Living in another part of the world has vastly broadened my opinions, ideas, and thoughts about a lot of things. Sometimes I'm shocked at the things I view as important that are judged seemingly inconsequential to a vast majority of the world (like....punctuality). Other times the changes or different viewpoints seem like a welcome change.
But there are those times when something is said that totally jars me. Where I realize a part of "my world" that seems right, and noble, and just, and fair...is just, well... my opinion.
I had one of those moments in Ireland. It was odd. Really odd. It came at a moment when I least expected it. Right smack dab in the middle of a prayer service.
To be honest, it's something that has been swirling around in my head. Little exposures to it in Portugal intrigued me. But all of the sudden, in the middle of a old Irish man's prayer...it all came together.
God is not Republican. Nor is He a Capitalist.
I know, I know. I am a card carrying member of the Republican party. I have volunteered for multiple campaigns. And to the day he dies, I will love George Bush. (We can discuss this at a later time... let's stick to the topic at hand). So it bothered me when I heard this man pray.
I listened as he sincerely prayed for what sounded like (to my ears) a communist and socialistic movement to help aid his country. He begged the Lord to "spread the wealth around so that all could live in equality." And, if I'm being honest, it hurt my Republican, capitalism-loving ears.
But it bothered me.
Why do I equate my political viewpoints and philosophy about the fundamentals of economics with being Christian? Why do I think within a box... and view everyone outside my box as wrong?
There in my seat, in a small, Baptist church in Ireland...I realized:
God is listening to that man's prayer.
God does care for the concerns of all.
God hears the cries of Irish believers who are on the verge of losing their jobs and facing the realities of a devastated economy.
And my "American" philosophy of politics and economics is not the answer.
God is.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Erin Go Braugh... "Ireland Forever"
I just got back from a whirl-wind of a trip to Ireland. Because there was a holiday in Portugal, the school had a five-day weekend. My roommates and I headed to Dublin to stay with an ABWE missionary. These are just a few of the pictures I took...
1) Irish Stew tastes much better in Ireland.
2)Ever since I drove past the oldest cemetery in Des Moines (which I took a field trip to in fifth grade), I've been dying to go (no pun intended) and take pictures there. Something about wandering through by myself and snapping pictures felt a little odd... and my friends thought I was ridiculous...so I abstained. But here... in Ireland... I lived out the dream :) And this cemetery... infinitely cooler....and centuries older. :)
3) These faces would describe how we felt about paying six euros to go to an ancient burial tomb (which is a World Heritage Site). I'm sorry... but standing wall to wall with people, trapped inside with only one narrow escape, having to listen to a melodramatic presentation complete with the lights being shut off...Nope, not my idea of fun... or interesting. It was, however, hilarious trying to keep from laughing outloud when they shut the lights out...and when they said, "You'll notice that the tomb is in the shape of a cross. This has nothing to do with Christianity." Yup, I laughed.
4) We saw these two couples walking though the park in Dublin's city centre. A few days later we flipped open the pages of the Irish newspaper, and there they were. Apparently the girls are best friends... and marrying each other's brothers. And, oddly enough, they are Ukranians who met in Argentina but they all lived in Dublin. I thought it was interesting.
5) I absolutely loved seeing so many different parts of Ireland. The countryside was gorgeous.
6) Dublin's City Centre = craziness. Wow.. So many people... so little space. It's beautiful, and I loved walking around Dublin, but it did make me thankful for Lisbon. For some reason things just felt so much more crowded in Dublin.
7) This is for my mom. See, I'm alive and well. And... you'd be proud. I left a cafe as quickly as possible and was even mean (ok... I wish I would have been mean...I really just walked out...but I feel like that's mean, right?) when we got hassled by four VERY, VERY drunk, rude, and crass men.
8) Aw... castles. They are so abundant in Europe. I love them. It's intriguing to think people lived here in 1135. And fascinating to think Oliver Cromwell stepped foot in here. But beware... supposedly ghosts live here as well (or so the tourist guide tried to convince us...). :)
9)This about sums up the trip. Yes, people are strange. Very, very strange...and it seems as if they just keep getting stranger. :)
1) Irish Stew tastes much better in Ireland.
2)Ever since I drove past the oldest cemetery in Des Moines (which I took a field trip to in fifth grade), I've been dying to go (no pun intended) and take pictures there. Something about wandering through by myself and snapping pictures felt a little odd... and my friends thought I was ridiculous...so I abstained. But here... in Ireland... I lived out the dream :) And this cemetery... infinitely cooler....and centuries older. :)
3) These faces would describe how we felt about paying six euros to go to an ancient burial tomb (which is a World Heritage Site). I'm sorry... but standing wall to wall with people, trapped inside with only one narrow escape, having to listen to a melodramatic presentation complete with the lights being shut off...Nope, not my idea of fun... or interesting. It was, however, hilarious trying to keep from laughing outloud when they shut the lights out...and when they said, "You'll notice that the tomb is in the shape of a cross. This has nothing to do with Christianity." Yup, I laughed.
4) We saw these two couples walking though the park in Dublin's city centre. A few days later we flipped open the pages of the Irish newspaper, and there they were. Apparently the girls are best friends... and marrying each other's brothers. And, oddly enough, they are Ukranians who met in Argentina but they all lived in Dublin. I thought it was interesting.
5) I absolutely loved seeing so many different parts of Ireland. The countryside was gorgeous.
6) Dublin's City Centre = craziness. Wow.. So many people... so little space. It's beautiful, and I loved walking around Dublin, but it did make me thankful for Lisbon. For some reason things just felt so much more crowded in Dublin.
7) This is for my mom. See, I'm alive and well. And... you'd be proud. I left a cafe as quickly as possible and was even mean (ok... I wish I would have been mean...I really just walked out...but I feel like that's mean, right?) when we got hassled by four VERY, VERY drunk, rude, and crass men.
8) Aw... castles. They are so abundant in Europe. I love them. It's intriguing to think people lived here in 1135. And fascinating to think Oliver Cromwell stepped foot in here. But beware... supposedly ghosts live here as well (or so the tourist guide tried to convince us...). :)
9)This about sums up the trip. Yes, people are strange. Very, very strange...and it seems as if they just keep getting stranger. :)
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Becoming Ruth...
I'm teaching through the book of Ruth. I've come to learn (in all four of my years of teaching experience) that God, in His sovereignty, designs the Bible curriculum to correspond with the things that need to be dealt with in my heart.
This week... I needed to be reminded of God's perfect plan.
I know the story of Ruth so well... but this week as I was reading through it again, I was amazed at how Ruth followed Naomi with no hopes of ever remarrying. In fact, Naomi told her that if she chose to follow her... there would be no possible way she could ever provide another husband for her. Naomi had no possible way to provide for her own needs... let alone Ruth's. The only hope they had was a report that there was food.
Rather than stay in her own town... with her own people and her own family... Ruth went. As I read that... I wondered if Ruth ever thought that by following Naomi she was resigning herself to singleness forever. What hope was there?
And when I began to see Ruth as the real woman with real emotions that she really was... I began to understand her in a different way. She didn't know that Boaz was only a "chapter" away. All she knew was that she was miles from home picking up grain in somebody's field for her dead husband's mother. She didn't know that her next love story was going to be written in the midst of the grain field. She had no idea... she was just doing what she felt she was supposed to do.
And as I saw the story in a whole new light... I cried.
My God can do that.
He can take a broken widow living in a foreign country and overwhelm her with something she probably never could have imagined possible.
And if my God can do that... maybe He's doing something for me. Maybe He is working and writing a story I can't even begin to imagine while I'm here... in my field.
I don't know what my story is... I don't know if God has a Boaz for me... but I know that I needed that reminder. I needed to know that my God cared for a Gentile woman who lost her husband. He cared enough to write a more beautiful love story for her than Shakespeare could have ever imagined...one that will forever be recorded in the only Book that will last for eternity.
And that God cares for me.
Beautiful story, isn't it? :)
This week... I needed to be reminded of God's perfect plan.
I know the story of Ruth so well... but this week as I was reading through it again, I was amazed at how Ruth followed Naomi with no hopes of ever remarrying. In fact, Naomi told her that if she chose to follow her... there would be no possible way she could ever provide another husband for her. Naomi had no possible way to provide for her own needs... let alone Ruth's. The only hope they had was a report that there was food.
Rather than stay in her own town... with her own people and her own family... Ruth went. As I read that... I wondered if Ruth ever thought that by following Naomi she was resigning herself to singleness forever. What hope was there?
And when I began to see Ruth as the real woman with real emotions that she really was... I began to understand her in a different way. She didn't know that Boaz was only a "chapter" away. All she knew was that she was miles from home picking up grain in somebody's field for her dead husband's mother. She didn't know that her next love story was going to be written in the midst of the grain field. She had no idea... she was just doing what she felt she was supposed to do.
And as I saw the story in a whole new light... I cried.
My God can do that.
He can take a broken widow living in a foreign country and overwhelm her with something she probably never could have imagined possible.
And if my God can do that... maybe He's doing something for me. Maybe He is working and writing a story I can't even begin to imagine while I'm here... in my field.
I don't know what my story is... I don't know if God has a Boaz for me... but I know that I needed that reminder. I needed to know that my God cared for a Gentile woman who lost her husband. He cared enough to write a more beautiful love story for her than Shakespeare could have ever imagined...one that will forever be recorded in the only Book that will last for eternity.
And that God cares for me.
Beautiful story, isn't it? :)
Monday, February 28, 2011
The things I'm thankful for today...
1) Having Krisanna here...
2) The beach...everytime I go I think, "Why did I live in Iowa?"
3)Great bones... seriously... I should have broken at least two or three by this point in my life.
4)Moments where I can't help but be amazed at the beautiful creativity of my God...
2) The beach...everytime I go I think, "Why did I live in Iowa?"
3)Great bones... seriously... I should have broken at least two or three by this point in my life.
4)Moments where I can't help but be amazed at the beautiful creativity of my God...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Excess...
too much. an over-abundance. full. stuffed. unable to contain more.
Or... my closet.
Seriously. Nothing is more depressing (and embarrassing) as realizing you not only have enough stuff to completely FILL your closet... you also have so much that you BREAK your closet.
Yup.
Sometime in the morning I awoke to a booming "SNAP!" Because I had earplugs in (yes, I sleep with earplugs...every night), I figured the sound must have come from the people above me. Not so. Unfortunately as soon as I awoke and opened my door to see what to wear...I realized exactly what that noise was.
How do I accumulate so much stuff? I made a decision two months ago not to buy anymore clothes. I don't need them. I need to enjoy and wear what I have. Today confirmed it.
And nothing is more embarrassing and humiliating than having to tell Cal (which is why I told Joyce) that I had so much stuff that I snapped the closet. This is made even more embarrassing when you realize he thought I would only need ten or so hangers when I first got here...I'm not even telling you how many I have now...
BUT... He came.. He fixed... (and He said nothing.) ;)
I'm thankful for someone who knows how to do about everything. I think every girl should either live close to their dad... or to Cal. :)
Or... my closet.
Seriously. Nothing is more depressing (and embarrassing) as realizing you not only have enough stuff to completely FILL your closet... you also have so much that you BREAK your closet.
Yup.
Sometime in the morning I awoke to a booming "SNAP!" Because I had earplugs in (yes, I sleep with earplugs...every night), I figured the sound must have come from the people above me. Not so. Unfortunately as soon as I awoke and opened my door to see what to wear...I realized exactly what that noise was.
How do I accumulate so much stuff? I made a decision two months ago not to buy anymore clothes. I don't need them. I need to enjoy and wear what I have. Today confirmed it.
And nothing is more embarrassing and humiliating than having to tell Cal (which is why I told Joyce) that I had so much stuff that I snapped the closet. This is made even more embarrassing when you realize he thought I would only need ten or so hangers when I first got here...I'm not even telling you how many I have now...
BUT... He came.. He fixed... (and He said nothing.) ;)
I'm thankful for someone who knows how to do about everything. I think every girl should either live close to their dad... or to Cal. :)
Thursday, February 24, 2011
:)
Krisanna and Jess arrived. :)
I can't really tell you how incredibly amazing it is to have people from HOME come and stay for an extended period of time. It's such a huge blessing... one that I know I don't deserve--but one for which I am incredibly grateful (awkward sentence wording... but I was reminded today not to end a sentence with the word "for"... so I figured I should at least try).
The night before they arrived I could barely sleep...It felt like the night before Christmas... :)
I love having them here.
I've begun pouring my energy (and by "energy" I mean exorbitant amount of extra time that I'm not sure why I have so much of here...) into creating a book study guide for my class. I'm so excited about teaching it. It's one of my favorite books regarding the Holocaust. So...home-made deodorant is going to have to wait for some time...I'm only nine chapters into twenty-seven. :) (Did I just hear a collective sigh of relief?)
Language is going well... for the most part. I still can't say that I fully understand why God has wired me to LOVE it so much. It's like this key to a door that holds a whole new world... and right now... I'm still trying to get the key to turn. I feel like I should be so much further than where I really am. I so desperately wish I could just converse with people... people outside of my "world" of school and home. Hopefully someday...
I do finally feel like I have my own place here. I don't know if I can adequately describe it... but I just feel like I'm finding where I fit for however long God has me here. And more than once I've caught myself feeling very much at home.
On a random side note...
I shocked myself yesterday when I opened a package my mom had sent with Krisanna. It was a zip-lock bag with four shirts that I had left and wanted. I opened them and threw the bag and shirts on the bed when suddenly I smelled it. I quickly snatched up the shirts and buried my face into them to see if it was really it. Sure enough... they smelled like home. It was odd. I sniffed the shirts for about five minutes and then ripped open the other bag of shirts to see if they smelled just as familiar. It was weird.... how smells can be so intimately connected and intertwined with memories of places and people. While I love being here... it was so nice to smell there for just a few minutes.
I can't really tell you how incredibly amazing it is to have people from HOME come and stay for an extended period of time. It's such a huge blessing... one that I know I don't deserve--but one for which I am incredibly grateful (awkward sentence wording... but I was reminded today not to end a sentence with the word "for"... so I figured I should at least try).
The night before they arrived I could barely sleep...It felt like the night before Christmas... :)
I love having them here.
I've begun pouring my energy (and by "energy" I mean exorbitant amount of extra time that I'm not sure why I have so much of here...) into creating a book study guide for my class. I'm so excited about teaching it. It's one of my favorite books regarding the Holocaust. So...home-made deodorant is going to have to wait for some time...I'm only nine chapters into twenty-seven. :) (Did I just hear a collective sigh of relief?)
Language is going well... for the most part. I still can't say that I fully understand why God has wired me to LOVE it so much. It's like this key to a door that holds a whole new world... and right now... I'm still trying to get the key to turn. I feel like I should be so much further than where I really am. I so desperately wish I could just converse with people... people outside of my "world" of school and home. Hopefully someday...
I do finally feel like I have my own place here. I don't know if I can adequately describe it... but I just feel like I'm finding where I fit for however long God has me here. And more than once I've caught myself feeling very much at home.
On a random side note...
I shocked myself yesterday when I opened a package my mom had sent with Krisanna. It was a zip-lock bag with four shirts that I had left and wanted. I opened them and threw the bag and shirts on the bed when suddenly I smelled it. I quickly snatched up the shirts and buried my face into them to see if it was really it. Sure enough... they smelled like home. It was odd. I sniffed the shirts for about five minutes and then ripped open the other bag of shirts to see if they smelled just as familiar. It was weird.... how smells can be so intimately connected and intertwined with memories of places and people. While I love being here... it was so nice to smell there for just a few minutes.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Judges....
To Whom It May Concern:
Thank you. Your words convicted, but left me desiring more. Sometimes it wasn't even the words you said. It was just your life. It left me hungry, realizing you had something that I didn't have.
You inspired. You encouraged. You pushed.
And more than anything, you left deep within me the desire to be for others what you were for me. So--to the "judge" God used in my life-- I thank you. You have impacted me far more than you realize.
Because you followed hard after Him... I wanted to know Him more.
Because you showed me His love for me... I didn't go looking for it in other places.
Because you taught with your life... I knew what it looked like to love Jesus.
Thank you.
This month I've been working through the book of Judges with my students. We've studied Ehud, Gideon, Deborah (one of my favorites), and many others. Today the challenge was to think about the "judges" God has used in our lives to redirect, remind, and refocus us on God. Our challenge was to write a thank you note for the person God used in our lives. This was mine. I've said it so many times before... but I've been blessed. I'm eternally grateful for the people God put in my life to speak His words to me.
Thank you. Your words convicted, but left me desiring more. Sometimes it wasn't even the words you said. It was just your life. It left me hungry, realizing you had something that I didn't have.
You inspired. You encouraged. You pushed.
And more than anything, you left deep within me the desire to be for others what you were for me. So--to the "judge" God used in my life-- I thank you. You have impacted me far more than you realize.
Because you followed hard after Him... I wanted to know Him more.
Because you showed me His love for me... I didn't go looking for it in other places.
Because you taught with your life... I knew what it looked like to love Jesus.
Thank you.
This month I've been working through the book of Judges with my students. We've studied Ehud, Gideon, Deborah (one of my favorites), and many others. Today the challenge was to think about the "judges" God has used in our lives to redirect, remind, and refocus us on God. Our challenge was to write a thank you note for the person God used in our lives. This was mine. I've said it so many times before... but I've been blessed. I'm eternally grateful for the people God put in my life to speak His words to me.
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