I'm sittin here in this coffee shop trying to know something worth knowin. Ya know what I mean? I'm just trying to feel my way along, one little step after another, as I try to open my eyes a little wider and see His great light one little ray at a time. I've been wondering the past week...what are we all doing anyway? Why are we living this strange and exhilerating and painful and joyful life? I've been realizing now more than ever that at the very bottom of things, we are all the same. In our truest, deepest selves, our hearts are all alive and simply and only desiring some part of the truth of life. We are looking into the eyes and space around us in hopes we can be led to something more true than the darkness inside of us all.
This place, Clarkston, GA is a world where I have seen the light of life flash brightly before my eyes. I've been awakened, rather shaken, to see the great goodness in this one square mile of the earth, and my heart knows no greater joy than this. I am still learning of the ways I am still asleep to God's workings and love, and I am deeply thankful to be in a place where I am called from the depths of my own grave of blindness and sameness into a world much different than others I have known. I have spent this week around a woman who although she has been to less than half of the schooling I have, knows greater and more truly of life's fruit and knowledge and wealth and breadth and depth than I may ever know. She is only one year older than me, and spends her time as mother of three, wife of ten years, cook, and cleaner. And while she does all these things, she is busy taking care of everything else that comes with being in a new country and learning a new language. After all this, this sweet woman still stays up late with me to practice vocabulary. She knows something of contentment that I have yet to learn. She has been to the great depths of pain and has learned what it means to empty herself for those around her. She has not only seen the necessity of sacrificial living, but has adopted it as her mantra, as the only way. I wonder...how does she do it? I can barely know any satisfaction in work I choose to do, much less in the work before me that I have had no part in choosing for myself. I'm asking the Lord, the Good Father of both me and Aye be wah, to show me how to be more like her. To teach me from my old habits and lead me into a new way where I can learn to place others before myself not just because I know it's good, but because I have been so formed that I have no other response but to do so.
This family knows Jesus as Christ and as Lord. Of course they know the tiredness we all know from walking these hard roads each day, but they also know the roads to walk that lead to peace and joy.
For now, I am content to be eating many colorful garden treats and neighborhood animals with my hands, to be awoken each morning to the sound of a strange yet comforting language, to a language that not only sings a song with words, but also with the Spirit. I am thankful to be walking to the market hand in hand with a woman who cannot have a conversation with me, but has let me be her neighbor and friend. I am thankful to have my eyes opened to new definitions of hard work and sacrifice, of simple living. Mostly, I am grateful on this day to recall so clearly and quickly the sweet laughter of all my new friends here, a laughter that springs out of tears and thankfulness.
I am trying to learn the Karen language, very slowly but surely, I can now say thank you so much, you are so beautiful and i'll see you later. It's not much I know, but I do pray God can guide my tongue towards something good and fruitful.
Let us all pray today that our Father will continue to lead us to unknown places where the light is found in darkness. If you will, please pray today for our new friends, especially the baby, Wah le so, who went to the emergency room last night with a high fever. As I was sitting in that waiting room last night at 1 in the morning, I was realizing the fear that is capable of finding its way into the little spaces of confusion within us all. For all these new neighbors and refugees who have found a home here, for those who cannot see two steps ahead of them, and for those who lie awake at night and have no one to take them to find help in the middle of the night, may the peace of Jesus somehow find is way to those quiet places.
There is too much goodness to be contained, there is too much love to not give it all away.
Peace, peace and more peace to you all.
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