Author: marettej

It’s 2 am and I am wide awake. I look outside and see snow and semi trucks and combines. There is no mosquito net above me. The windows are closed and it’s so quiet. I lay down last night at the beginning of the football game and woke up enough to walk upstairs. That’s all I remember.

Experiences in life are meant to have an impact in your life. Some are to make you smile. Others are to make you grimace. Still others you marvel at and say, ” bring it on one more time”, and still there are a few you will emphatically say, ” hope I never do that again.”

I have no clue where the past 10 days went so quickly. I smiled. I grimaced, I marveled and I thought to myself, ” nope, don’t need to repeat that moment in time.” I smiled from the joy and cried inside. I hugged children with runny noses, and had a little boy gently stroke my very white leg as he tried to imagine what my leg was I am sure. And now that it’s over and my job of finishing this book I started is at hand, I have so many mixed emotions. I may never go back. That’s totally possible. I may do it ” more than a few more times. “. I will sponsor another child. I will have mixed emotions when I watch our culture children focus on so many things that are so meaningless. I will shed a tear when I think of those girls who at age 13 were struggling with things in their life, I have never had to deal with… I will go through the thousand plus photos and laugh at the smiles, the goggles, and the photo bombers. I will look at the faces and know the stories. I will write, I will pray and I will cry. Those things I know. But what about my faith? I have made life about so many more things than simply faith. That’s all they have. Rice and beans maketh not a McDonalds meal. All the children know is it is hot and fills their tummy. I worry too much about me. Actually I love to rice and beans, but am I content to eat it every day?

It’s 2 a.m. and I am wide awake. I feel cleansed from a hot bath. There is no smell of debris, coal burning or boda’s screeching on the road beside the house. I have a pile of catalogues on the table telling me what I can’t live without and I look at them and think, how aimless and empty. For stuff is simply stuff and words are simply words. Until, you pack a suitcase with stuff and listen to the words of hearts far from your normal world, your world will simply be that: your world. We let ourselves be taken to A place in Gods world where the most important thing was life, love and we will never be the same. That’s how it should be. There should be things in life that change your heart to focus more on God. There should be moments you can’t anticipate and settings you can’t stage. It should be things that shake you up and challenge your heart. And if you chose to let God book your ticket and move your heart, you won’t wake up the same person. Uganda was an amazing experience; and now to finish the book so others can read and live the streets of Kampala, open the gates of FNC and let others see God working.

So,,,, I was like Moses today. I was in a basket on the Nile…okay it was a boat on the Nile but I was on the Nile. The longest river in Africa the Nile weaves its way down to Lake Victoria, or weaves its way up from Lake Victoria. We road along watching the birds and the very large rodents… guess they are called chameleons or geckos or lizards. We watched men fishing with nets, women washing clothes, a young man washing his hair with a plastic bag and children playing in the river. I didn’t see a queen, didn’t see a basket nor did I catch a fish and thankfully the rapids didn’t upset our long boat but, I sensed the presence of something perhaps only Africa’s can teach us. There is joy in life. Perhaps joy because there is little left. Perhaps joy because with food and clothing they are content. Perhaps because the joy in people is contagious and the feeling of loving Jesus is more real than we see in our world. We have so many other things to get in our way to distract us. We miss the beauty because our eyes are focused on the ground. We miss the smile because our heart is troubled. We miss a lot of things… but mostly we miss the joy. Africa reminds me of the joy. Simply the joy of living and life is worth the living just because HE lives. Take a moment today and find your joy…. or book a trip to Africa…

We lost a moment in time. Actually we flew from Houston to Amsterdam and lost about 6 hours. We sit and wait for another flight… watching those around us try anything to get comfortable in a strange place

As much as one wants to, one can’t be comfortable where one does not belong. We try but it just never gets quite like where one calls home and yet, we sure can try to make it work while we are in no mans land losing time. Only in a first world country do we worry about those things.

I like familiar things. Like walking upstairs and knowing exactly how many steps and where the bannister turns. I like teaching for the light switch and hit it the first time. I like putting things away right so that when someone asks me where it is I can tell them to the inch.. and I like sitting down with my blue book, my pink journal and my first Bible. I prefer the NIV upstairs but it has October anymore and it’s well, upstairs. I am sitting at the table watching the solar bobble heads bounce back and forth and spending time with My familiar books, some walnuts and chez mix, grapes and God. Daily praise time, confession and pthanksgiving and a focus on what is God asking of me this week, and thinking. I believe the new word is meditation but I choose to think. Last night cowboy church was one of the very best ones. Playing games with friend, coming home and going to bed under an electric blanket all those little things to be thankful for. Familiar places and things keep us grounded. The psalms 92 verse, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord to sing praises to your name most high.” Yes, and amen. And in those familiar books I write things.. phrases that remind me that God has more planned for my life than I can imagine: right now anyway . Praying for my body to quit acting odd and my heart to embrace today. Praying for my friends who are climbing the ladders in life and for those who are desperately attempting to get up the first rung. Rejoicing with those who are happy; that can be a hard one. I love it when I can rejoice but sometimes there is a sting of, ” wish I could rejoice with that in my life.”

And here I sit with the familiar. The Bible grandma gave me in 1983 for my birthday… 35 years later it means so much more to me than it did then. It’s much more personal. I was it now. I live it in real time and grasp the hope it gives me. The old familiar… last night we sang some of the old familiar. They mean something the way we sing them. The new sound says take an old hymn and redo it so few recognize it’s an oldie. Sometimes just leave the old familiar, old and familiar as let God speak through them….

David- got in trouble because he just wanted more than God gave him at the moment. We do that.  David was the king. He had anything he wanted. But, he wanted just one more thing that God hadn’t given him permission to have. David should have just said, thank you Lord and be content. Of course it’s easy to say David should have gone back into the palace, quit looking where he shouldn’t have been looking and be content. It’s easy for us to tell David he should have… when we don’t.

We have a wants and needs list and not always do we have our wants and needs in the lines they need to be. We think it’s a need and God is really saying, “put it on the want side”. We want something and we tend to think it needs to be a need. After all, doesn’t God meet our needs? He doesn’t always meet our wants.  I tend to put together lists… I love lists. I love lists except when I can’t find where I put them. If I take my list and work it….it usually works for me. I go to the grocery store and get what’s on my list… Unless I lose the list.  If I keep track of the wonderful blessings God has given me, I can say thank you and be content.  It’s when I look at the things I thought I needed, and God hasn’t given me yet, that I tend to be discontent. And then God gives my neighbor the very thing that I thought I needed…. I tend to shed a tear and throw a mini fit! Well, to be honest maybe a major fit.

I need to just say thank you more often and be content. Being thankful helps us be content. Even when the list is still there and the many things we thought we needed haven’t been met, we can be thankful and content knowing that God promised we will have what we need…

In 2 Samuel 12:8 reminds us that God gave David so much.  “I gave your master’s house to you, and your masters’s wives into your arms, I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.”

That last part of the verse really jumped at my heart. “If all this had been too little.. I would have given you even more.”  God has given me so much. But I seem to think it’s too little. God will give me blessings upon blessings… but he will give me based on his measuring cup not mine.    My challenge for the week will be to be thankful and content.  Or perhaps content and thankful. Regardless, I want to let God know I love what he has blessed me with.. and I am thankful!

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