Stuff That Matters in Life

I have to admit, it’s hard for me to get emotional by the crucifixion of Jesus.

I am definitely grateful and don’t take his sacrifice for granted. But I’m the type of person who doesn’t care to make a big deal of birthdays and anniversaries.

What I enjoyed about today’s Good Friday service was not the program itself, but the chance to sit and let God speak to me. I enjoy meditating during singing time. I did get a bit emotional as I heard God speak to me about humility and trusting in him.

I heard him tell me that I am but a small part of what he’s doing. I felt a sense of relieve and peace knowing I don’t have to take myself too seriously. My life and what I do is not the main show, He is the main show. He’s the lead character. Extras don’t have to worry about their roles. If the lead character does well, the show is a success.

I’m just an extra. Thank God He always does his part perfectly and makes us look good!

Another joyful Sunday!

Our Perspectives speaker was great. He already learned Gujarati, and now he wants to learn Japanese. He’s only a few years younger than me. Yet he wants to learn the language because he has a heart to reach the Japanese with the gospel.

I have a hard time with language. I can barely speak English. I always think I’m too old to learn another language. I don’t even want to learn Chinese. I gave up the idea of being a cross-cultural missionary.

The speaker today gave me hope. He has 5 adopted children, homeschooled them, tutors at a mosque in order to reach Muslims, became a vegetarian in order to reach out to Indian International students, has a ministry to Chinese scholars at Caltech, just finished his doctorate, and now he wants to learn Japanese.

He gave me hope. If God wants you to do something, he will enable you. I have found this to be true in my life, but I’ve never experienced this with learning a language. But then maybe I never asked God to help me. I’ve never tried. There are always more urgent things to do. Maybe it’s a matter of priority and intentional effort. Maybe it’s having the confidence to lean on God to help me if I really believe this is what he wants me to do.

Is it coincidence or God ordained?

I wanted to talk to one of the parents today. Usually I’ll just try to find people at church if I need to talk to them. This time I just thought thought I’d text him to give him a heads up. Later he told me he was just about to text me to tell me he wanted to talk to me when he got my text. He wanted to talk about the same thing.

He wanted to talk to me about his interest in volunteering, and it sounded like his skill-set is exactly what we need.

Another problem solved today regarding helping with a special needs child. I wanted to arrange a way to get a closer parking space for the family on Sundays so the child would be safer walking in. When I asked our Security volunteer about it, he said he already had in place a space where people can park temporarily to walk in children or the elderly. My problem solved without extra effort. So thankful.

God’s work done in God’s way is never short of God’s supply.

Perspectives reading this week focused on adapting cross-culturally. All the difficulties involved, issues I’ve never considered, made me appreciate long term missionaries much more.

And I feel like, I can’t be a long term cross-cultural missionary!

I read missionary biographies of their sacrifices, even when they are older like me. I always thought I want to give it a try. I guess my enthusiasm was all based on romantic notions. Now that I’m reading about the difficult barriers that have to be overcome, I’ve come to the sad truth that I’m just not made for that.

I know there are many other ways to contribute to the Great Commission and to reach the unreached. So now that I know I won’t go long term, I will focus on challenging myself to do what I can. The key word here is Challenge. I don’t want to stay within what I can do, I do still want to exercise faith to stretch, but just not long term cross-culturally.

It’s not easy to process thoughts everyday and write it down in a post. But it’s good exercise that makes me think.

Here’s what I’m encouraged by today:

I was encouraged by my talk with SS today. He told me God is teaching him humility, he recognized and admitted his arrogance. I am encouraged because he was vulnerable and able to tell what God is doing in his life. I like conversations like that. I like to hear about what God is doing in people’s lives. I am going to be more intentional about telling others about what God is doing in my life, admit where I need to grow and how God is working on it.

I went into the 12th grade Sunday School class because their teacher wasn’t there. “Teach us something, Auntie Katy.” How about I tell you something about how to deal with your relationship with your parents when you go to college? They all nodded enthusiastically.

Then I asked them, what is a challenge you think you will face? A boy said, “Laziness and lust.” I am encouraged by his honesty. He also said he has people who keep him accountable. I am very encouraged by that.