Living with People From Other Countries

I haven't blogged in over a year, I just found out!  I have had many, many blog posts in my mind and none that actually got out onto the paper properly.

This isn't meant to be serious or challenging or thought-provoking.  This is just my observations of my children as they re-enter a country they are supposed to be familiar with.

This is also not meant to minimize the reality and pain many people in this world face as immigrants to this, or any, country.  But the reality is, we have several seeming-immigrants in our immediate family that we take back and forth across the world.  We forget, because they blend in like everyone else, and we forget, because we know many of the things that are new to them.

Enter Halloween.  It has been five years since we have been in the States for Halloween, and while we had a Harvest Party every year in Tanzania with our friends, Ben in particular didn't have any idea about this particular day in America.  We had seen a drastic increase in horrible decorations in the neighborhood (to a 5-year-old immigrant, they were shocking.  To his 45-year-old mother, they were baffling).  All of a sudden we had the equivalent of Christmas decor, but ghoulish and ghastly: skeletons hanging from porches and inflatable ghosts.  On the actual day, we had decided to go to some friends' house who have something called a Night of Lights.  It is a beautiful celebration of the Light of the World, and it is a generous party for all the kids and their parents who venture out in the Montana cold.

So we had not anticipated being home for trick-or-treaters, although Dave grabbed a bag of candy just in case.  They showed up early, and because we had planned on being gone, we hadn't even bothered to explain what was going to happen to little Ben.  All of a sudden, we had an enormous dinosaur on our porch, ringing our doorbell.  We opened the door, and Ben's eyes about popped out, staring as we handed him some candy to put in the dinosaur's bucket.  We closed the door.  Then, "There is a tiny witch on our porch!" and bigger eyes.  Then a pirate, a dad dressed as a hatching duckling (!), Thing 1 and Thing 2, and Ben kept handing out candy, not asking for any (I don't think he realized he was supposed to have some :), also not thinking he should have any kind of costume on.  He was so delighted that all these special kids in costumes were coming to our house! :)  After about 1/2 hour, and while we were getting ready to leave, he decided right on the spot he wanted to be Captain America.  So his sister grabbed a pizza box, cut a circle out of it, drew on circles and a star, Ben grabbed his crayons, frantically colored it in, and said sister made an arm band out of duct tape in the car on the way to the party.  Beautiful.  It probably won't cut it for another year, but it did for this year. :)

We just added this to our humorous repertoire of incidents with these children who have spent most of their lives in a 3rd world country.  Their utter amazement at garage door openers, their confusion at trying to figure out what is automatic and what isn't (mostly in bathrooms), and how they stand still, unsure, when I hand them paper towels the first few times after arriving back and tell them to "Dry your hands," and they look around to see where to dry them and how they can hold this paper in their hands carefully so they don't get it wet. :)  And none of us can get over how friendly and efficient government offices can be, how fast food gets to the table after you order, or any other number of luxuries.  

The beauty of having the privilege of living in many places. :)

All this brokenness...

We don't get as many opportunities to help with medical needs now.  When we lived in the village, people frequently came.  We did have the grandma on the corner, a witch doctor, come ask for help with a large wound on her head, given to her by her grandson who hit her over the head with a plastic chair.  Yes, we saw the irony of the witch doctor coming for treatment.  I got to pray for grandma; we had, and still have, a sweet, ongoing relationship with her.

About six weeks ago, I saw a little neighbor boy who herds cows walking along, holding his arm tenderly.  He had dislocated his elbow, and was just going to tough it out.  (It had happened before, he said, and eventually, after several days, it got better).  His biggest worry, when I said I could help him, was that he would get beaten if he left the cows back at the house before it was time to put them up for the day.  He is 11.  Who would beat him, I asked.  "Everyone," he responded, and his sister nodded her agreement. Ugh.   I took him to an American pediatrician who lives around the corner and happened to be home, and was happy to see him and put his arm back in its proper place.  Thankfully, I also had an opportunity to talk to Bibi, his grandma, about how his injury was legitimate and he had a good reason to put the cows up early.  She seemed doubtful, as his arm showed no sign of injury.  These children suffer, and we are eager to do anything that relieves even a little pain in their hard lives.

On our way to the relatives' house.

Saturday we got a call from Pascal, who works outside.  His wife, Mama Pili,  had delivered a baby in the middle of the night, but, "because of bad luck, the baby died."  His wife is a lovely, soft-spoken young lady who goes to the church on the hill.  She has had two healthy babies already, and this pregnancy seemed normal.  When she went into labor at their home in the middle of the night, she delivered the baby's head and then "lost her strength."  They called another neighbor who is a nurse, and she said that if the mama finished delivering the baby, she might lose too much blood.  So they took her to the hospital with the baby half delivered.  When they got there, she was able to deliver the rest of the baby, but the tiny baby girl had already died.  

When I got there at visiting hours with Esther, we walked to the ward and it was typically full, most of the single beds holding two mamas, head-to-foot, and their new babes.  The woman in the bed across from Pascal's wife was chatting with her, and me, but didn't have a baby in bed with her.  Every now and then she would hold her belly, grimace, and lay back down again.  When she got a phone call, I asked if they knew each other.  "No, but the same thing happened to her--she delivered a baby this morning,  but it was dead.  She was seven months along."  Later, this sweet mama told all of us (five by then) how she had been in so much pain, she had gotten down on the floor and delivered this baby, who just fell out onto the floor.  Then the nurse came, and was angry with her because she had gotten the floor dirty.    And then, if I thought I couldn't stand any more, another woman came up and sat in between me and Pascal's wife, holding her belly.  Only her belly didn't look big at all, and she said she had been 9 months pregnant, but the baby had died, and she had been in 21 days ago, but was sent home.  Now she was having more pain, but her belly had gotten smaller and smaller.  Three women with tragic stories, and they all sat calmly, sharing, feeling sorry for one another.  It is easy for me to forget: most women here have lost at least one child.

Sister-in-law washes Mama Pili's hands before they eat

The two women who had delivered that morning had been given an IV, no pain medication, no education on how to care for themselves.  They were asked whether they were going to take their babies home to bury them, or whether the nurses should "put them in the trash."  It still makes me ache, and I have lived here 13 years.  

After two hours of trying to get the papers to be discharged, (there was no final exam or parting words; there was not even a band-aid to put over the bleeding spot where they took the IV port out), we were finally on our way out of the ward, and poor mama had to walk all the way to the car in the heat, not a short distance.  Pascal and I went through the exit, where the guards sit.  Then Esther and the mama came out, but not before paying a bribe to get through.  "I think the guard was hot and wanted to buy water or something."  

      Romans 12:8 always comes to mind in these situations.  It applies so precisely to our call as Christians to help those in need. "...if (your gift) is to show mercy, do it cheerfully."  There are so many adjectives God could have used, but He knows that situations that call for mercy often are frustrating, depressing even, if we get bogged down in them.  We are meant to do good cheerfully, and the only way to maintain cheerfulness is to fix my eyes on the rescuing, redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

The chickens kept coming in to greet us. :)

God never claimed this earth is as it was meant to be; on the contrary!  My purpose is to redeem, to fix what is broken in whatever way I can.  I am not meant to fix everything, and I can't even fix most things, but by faith I can do whatever I can in the situations He brings my way.  I can show compassion, and I can weep with those who weep.  I can acknowledge the precious Gift that this dear Mama mourns over.  I can, by God's grace, keep moving forward, keep trusting Him that He is at work and that He will accomplish His purposes in me and through me.  I can be kind, and not just to the ones I know are suffering.

I drove everyone to the home of a relative who lives way up in the hills.  This is where they had buried the baby earlier in the day, quickly, so that they didn't have the burden of a funeral (which involves several days of feeding the neighbors).  The land belonged to the family, the only place they could bury it since Pascal and his wife rent a house.  We brought Mama there to see where the baby was buried, and to be cared for by the women relatives.  The house was half the size of my living room and six people lived there.  I had no idea where Mama Pili would sleep, but it was good for her to be in a place where she could be cared for.  We left her there, said goodbye to the family, walked past the freshly-dug earth that was the grave, and back to the car, back to my own life.  

But not without remembering how the poor suffer.  And that their suffering is exacerbated by injustice, ignorance of those in authority, superstition, and the logistics that go along with being materially poor.  It is not an easy thing to rise up out of poverty.  In fact, it seems exponentially complicated.  This battle Dave and I have in ourselves, these conversations of who to help, how to help, did it work, what works best...these wrestlings are something we value.  Not because we love it, or would rather not turn away.  But we have the privilege of having our eyes opened to material poverty, we have the unique and amazing privilege of having something to give, and we have the opportunity to be reminded, daily, of how needy we are of wisdom and mercy, and a Savior.  

Baby's fresh grave on the left under the small rock.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was abounding in material resources,  yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might be amplied supplied. II Cor. 8:9  Amply supplied--enough cheerfulness for each opportunity.

I Was Not There When You Laid the Foundations of the Earth

My months-long writer’s block has not come unexpectedly.  My head has been full of thoughts and wonderings, so much so that the words could not come out, even in my journal with plenty of empty pages.

Last year was a year of witnessing tragedy in the lives of those we love.  Metastasized cancer in a dear friend, a child going blind in another family, and then the loss of other friends’ 19-year-old son.  Not to mention the virtual graveyard of marriages we are witnessing. The verse in Psalm 23 that says, “When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” made much sense to me.  It is our natural tendency to fear evil when we walk so close to death and brokenness, whether in our lives or the lives of those we love.  I understood Job when he said, “Your hand is heavy on me…” and truly, God’s hand of trials felt very weighty on our dear friends.  

I thought by 43 years old, my wrestling with the seeming dichotomy between God’s sovereignty over all things, combined with His great love and kindness vs. the brokenness and suffering in this world would be all but solved.  However, the past few months have made me realize that not only will I not ever really get my head around it, but at the end of all wrestlings, the battle will inevitably end with me having to trust and not lean on my own understanding (Prov. 3, verse 5: looks lovely on a wall, but is not as lovely to walk out on a day-to-day basis).  

The question is as old as Job, this asking God, “why?” and trying to figure out what He is doing, why He would allow certain things.  And sometimes we get glimpses, like when Ben was born and the midwife was horribly sick, in the end we think, “Wow, wasn’t it amazing that God brought sickness to the midwife so that He could save our lives?!”  And what we thought was bad, all of a sudden makes sense to us and we think, “Aha!  That is why He would do such a thing.”  And we feel better because we reasoned it out.  

After all that Job hears and sees of God and His outstanding power in creation, he reminds himself, and us, “How faint is the whisper we hear of Him.” (26:14) If God Almighty, who put this world and stars and seas and everything else into being with the breath of His mouth, declares a thing, decides a thing, I have no option but to repent of my unbelief and arrogance, and ask for strength to believe and walk this path out.  I am not God, and, like a friend reminded me recently, I am also not the hero of this story.  

You don’t have to tell me that even though I have walked with people who are suffering, in reality my life has been a practical fairy tale.  I cannot compare any suffering of mine to those who have been under the very heavy hand of my God.  But I do have daily sufferings that I get to entrust to Him.  And I firmly believe that unless I recognize His kind sovereignty in even small annoyances, I will never submit to Him when something life-changing happens that takes my breath away.  Sometimes it is easy to miss the battle that has to happen in those daily challenges, to take thoughts captive and make them obey Jesus Christ and His kingdom purposes.  

Jesus, you reign over this whole broken earth.  You reign and rule according to Your goodness and might.  Nothing stops your hand.  With Job I say, “I know that you can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.”  And with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall I go?  Only you have the words of eternal life!  We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Here are some resources that have been a challenge and comfort to me:

A Tantrum for My Transformation 

Were you There by Ghost Ship

Job Movie by John Piper

Though He Slay Me

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see."

Hebrews 11:1

I distinctly remember talking to a lady at church one day, tears streaming down her face as she told me that her oldest son had graduated and left the house.  He was fine, she said, but it was hard letting him go.  I also remember the feeling of not relating.  I had four small children underfoot and I was in the throes of young motherhood.  I knew I would miss my children, but that time seemed so far away.

"No one told me I would feel sick to my stomach for three days when my kids left the home," one dear father recently told me, tears in his eyes.  And that was a long time ago for him.

And another one, "We had six boys, and it seemed like the house would be busy forever.  And then they were just whisked away more quickly that we could believe it."  Again, tears.  

I felt comforted by these compassionate grandpas.  My own struggle with letting my children go had only begun with Hannah, and I was still trying to get my head around it when Jake graduated.  And now I see the whole lineup of my children, getting ready like so many sky divers to jump out one by one.  And I thought I had learned my lesson about joyfully releasing my children, but I think with each one, I might have to learn it again.

So I was, admittedly, feeling a little sorry for myself.  I told myself (first red flag) that it was so far away, I would see them so seldom.  I rehearsed why it was so hard.  I got caught up in myself and didn't realize that this is a time for faith!  And slowly, my Good Father began peeling off the layers of pride and self-sufficiency and *control* that actually were a lot more wrapped up in my sadness than I had realized.  

Could it be that I really thought my children needed my All Seeing Eyes on them at every moment to keep them on a good path?  Did not the same God who promised me that He would complete His good work in me, also promise that to my children?  And did I really want to keep them from the incredibly beautiful path of grace laid out in front of them as they keeps their eyes on Jesus?

This is what he was made for--he is on the cusp of all the future riches of God's grace in Christ as he leaves our home and finds out for himself what it looks like to walk with God as a young man of integrity and honor.  

My heart has changed.  The things I have told Jake his whole life are also true now for me, as I grab hold of them by faith.  I believe my God, and your God, will walk with you.  I believe He is enough for both of us, and I believe that He is able to do more than we could ask or imagine in you.  

Will I miss his big, tall self in our home?  More than you could imagine.  Will I miss the sounds of the guitar floating down the hallway, background music for our everyday life?  I can't even imagine life without it. His one regret was that he picked a pastime that I could hear so that I knew when he was just sitting around.  I'm so good at putting people to work! :(   I will miss his loud singing to his loud music as he does the dishes and I will miss, "Mom, watch this with me.  It's so hilarious."  I will miss his awesome sense of humor and the way he brings others into our home.  I will miss drinking coffee in the morning together as we all unfold our Bibles and try to wake up.  I will miss coming up with something for him to build. :)I will miss a thousand things about having him close.  And if I kept him close, he would miss more than a thousand things that are waiting for him.

The world is waiting for you, young man!  We have such incredible confidence in God's good plan for you.   

"I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one." I John 2:14

Ordinary days are gifts of grace

Dave, Carter and I were on our way out for some early morning exercise and three people were waiting outside our gate in the pre-dawn darkness.  It has only happened to us two other times, and one was the death of a child, the other a mama ready to give birth.  Both times the same family.  This time, again, the same family.  My heart sank as I greeted them and opened the gate...no one visits this time of day.  Baba Simon, the dad, started telling us a story of little Loveness, their youngest baby.  I did not want to hear the end of his story, as I had seen Mama Loveness two days earlier with Loveness on her back and she told me she was sick.

That in itself is very common, and Loveness hadn't looked terribly ill.  I told her I was sorry she wasn't well, and we both went on our way.

Baba Simon's story ended just as we feared: Loveness had gone to the hospital and had died in the night.  He wanted to go pick up her body and his wife from the hospital before visiting hours closed, 7:30.  We told him we would drive him there in ten minutes.  He had two other neighbor ladies with him who went home to change.

When I picked them up, I walked into their little plot of land that they live on for free, for guarding the place.  The house is so small that it is hard to imagine a family of five could fit in it.  About six months ago Simon's mother came to live with them, too.  We REALLY couldn't imagine where she fit.

Simon's oldest daughter, Cami, was also sick and looked like she might fall over when we got there.  She is small, probably ten, but looks maybe seven or eight.  She probably cared for Loveness more than their mother did, as she always carried her on her back and looked out for her when she wasn't in school.

Simon said that everyone was going to the hospital.  I asked what Cami and her younger sister, Monica, were going to do.  "They can just stay here," he said.  I asked if they could wait at my house, but he said it wouldn't be long, and they needed to be there when we got back.  I thought Cami might collapse and told him I would send Lauren to sit with them.  Before we left, one of the neighbors patted Cami on the back and said, "Try not to be sad, because that would be so much worse for your mother!"  Cami sat, expressionless.  This is the second little sibling she has lost in two and a half years.

We arrived at the hospital and I watched them all trudge inside to see Mama Loveness.  My white presence often complicates things.  They came back out and Simon said we needed to drive around back to pick up the body.  The morgue is up in back of the hospital and Simon headed inside and came out with Loveness, who was wrapped in a piece of cloth from head to toe, her name taped on with medical tape on the outside of the cloth.  They could not get her in the car easily, as her body was already stiff.  Now I walked around to the driver's side with blurry eyes.  How do you ever comprehend that your child is really gone?  How can anyone get up in the morning who has placed two children in the ground in three years?  I had brought this mama and baby home from the hospital.  I rejoiced that they were given another child after the first baby was taken.  I watched Loveness learn to smile and crawl and take steps.  Mama Simon often compared Loveness and Ben and we laughed at their progression.  Our lives are so radically different, but we are mothers, and we love Jesus.  I don't deserve to have my children alive while hers die.  I don't deserve good health care and knowledge and access to information.

Arriving at their house, the little brick building on the left

When we arrived at the house, the older children were actually told to move aside, and everyone just walked in together, placed the body inside the little house on the bed, and Mama Loveness laid down next to her.  One of the friends said in dismay, "Has the house even been cleaned yet?  Mama Simon, has the house been swept?"  "No."  She went hard to work sweeping out the little area where Mama Simon was laying on the bed.  This seemed really important.  I would have missed it all together, as much as I wanted to help.  Did they have chai?  Should I go buy chapatis?  "They don't have anything, even a pot without holes in the bottom."  OK, I could go make some chai.  "They won't be hungry."  So I gave them money to have a coffin made, money for some of the food for the funeral (funerals are expensive, as they feed everyone), and went home to my own tribe.  One of my sweet kids asked what I wanted for breakfast.  I sat down, numb.  I didn't want to care about breakfast when I was just glad that everyone is still alive.   I was thinking for the past several weeks that some day I should just celebrate normal.  How, if I lost a husband, or a child, I would long for just one normal day.  One day of dishes and relationship struggles and doing normal life together.  Just one more day.  I never want to think that normal is not the most extravagant, gracious miracle.

That afternoon I went back to their house to sit after the funeral.  I sat on a mat that they put out for all the women, and the men had their side over by a tree.  There had been a service, and Pastor Dele had preached, and everyone sat and listened, no matter their denomination.  At a Christian funeral everyone goes to bury the child.  At a Muslim funeral, only the men.  Tanzania has been blessed with incredible peace between the religions.  They attend one another's funerals, and respond accordingly. After things settled down and people were leaving, just milling around, I gave Mama Simon a picture that I had found of Loveness that I printed out for her.  I thought it might be a blessing to her to have just one picture of the child she had lost.  It is not common to have pictures of your family here, at least not many, and I was fairly certain that she didn't have any of Loveness.  The minute I handed it to her, she started wailing, and the woman next to her shoved it back at me in disgust, "How could you give this to her now?"  This might have been my biggest faux pas of all time, and I have had my share.  I felt so sad and so out of place.  I just prayed to the Lord--"You know I wanted to bless her, help her heal."  Then, as is characteristic of social blunders, in my cases at least, I was totally caught off guard when the other ladies passed the picture around, taking peeks at it, "what a great picture," etc. etc. and within ten minutes, Mama Loveness herself had the picture and was looking at it without a lot of emotion.  I was so confused.  But I did recall, albeit a little late, how they try to forget their sadness instead of talking it all out.  They remind eachother of the good things and try to help eachother forget the hard things.  That would have been an important thing to remember in my effort to "help."  It was a good reminder to me of how it is not about me anyways, and I can just do my best and leave the results up to God.  If I jump in with both feet, I might feel like I'm drowning in culture sometimes, but it is still better than walking safely on the shore.  I want to risk and be vulnerable, and that will sometimes be painful.

II Cor 12:9 But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, that Christ's power may rest on me."

Cami and Loveness

Election Kilele

With all the election kilele (Swahili for "noise"), there have been many opportunities to talk to our children, and think through ourselves, what it looks like to be a Christ-follower in these days.  I'm pretty sure it doesn't look like a lot of what we've seen.

I personally think that aside from the evidence God has given in creation and the Bible, the best argument for Christianity is a changed life.  I cannot look back on my life with the people I know who have been radically changed by Jesus and think that it could have happened any other way.

I can also say that the most embarrassing argument against Christianity, is, unfortunately, Christians themselves.  I am appalled at what others with "my beliefs" say and do, saddened about the way they treat others and the agendas that they seem to pick up and carry, aligning themselves with people and rhetoric at the expense of Gospel truth and hope in a coming KING who will only in the end make all things new.

What a great opportunity this election has been to put our hope in God!  Instead of hoping in a blade of grass (I Pet. 1:24) or a mist that vanishes (James 4:14), I will gladly cry out to "God Most High, to God, who accomplishes all things for me" (Psalm 57:2).  All things, including difficulties and trials that open for me a door to show the world Whom I put my hope in!

But I need look no farther than my mirror to see the biggest hypocrite of all.  I yelled at Jake yesterday for the way he was talking to his sister.  From the other room, yes, but at the top of my lungs.  In case you missed it, it was about the way he was talking to his sister!  He is quick to forgive.

 I chafe at minor requests from people who I don't think deserve my attention or kindness.  I see things from my viewpoint and forget love, the greatest commandment.  In fact, I think because of the new definitions of "love," sometimes I have shied away from it all together, obviously missing the mark.  If you need a reason to discount Jesus, you need look no further than this person right here.

But this is the glorious Gospel--that we are all a huge mess, and it is only grace that reaches in and forgives and makes new!  In John 12, some Greeks come to Jerusalem.  Instead of talking to Phillip, who then goes through Andrew, they state simply, "we would like to see Jesus."  Phillip and Andrew were disciples, but they were mere men.  They wanted to see Jesus himself, face to face.  For a watching world, I would say, please see Jesus for yourself!  And to Christians, may we take Jesus' example and call seriously to lay down our lives for others, whether in dramatic ways or in simply loving those who are radically different than, and even opposed to, us.

If there is one thing that I love about living overseas, it is the perspective that it affords me in times like these.  In the same way that Carter could cover up the supermoon with his thumb last night, distance provides perspective that I have found it hard to have when up too close.  In addition to distance, we have the privilege of being surrounded by people very different than us, whom we love and live in close community with.  Instead of it grating on me, it does the opposite--it makes me think harder about certain issues than I might if I were surrounded by people who are just like me.  And I have to think about how to love well, while having my particular convictions, which I don't always do perfectly, but I am challenged to do better and better.  I am so grateful for the people God has put and used in my life.

An African friend just came by, and of course started talking American politics right away.   His conclusion about the current state of our country was, "We thought we were learning from America about how to do politics, but I it seems like America looks just like Africa now!"  He said it with a smile, but he made a good point.  America, Christ-followers, we can do better!

"Pray...for kings and all those in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity." I Tim. 2:2

Thoughts from an unripe guava

This summer was such a great chance to reconnect with people.  What a great privilege to spend time with ones we love--family, friends.  It just couldn't have been any better.  It reminded me again of the preciousness of community and the necessity of having people who really know us.

We are privileged to have friends who are as close as family, and family whom we consider to be the best of friends.  I was thinking the other day, that if the rest of my life were misery, it would not even be able to take away the richness of my life so far.  God has been so kind to us.

so many cousins, so much love...

The other day Ben wanted to eat a little guava from the tree.  "It's not ripe yet, buddy!  It's not going to taste yummy."  He persisted, and I thought I would show him what "not ripe" means.  So I handed him one, he bit into it, and promptly spit it out.  "It's yucky!" he declared, disgusted.  Yes, I told you that.  It reminded me again of how sometimes I think my way is pretty clever and how often I need someone to point out that, truly, "it's yucky."  And how God's wisdom is infinitely greater than mine.

I listen to myself, I listen to little comments and take them and compare my life to them, and my heart so quickly leads me astray.  I know Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."  I know it, but I forget to stop and take my thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ, and I dwell on things that are not real.  

I didn't plan on becoming discontent, I just thought and imagined about what it would be like to have Hannah come home for the weekend with her friends and eat all the food :) and play with the littles.  I imagined how glorious it would be to just have my family all live in one place.  I imagined and pondered and considered, and it seemed harmless enough...and before I knew it, I wanted those things more than anything.  It is not a bad thing, but it is not the thing for me at this moment.  Like Ben and that guava.  And my discontent showed in my lack of thankfulness.  I didn't plan on my way leading to death, but it did.  It led to death of joy and vibrancy.  It killed my passion until I turned my face back towards Jesus and confessed that really, truly, all I want is him.  It is another kind of death, death to self, and I pray I am willing.

I love John 7:37&38, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."

As Piper says of this verse, "It means that when you come to Jesus to drink, you don't just get a single drink, but you get a spring, a fountain, a well.  You get Jesus.  Rivers of water will flow because a River-Maker is in you.  That's the point.  You will never have to search again for a source of satisfaction for your soul.  Every river that needs to flow for the joy of your soul will flow from Jesus.  When you come to him, you get him.  And he never leaves!