Coming Around Is a Beautiful Thing

So, after having bawled my eyes out at the disaster area my room is, I am done now, and officially thankful, grateful.

I went for a walk in the park with my friend Jeanne, and we met the neatest old couple. Victoria and Erwin, he's 91 and she's 84. That's my kind of age gap. They have ten kids, most of them in Illinois or Fridley, MN. They love the Lord and were missionaries to Ethiopia for 12 years, where they helped build houses and served in a school. They said they saw the first believers in their province come to know the Lord Jesus. Now they live across the street from me, and are still in love, and have an apartment where they can see both the sunset and sunrise. I get to pick them up and bring them to Hope on Sunday. They're exactly the motivation I need to go to Hope right now.

They reminded me today to be grateful. There is a good plan for my life, and maybe one day I can sit in the park with my old husband (I'll be old too) and we can talk to inquisitive youngsters. I hope, at the end of my days, I can say I loved and served the Lord my whole life, and that I served Him in another country, seeing people come to know and worship Him. Their life glorifies their God. I want that too.

And bitching about my room doesn't glorify Him one bit. So, I don't know what the big lesson is out of this mess (literally, I'm sitting on the floor, in between my Moroccan mirror, and K's table, and a whole pile of stuff, because all adorable brown Pier 1 chairs are in the hallway now and everything from the bedroom is in the study, blocking the desk). But, I do know that I have more stuff than any one person in any other country would ever own. And I am put out because it was all rifled through, and moved. There are women in other countries who's families go through their things every day searching for signs of a faith that is forbidden. People who's stuff is burned to the ground.

Yes, I am an intensely private person and I've seen that aspect of my personality put to the test lately. Yes, I'm still not dealing with it quite well. It's one thing to have the inner workings of my heart and thoughts put to scrutiny by a board of elders, it's another thing entirely to have the paint guy move my pile of dirty laundry (including personal effects) into the other room. I'm not sure which is worse, or more violating. But I'm starting to get the big picture of the big lesson. My life is not my own. That includes privacy. Stink! I kind of am not ready to deal with that, but apparently God thinks I am.

Well, I know He will not give me more than I can handle, and apparently He knows that I can handle a lot more than I think. I will trust in Him, and be most grateful for this big pile of mess. My heart has come around a bit, and like my room when I get to put everything back, I'm hoping it will be a beautiful thing.