What a weekend.
Saturday I went with Jay and Joe to a Nazarene church in downtown Philadelphia to help them with renovating a space. We were there to dig a five feet deep trench for a pipe and let me tell you, it wasn't easy! Luckily for us, most of the trench had already been dug three to four feet in places. All we had to do was to straighten the tunnel and work on making it deeper. Unfortunately, for the first two hours or so, there were only about four people working on the twenty-five metre long trench.
Being the only girl there, I felt as if I wouldn't be able to help much as the other muscular males. Have you seen my spindly arms? I also had to sit outside for a while when there was too much exhaust accumulated in the room from the dirt cutter.
But I did my best and dug as hard as I could. I kept telling myself that if my female ancestors could do this on a daily basis (farming... lol), so could I for one short day! My shoulders were aching by the time I got home, but it was nothing compared to the full body ache I woke up with this Sunday morning. Hole-digging is definitely not easy!
Anyways... After my last post, I did manage to go run and do some homework. However since I spent all Saturday hole-digging and going to a football game, I didn't have any energy left over to study for my German final. This leaves me with just 2.5 days to cram in six chapters of German grammar rules and vocabulary... Ach!
Not to mention there are another two finals that I just kind of shelved away in the back of my mind. I'll probably study for them like the night before or something... They should be relatively easy and I paid attention in those classes so it shouldn't be too bad.
Yep.
Friday night before I went to bed around 23:00, I suddenly had a thought in my mind. Well ok it wasn't really a sudden thought but I ended up going to sleep at 04:00 five hours later because it drove me nuts.
I've been feeling very restless ever since I came back from Singapore in August and that feeling has been suppressed temporarily, only to resurface in full force with the threat of impending finals.
Some call it wanderlust.
These days, who doesn't like to travel, to see new places? But wanderlust (pronounced Vahn-der-lOOst in German) is like being driven crazy with the thought of going somewhere. And that's what I've been going through... being driven crazy by the the feeling of melting into my armchair while the great outdoors beckoned. After that nice little daydream I described in the last post, I returned to a familiar daydream that took me off the beaten road and into the wild wild west.
In my dream I'm hitching air, freight, car and boat rides all the way down to Patagonia, back up to Alaska, crossing the Bering Strait through Siberia to Europe then down to Africa, finally ending with a jaunt through Asia.
Truth be told, if God made me male instead of female, I would not have graduated college. By now, I probably would have left my parents' house, vagabonding my way across America, bumming it from town to town. But I'm not really doing all these things i dream about constantly simply because I am a girl.
I know there are many women vagabonding and hitchhiking out there, but I value my life and my body enough to stay put here. Maybe before I turned Christian I might have still disregarded all these things but now I think differently. It's not even about safety sometimes; I just don't want my family to worry. To throw my parents' investment in me away is just plain selfishness.
But even as I stay here living my life, I can't help but feel overwhelming wanderlust sometimes. Just this itch to get out of my house with a little rucksack and my sleeping bag... I often get urges to take long walks late at night and it takes a lot of effort to talk myself out of it.
Living in one place too long though drives me nuts.
Jay said to me yesterday that maybe I'll become a missionary someday. I'll get to travel AND share the gospel with people around the world. How cool is that?
It's not like I haven't thought about being a missionary before. I actually dream a lot about it too... Especially so after I watched the movie End of the Spear about this missionary who moved his family to Ecuador and how his death helped to convert entire tribes of natives who had never heard of Waengongi (God) before.
Yeah I do daydream about travelling the world to unknown places, sleeping on a different floor every night and living day to day with God as my only guide. But how realistic is this dream? Till today, God has not called me into doing missions and although I would love to do it, I don't want to do something that has not been commanded by God.
Sometimes I get a little sad thinking to myself that God will probably never call me into missions. He'll probably just have me do something that I don't naturally enjoy- like working in an office so that I can reach the people there... Same thing with finding a spouse. Sometimes I imagine that God will probably send me a guy who is not athletic at all, doesn't understand the joys of outdoor self-reliant living and who can't share appreciation of the different cultures I've been raised in. He'll probably be short, stocky and a little bit slow; but he'll be a loveable Christian and I'll love him anyway.
I might as well resign to my fate of true suffering for Christ.
How depressing these thoughts are!
Why do I want to imagine that God wants me to be miserable? Does He not say in His Word "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4)? Also doesn't he promise that His plans for me are to prosper me and not to harm me? Plans to give me a hope and a future? (Jeremiah 29:11).
It is so easy to listen to all these doubts when the going gets rough or my heart gets restless... But the Lord says "my grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9). He reminds me not to compare my life to that of non-Christians who seem to be doing just fine without the Lord's instruction. "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes" (Psalm 37:7).
There are so many doubts that attack me on a daily basis... Not just these doubts about my future career and spouse, but also about running. Will 2011 be a repeat of my failed 2008 track season? It seems highly probable, except that I've actually asked God to step in this time.
I guess my heightening wanderlust is an indication of the anxiety that's been creeping at the back of my mind. I talk about trusting in God and having faith all the time but when it comes down to it, it seems like I've got even less faith than a mustard seed. But God said that "if we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself" 2 Timothy 2:13
God your faithfulness is all that I can hang onto right now. By grace You reached out to me and took hold of my heart. By grace You died for me and walked me out of darkness into a life of peace, love and joy. By grace You continually reveal to me Your will and ways. I sought and You were found. I knocked and You answered. You did not have to do any of these things... when have I ever earned Your forgiveness, Your presence or Your blessings? But by grace You gave them all to me and more.
I do not know what the future holds- but one thing I do know- that You love me and Your grace is ENOUGH!
Sigh... :)
I feel a lot better after typing this all out.
Goodbye y'all!
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