at the rose on my desk, not much bigger than a quarter, I was reminded of something God spoke to my heart earlier this week. Our gifts of love to him may seem small and insignificant, unworthy of being offered to the creator of the universe, but he is still pleased. He is pleased with each small outpouring of love from a faithful heart. He doesn't compare us with one another and only feel pleased with the best gifts. As our Father, any gift prompted by our love brings him pleasure.

So, remember today- You are loved by the Father. He's not waiting until you are perfect and can offer perfect gifts to be pleased by you. He is pleased today. He delights in you and the gifts you bring to him.

Phillipians 4:18b Your gifts are a soothing aroma, a sacrifice that God accepts and with which he is pleased.

Isaiah 62:4b But you will be named My Delight, and your land will be named Married. The LORD is delighted with you, and your land will be married.

To even things out a bit. . .

Here's another shopping experience to balance my Paloquemao market post. I don't want to give the impression that I live in a village and shop in markets.

Just a few blocks away (and right across the street from Paloquemao) they've been building a mall called La Calima since I moved into Torre Fuerte. It's been fun watching it go up and open section by section. The anchor stores opened first- Home Center (like a home depot) and La Catorce (something along the lines of a super Wal Mart). Then the movie theater and a couple of food shops. Now the 3 story mall is mostly open, with your average collection of clothes, shoes, and electronics stores, at least 5 restaurants and a food court.

The large and mostly empty food court

We headed over on Thursday night since we had a fumigator come in to spray and had to leave the house. The mall still has a lot of empty stores, and not much traffic (at least on a Thursday evening).

The palm trees and ceiling have changing colored lights in the central plaza

The malls here make my local malls back in the States seem tiny by comparison when I go home.

A more excellent way

I was sitting with a friend, lamenting the way the formula I’d believed in hadn’t worked out, wishing for another formula, even as I acknowledged that the problem is, there is no magic formula.

Somehow, I always thought it would all work out. All those moms who poured their lives into their kids would be rewarded with kids who followed the Lord. All of us who “kissed dating good bye” would end up falling in love and getting married without any unnecessary broken hearts.

And then, the train wreck. Friends who I grew up with pregnant and unmarried, young adults leaving the faith, my own failed relationship and subsequent heartbreak.

I kept thinking, “what went wrong?”. Part of me recognized the problem was that all along, without realizing it, I believed some form of the prosperity gospel. I would have spoken out against the belief that following God would bring me health or money or success. But, I believed that following God would guarantee healthy happy relationships. Even as I began to realize the false beliefs that had crept in, I still kept thinking, “but maybe we did just mess up”. Maybe the problem was we didn’t try hard enough. We weren’t quite set apart enough. Maybe if we had been a family with 8 children all in matching dresses who ground our own wheat and didn’t watch movies it would have been different. Maybe if I had gotten my parents’ permission before starting a relationship, instead of their blessing after starting it, I wouldn’t have ended up with a broken heart. Maybe if those other families hadn’t sent their kids back to public school, they wouldn’t have become single moms.

And maybe that’s true. But maybe it isn’t. Because there are no fail proof formulas. My mom recently sent me a link to a website called “Recovering Grace”. The people sharing their stories there were from those “perfect” families, the ones who did it all right, who followed all the rules. And guess what? They had heartbreaks too. Not everything worked out. And along the way, some of them lost sight of their relationship with our loving father and focused on following all the right steps so things would work out right.

It’s hard though. I want to know “the” right way to do things. I like to know the answers. But, Jesus doesn’t do formulas. Just look at the stories of him healing the blind- he puts mud on one man’s eyes, another he touches, and a third he just speaks to and he’s healed. So, maybe for some, courtship is the way to meet their spouse, but for others, God uses e-harmony to bring them together. Homeschooling is what God calls some to, but others send their kids to public school, or Christian school, and none of those decisions make someone part of some Christian elite, the group that is following God more faithfully or closely.

So now, I’m trying to live a formula-less life. A grace filled life. A life that looks to Jesus and knows that HE is my inheritance, despite the mess that goes on around me. And I fail. I catch myself thinking for the four hundred seventy third time, “now I know the answer”, focusing on getting it right instead of focusing on the one who saved me from needing to work to please God. But that’s all right. Because that’s what grace is for- starting over again, forgiveness, relationship. And so Jesus calls me back to himself, and once again, I stumble along, learning to live in grace, by grace.

Happy Anniversary to me!

One year ago, I moved into Torre Fuerte! That's the longest I've lived anywhere other than my parents' house up to this point. It's been a year full of changes.

One year ago, the night we moved in, our living room looked like this:

Now, it looks like this:

This was my bedroom a year ago:

And this is what it looks like today (other than the desk is much neater in this photo)

Definitely an improvement for the better.

Of the five of us who originally moved in, I'm the only one left. Then, there were the others who spent some time living here- the boys lived with us for 2 months, Abi spent about 6 weeks with us. My new housemates started arriving in July when Rae Ann moved in. Peter moved in in October, and Jessica moved in last week.

I've loved this first year of turning a house into a home and having a place to show hospitality. Countless lunches and dinners with friends, many unplanned, overnight guests, parties, hosting women's Bible study have given me a sense of belonging, right here, despite the endless traffic noise, the drunks outside my window, the homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk.

Today also marks another anniversary- 2 years since I arrived in Bogotá! Somehow it seems like it's been longer than 2 years (probably because our 3rd school year already started), but in other ways it's hard for me to believe it's already been 2 full years.

Here's to another year full of learning, loving, and serving!

Poor kitty

Our kitty Misha didn't make it through her last bout of sickness. She died the morning we officially started back to work here, which was not a good start to the work year.

My friend Emily's cat had kittens back around Thanksgiving, and we had already offered to take one, so on Saturday she dropped off a little calico. Despite the fact that we all had our reservations about getting a new cat so soon, she's won us over with her ridiculous cuteness.

We've been spoiling her all weekend long as she gets passed from one person to the next, cuddled and played with. Today, we were gone all day. As soon as we walked in the door, I went to check on her. She was meowing, loudly, indignantly. I checked in her basket. It was empty. Behind the washing machine where Stephen says she likes to sleep. Not there. She sounded closer though. Then I looked down. We have a utility sink in the laundry room, and I couldn't get it to drain the other day when I was cleaning. It has an inch or 2 of nasty water at the bottom. And there was our sweet kitten, standing in the water, bedraggled, wet, smelly, and shivering.

I fished her out, brought her upstairs, dried her off with a blow-drier, and then sandwiched her between my shirt and my stomach so she would warm up. She stayed there for a long time, shivering anytime I peeked to look at her, but now she's back to her happy self, curled up on my lap and cleaning off the nasty water she fell in.

Isn't she cute?

Disposable

Sara and I are standing in the doorway, waving good bye, when he shuffles around the corner, startling me. He clenches a torn sheet around his shoulders, his beard is overgrown, but it's his eyes that catch my attention. They're piercing, hurt, and look at me more directly than I've grown to expect from men on the street. He asks if we have any bread and Sara goes to get him some, while I stay in the open doorway. He greets me, I ask how he is. "Soy desechable" he tells me, "I'm disposable". It's a term used here to describe the homeless. Unwanted. Unworthy. Unvalued. "They might say that about you", I tell him. "But you're not, you're a human, made in God's image and likeness. You are worthy, and you have value." He thanks me, and I stand, not sure what to say or do next. Sara comes to the door with bread and cheese and hands it to him, and he shuffles off again.

And I wonder, did he know I really meant it? Were those few words, and a bite to eat offered from our house enough to give him even a glimmer of hope? Does he believe the lies he hears about himself? Is he, in his own mind, disposable?

I pray for him. I pray for me. I pray all of us, broken, reaching out to other broken lives.