Pedestals.....

Eventually everyone placed on a pedestal falls off....or jumps off. 

In some cases they do both. They start slipping and then think "if I'm going down, lets just do a swan dive"! 

Maybe its the pressure of people's unrealistic expectations....maybe its a character flaw, maybe its just how things are. For some reason people like to see others fall.... and it's much more interesting if its a fall of some distance. 

My problem is I've never liked heights. But anytime I've tried to tell people that they just pat me on the back and reassure me that its ok.......there's nothing to be afraid of. 

So, still not fully understanding how I got here (on the pedestal that is,  not the falling off part)..... I've decided to crawl down. 

Not very attractive I know. Slipping, falling or jumping would be much more glamorous. But I can't for the life of me figure out how else to get down without making a mess, and good southern girl I am...we just can't have that!

Now what?

Being a missionary is a bit like experiencing your own death without actually having to die.

You leave your family, friends and life as you’ve known but are not really “gone”.

Finding yourself in a sort of third dimension now referred to as the “new culture”, you come to realize that life has gone on for all those you left behind, and although they do miss you …the old saying ”out of sight out of mind” holds a lot of truth.

World events pass you by and you soon forget (and are forgotten) by once important dates and holidays. Reading a newspaper from your home culture you realize you will never be able to successfully play Trivial Pursuit again since you now exist outside the “trivia” loop. Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Memorial Day simply become days of the week and the turkey and dressing, fireworks and Parades continue just fine in your absence.

Then there’s the whole expectation meets reality aspect of coming face to face with your new culture. Up till now all this was mere speculation….and now you find that most of what you’d thought was wrong and didn’t begin to scratch the surface. Good & evil, beauty & ugliness, bitter & sweet co-existing and sometimes indistinguishable. From this new perspective, you can look back and reflect how God’s plan for your life and yours were so very different. What He really wanted you to do, to learn and to experience was so much more than you had imagined.

And now that you have died and layers of self have been peeled back exposing raw vulnerability…now what?

the truth

you know the line from "A Few Good Men" when being cross examined by Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson yells ...."the truth, you couldn't handle the truth!"  

well that's me.... can't (or more accurately don't want to)  handle the truth. in my 50 something years.... i've had an ongoing struggle confronting the truth of my emotions, the truth of my feelings, and the truth in many of my relationships (especially with men).  

i started this blog (as that cute little byline or whatever up there says) to have a place where i could speak freely about the inner thoughts of my heart...... but i overlooked one small detail. first i have to KNOW the TRUTH of what's going on in my heart...dah! 

one of my recent means of avoidance, for dealing with stress and feeling homesick, has been to immerse myself in reading other peoples blogs....i think i just wanted to feel part of  a "normal" life again. anyway its turned into a real learning experience on several levels. 

even though i've had a "public" website (not this one) for almost 2 years...i am not very savvy when it comes to blogs, web pages, the Internet or even computers for that matter (my teenage son taught me most of what i know and now he's several continents away) so this is a whole new world.

 i've been impressed with the raw honesty of so many men & women, and their willingness to pull back the facade most of us try to hide behind. i've also been reminded of a sermon andy stanley gave about a living a "truth quest" life (truth with yourself and before God).

all this has brought me to today...now.  facing again my reluctance to tackle truth and living with the unhappy results.  i believe Jesus when he said "the truth will set you free" and i soooo long for true freedom. 

so....having been emboldened, believing Jesus and really not wanting to keep hiding- i've decided to start a truth quest today.  

i'll start with what i've learned so far:

• there are no normal people...most of us are f *%#@!d up one way or another
• you can literally spend a whole day reading these things (blogs)
• some people are amazingly funny, witty and gifted
• some people are amazingly lame
• some people look a lot better with their cloths on
• everyone is struggling with life
• i have a problem being honest with myself
• i care way to much what other people think 
• modern technology is incredible
• Japanese DO love taking pictures
• God can speak to us in ways we never imagined.....a burning bush, a donkey, Internet blogs
• i'm definitely experiencing some type of culture stress, depression and /or post traumatic stress 
• keeping feelings repressed can be a good survival/ coping mechanism but only works for so long  
• i don't know how i went from being a black sheep, prodigal daughter, Samaritan woman to being a missionary but becoming a missionary did't miraculously make all my "issues" disappear (another -dah!)!
• i probably need counselling

maybe "seeking my inner voice" should have been the name of this blog but what the heck i'm not going to worry about it now.....  i think my next entry will be about pedestals and humpty dumpty :-)

naked thoughts

as soon as i sit to write.....the words fly away

all those thoughts that beat about my head till it aches..... run and hide

 my thoughts, hopes, and best of intentions seek cover..... not wanting to stand naked 

 my feelings quiet themselves trying to conceal their identity 

if you could say anything you wanted -what would you say? 

if you could love anyone you wanted -who would you love?

i was loved...... and i loved

the words we spoke fell bittersweet from our tongues,  casting shadows which we hid behind

now when i look for them they are gone...... 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

" It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"...how many times have I heard this one?

Browsing blog sites I would say this quote has been overused and, dare I say, insulted by flippant application to such trivial events as vacations gone bad,  baby's diaper rash, first year of college....etc...etc. 

PEOPLE..... have you read "The Tale of Two Cities"? Can you fathom the depths of darkness the human heart is capable of? Or the heights to which the spirit of love can reach?

Algae in your swimming pool, not having air conditioning, the cute guy on campus not talking to you....... these are not, and I repeat not, catastrophic events! 

Spend a day at a refugee camp, talk to a 10 year old thats been sold into the sex trade by their parents, visit the AIDS ward in a third world country, listen to the sound of people being killed outside while you are safe and sheltered in the arms of someone who loves you, look deep into the eyes of a man that just killed an entire family.....then tell me about the best & worst of times.

Anyway,  just had to get that off my chest.

Great Expectations....

I believe love may be the greatest and most misconstrued "expectation" any of us ever have....

We imagine what it will look like, what it will feel like and like Pip, in the Dickens novel, how it will change our lives. Expectations however can often lead to fantasy, or blind us to reality and truth...leaving us wondering " what happened"?

So often real love is right next to us.....unrecognizable and hidden in a form we have not conceived. We desire passion and God sends perseverance, we look for beauty and He sends faithfulness, we search for significance and he sends rejection & persecution...we miss the opportunity to "know" what love really is.

Without Gods wisdom, understanding and truth - our love becomes self seeking and repeats the mistakes of history. Self love is deceptive and cunning, always needing more but never satisfied....seeking only for itself.

Self love is what justifies inordinate personal indulgences while people die of preventable diseases and hunger, the killing of unborn children while claiming the right to ones own "pro-choice", the raping of young girls and women because "they asked for it", and killing your neighbor because they are a different race, religion or tribe.

Sometimes self love and our desire to have "what we want" the "way we want it" simply lead to misdirected choices that rob us of achieving our full potential..... and a future that would have been greater than all our expectations.

Looking back,  I agree with the words from an old song that say "I really don't know love at all".... but looking forward, and clinging tighter to Jesus,  I realize I haven't missed my chance.

Blog surfing

Blog surfing this weekend and it hit me....after 21 months of living in a foreign country I suddenly have an overwhelming urge  to "connect" with my culture of origin. Umm... think this commonly referred to as homesickness. 

Why did I think I would be immune? Maybe because I was adjusting so well....an extended "honeymoon" phase that seemed so natural. Well they say that "Pride goeth before a fall"  and a  fall into nothingness is such a long way down.

Can one truly embrace each step of a journey with equal enthusiasm?

"Oh Lord,  who came from above to live among us...did you miss heaven? Did you surf the celestial web to see what the angels were up to and view the heavenly realms  which you chose to leave? Whisper your secrets to my heart and renew my spirit."