soggy brain

I always come to the end of the month frantically thinking about what I should write for this blog. I need to update! I need to stay fresh! I need to be interesting! I need to be clever! I need to be insightful! I need to include bits about Mongolia!

And my brain becomes soggy being drenched in all the things I think everyone needs to hear.

But, to tell you the truth, this is what I want to write about:

I want to write about all the things in Mongolia and living in a different culture that drive me crazy. I want to write about how difficult it’s been for me to adjust living with a roommate and learning how to serve another with love (ie: being sensitive and aware of needs and expectations). I want to write about the immense frustration I feel because I can’t speak the language properly. I want to write about loneliness. I want to write about stress and feeling overwhelmed. I want to write about every single thing that is worrying me. I want to write about the students who annoy me. I want to write about feeling tired.

It’s all too easy, when a blank page is set before me, to write everything that’s in my head. And consequently the result becomes entirely too personal. I can’t help it. Therefore, the list above will remain a list, as I don’t think by now you should wonder the prevailing feelings I have at the moment.

This missionary thing is hard.

I should now talk about positive things. That’s only right, and because I have this ridiculously truthful verse running around my head that says “when times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. “ (Ecc 7:14)

So, here I am. Warm and safe and fortunate to have chocolate within reaching distance. I am alive, and it’s a good thing to be so. Because I am able to love and be loved. And whether by obedience or foolishness (which so often get confused in this race I’m running), I have been graciously put in a strange and beautiful land for the sake of a King. A King who is real and steadfast and merciful and jealous and vast. He sustains me when I most need it, even though I’m completely obtuse to its tender cultivation. And it’s now that I’m reminded of the incredible fact that I am known by such a King.

(some will scoff and chafe at such statements, which is fine. Scoff and chafe to your heart’s desire. You have the freedom to do so, which is yet another treasure of my King.)

Anyway, I have considered enough for one blog. It’s very late now and I’m tired – it’s taken 10 minutes just to write that as I’ve dozed off between words. It’s good to rest, so wherever you’re at now, take a nap.

My friends, consider your days. And be free.