India In My Dreams

With sweet Guiathrie and precious, precious Rukmini

We are still camping on the Oregon Coast. This morning I woke up at 6am, which was better than the night before, when I was awake at 1am until 3:30. But I knew I did not want to stay awake, and I certainly did not want to awaken my sleeping children (too early for action) so I finished watching a movie about children going to school in India (5th attempt because I get so sleepy when I watch movies!),in preparation for doing Sonlight Level 5 in homeschool for some of my kids. Then I laid quietly until I went back to sleep for another hour.

During that hour, I had the privilege of going back to India "on my way" to somewhere else (?!!) and WITH MY GRANDMA! When awake, I have wished my Grans could see the Happy Home. Since she is no longer able bodied enough to go there with me in real life, I guess getting to see her be there, even in a dream, is an answer to a prayer.

Me with my Lil Gramsies, 2009

Doesn’t she look like she’d ooze love and grandmotherliness to the kids?

I loved seeing the look of surprise on each of the children’s faces when they saw I was back so soon. Some yelled "Tiffany Aka!", and some cried out "Mommy!". They were bright eyed with interest at seeing my grandmother.

I just stood there hugging and holding -- and I cried the entire time because I knew I could only stay one day. You know, since I was "on my way" somewhere else (?!!).

It was a sweet dream, although I was so overcome with emotion that I was struggling to remember, associate, and say their names. This is a real fear of mine since I would never want even one of them to think I don’t remember them.

Well, I am awake now, and so is the rest of this little trailer. So I best get moving along. But I’ve got India and some really precious kids on my mind today…

Duck, Duck, Goose

“Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people)…” Ephesians 5:15

Another person, who went to India as part of the team I was on, posted this picture today. Here’s me, cheering someone on as I am teaching a circle of kids at the Happy Home in India how to play “Duck, Duck, Goose”. What a precious time, seeing them all learn and play with such delight!

How similar that game is to some of my thoughts before the trip and now, for sure, after taking the trip. I have contemplated it so many times throughout my life.

I often wonder why and how God chose for me to live where I live, be born healthy and into the family I am in, meet the man I married, live a comfortable and healthy life, have good and healthy kids, not be in want, be able to worship freely, have brunette hair and fabulous friends, like the great outdoors and the color yellow – and all of the other things that make up who I am, where I live, and how my world view is developed.

I am no more or less deserving of happiness or contentment than anyone else, certainly not more than the beautiful kids we spent time with in India. No more than the widows or the orphans in Haiti, in lack of clean water and healthy living conditions. No more than the parent sitting at the bedside of their child fighting a disease or an addiction, or the old man our friend Roshan found on the side of the road in Shimoga yesterday.

Though often the ‘chooser’ in “Duck, Duck, Goose” chooses the next “goose” randomly, I think God is more like that one who has someone specific in mind, who wants a certain person to chase them. I don’t think He decided randomly, but He had specific ideas and purposes in mind for how He chose me and how He chooses all of us.

“You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.” Psalm 139:15-15 (Message Bible)

He purposefully chose me to be uniquely me. I had to be born here, in this family, have these relationships and life experiences to grow into the me He created me to be. I had to be on this particular journey.

I can never understand the big picture and, using human emotion, be ‘fine’ with seeing others live in sadness, sickness, poverty and even hopelessness. It is my challenge to walk worthy of whatever He has called me to, to accept whatever challenges He has for me with a willing heart -- even with joy, delighting in learning and in “playing”,trying to live wisely, accepting that He does not look at how worthy I am, but at who He created me to be.

"A bird's not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image." ~ W. Young

Smiling as I enjoy the lesson,

*Ephesians 4:1

*James 1:2-4

*Ecclesiastes 9:10

“Let It Go”

I knew many years ago that India would be significant in my life. The first time I tried to go, at age 15, it did not work out. The second trip I had hoped for, last year, was put off because of a nephew’s wedding during the time that year’s trip was planned. This year, the third possibility, weighed heavily on my mind. Eighteen days is a long time to be gone from one’s family, especially because I have young ones.

I prayed and stewed and debated. I worried myself about how my family would function, what people would think, if I would be letting anyone down, or if it was even a reasonable consideration. The short story is that, eventually, I heard, almost audibly, the words “Let it go”.

At the time, I thought God was challenging me to let go of specific “good” idols, those things in my life that are good and right, but that begin to take a more important place in my heart and my motivations than they should.

The specific things I thought He meant were being a wife, a mom and a homemaker, and the way people perceive me in those roles. I thought He was calling me into a greater balance -- within those roles, yet placing the importance on the right motivations and desired results.

I forgot about those words for awhile. But as the trip progressed, I began to be challenged in other ways and they came back to me. I began to realize there are many other things He was, and is, asking me to relinquish to Him.

Mostly, as I am aware of these things in my life, I seek to hand them over. But I discover that, in my humanness, handing them over is not a quick or easy process. It takes work. It takes consistency. And practice -- painful, muscle-aching practice. And only He knows how to approach them with me in ways where I will recognize them and be challenged enough to work my way through and past them.

As I reflect, and though I realize I don’t have a complete list even now, I see how many of my “good” idols are wrapped up in one common denominator.

I’m a People Pleaser. If you’re happy, I’m happy.

There I said it. And now I am left to ponder what you will think of me. Because that is the nature of a People Pleaser.

We are always asking ourselves, “Did I love that person well?” and “Did I represent myself accurately?”. Lord help us when we feel our hearts or motivations are misunderstood!

“Whatever may be your task, work at it heartily, from the soul, as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing with all certainty that it is from the Lord and not from men that you will receive the inheritance which is your real reward. The One Whom you are actually serving is the Lord Christ the Messiah.” Colossians 3:23-24 (Amplified Bible)

And so it goes, my lifelong struggle.

He placed it in my path again, clearly visible. He allowed the comfortable rug I had placed under my feet to be pulled away. He allowed me to teeter and totter, to feel unsure of myself in a strange land, with no long trusted family member or friend, or even my comfy bed, to run to for comfort or reassurance. He made me face one of my most formidable giants. All alone I was forced to struggle and writhe and agonize in the discomfort of my own creation, my doubts of self worth, my seeming inability to find my peace in Him and in Him alone. In the midst, He reminded me, not so gently this time, “Let it go”.

“The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” I Samuel 16:7b

My heart-hands are rope burned from hanging on too long. Psalm 139 is so beautiful and reassuring. I again slowly loosen my grip. It spelled it all out for me, clearly, yet again.

I don’t want this thing. I don't know why it is so hard to let it go.

I want a teachable spirit so I can learn what that means to “let it go” and so I can clearly hear that one clear voice guiding me on how it’s done. I seek that Peace that passes all understanding. That Peace that comes when I know I am safe. That rest that comes when I remember that He created me to be marvelous, and I am marvelous. He is with me, even in a strange land. I am safe in His arms (listen to song here). He truly sees my heart, He knows and understands me …

and He loves me still.

In Peace,

Sweet beauty = being truly and magnificently loved by the Creator.

Psalm 139:1-17, 23-24 (emphasis mine)

¹ O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

⁵ You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.”…

²³ “Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Psalm 139:1-17, 23-24

How Then Shall We Live?

Well, here I am, home from the other side of the world, feeling like it is a different world altogether. I am still trying to take it all in, trying to process all of the beauty and all of the pain I saw and participated in. I am praying and sorting and hoping for ways to incorporate all of these feelings, these lessons before me, into everyday life. For my lens – my eyes and my vision, is forever changed.

Two kids I love. There.

Still, the two worlds are so vastly separate, in some ways it seems easier to keep them that way. Being a person who prefers black and white, the clarity of that would be most comfortable.

Even as that thought occurs to me, I know it will not be the path I choose.

I think back to a recent sermon I heard at church. Though it was applied differently, it is relevant to so many things. He was speaking specifically about how the world is neither all bad nor all good, so we, especially as Christians, need to “live in the tension” between the two.

Two kids I love. Here.

I know that tension is where I will choose to be. I cannot live in one world or in the other, but in the disparity, and even in the similarities, between the two of them. Though not the same comfort as black and white, thinking of it this way provides me with a degree of clarity I can live with. It gives me a framework within which to sort my thoughts and feelings, my convictions and emotions, and a way to function in everyday life as I learn to incorporate the lovely wounds, the heart scars inflicted by the beauty and the pain of that other world within this world, learning to be fully dependent on One who created, cares about, and lives in both.

Romans 2:1-2 (The Message Bible) “So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”