I find myself overwhelmed; big crowds, people speaking English, dryers, dish washers, speed limits, grocery stores, rinsing my toothbrush with faucet water, air conditioning, greasy American food, phone calls, the list could go on. Adjusting back to the high class American life could be said to be overwhelming, especially as I sit in my parents HUGE house. Most don't understand how I feel and the truth is I don't really know how to describe it. Sometimes I feel guilty with all this 'stuff', other times I feel self righteous, but mostly I feel sad. I am sad that I am back, sad that I can't change my situation when every part of my being is telling me to run, just run back, get on a plane and go back! Sad that I am not more content with where I am. Disappointed that I am again struggling with finding joy and not fully living where God has me now. I am not really sure if I will return to the "normal" self that I was before I left, but I guess that is a good thing, God has changed me, yet again changed my worldview.
I think back on those first couple of days in Guatemala; I think of those two sick boys with their apathetic mother. I am again flooded with emotions as I hear the words repeat in my head, "The eldest one past away", and am again reminded of his suffering, but thankful that his suffering is over. The memories of those boys fill my thoughts, and I hear the words again, "the other boy, the younger one, has also past away". Two boys gone in a matter of weeks due to extreme malnourishment and there sits their mother with grief I am sure I could never imagine, holding her new baby. Here I sit, praying that the death of her two boys will somehow, someway save this new baby.
"...but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things, because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving". ~(Ann Voskamp) Just when I start to feel sorry myself I read these words and am again convicted. If I was able to find joy on the cold concrete floors in Santa Inez and Chopen, surly I can find joy here...right? It's easier to be thankful for things when you are surround by thankful people despite their poverty, but this is America the country that spent one BILLION dollars on fireworks just last year for the Fourth of July. It's easy to be comfortable, ungratful, and complacent, but God has called us to rise above and rejoice in where we are (Philippians 4:4, Habakkuk 3:18, James 1:2). I think it's our pride. We want to praise ourselves for our accomplishments, praise ourselves for all the money we have, when really non of this is ours. Nothing that we have here on earth is truly ours, it is all God's and somehow, by His crazy grace, He has chosen to entrust it to us; shouldn't that produce thankfulness and therefore joy? Instead we have become proud and pride is a joy killer. "Pride slays thanksgiving...A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves". ~(Henry Beecher) I think of Christ; my God humbled himself to a cross, what humility. There it is I have found my joy, my thankfulness and somehow it always points back to the cross, to the gospel! Oh and how thankful I am for the cross, for Jesus' sacrifice, for His humility as He emptied the cup of Gods wrath on himself. I may not be where I want to be, I may wish I could run back, I may feel like an empty vessel, something that God can't use, but He is the potter and He continues to mold, shape and use me in ways that I don't understand. It's when He does this that He truly get's all the glory because I time and again fall short and have nothing to offer. I hope that in my smallness I can point to Him, to the cross, always being thankful and finding joy in the truth of the gospel. May I find joy in EVERYTHING because Jesus' sacrifice is EVERYTHING.
