lessons from the sickbed.

learned especially on a day like today. if you could see this african day, if you could feel the perfect temperature settling all around you, if you could smell the flowers starting to bloom as summer approaches, if you could hear the waves crashing in perfect harmony upon the shore, then you'd hate it for me that i'm sick today.
i was up most of the night because i couldn't breathe out of my nose. then i had stomach cramps. so i decided to stay awake and managed to lie on my bed for a good hour, from about 3-4 a.m., holding a glass of mango juice in my hand without spilling it. by about 7:50 am, when it was time to be up for work, i fell asleep. i tried going to work and didn't do so well so i came home and watched mona lisa smile for the 3rd time this week. i really like that movie because it reminds me of life in america, and i want to be like julia roberts in that movie.
now i'm at a coffee shop trying to think of something interesting to say. i have nothing.

i've been emotionally and spiritually depleted lately. i've had a few illnesses back to back and visited some doctors who gave me a plethora of diagnoses, none of which i like or agree with. but i am feeling better, sort of.
i think the past 7 months are catching up with me. they've been totally intense and amazing and life-changing and difficult. i now know what it means to truly see the pain and ache of this world and be able to do nothing to "change" it. i have a new definition of hope and faith and perseverance. i believe god is a mighty healer of those who are afflicted. i believe christ is the only source of rehabilitation for addicts, abuse victims, abandoned children, and lonely souls.

the past few years, my spiritual journey has been very "academic". i've read tons of books since i believe i really understood what it should mean to be a christian--back about 4 years ago on an airplane to san diego when i realized that christ was all i had and all i ever really needed. i joined bible studies, i met with wise counsel here and there, i tried to be intellectually stimulated by and stimulating for the company i kept. my brain resided on this strange plane of thought that couldn't shut down, couldn't stop asking questions, couldn't stop thinking most of the time. i wrote in journals like a mad woman. i enjoyed wholesome music and tried to be cool enough to talk about different bands and songs. i spent most of my time with christians because that was what i needed to do to stay sober and sane and on track.

well, africa changed all that through my exposure to roughly 15 children from the community of capricorn who had made the suburb of muizenberg their temporary home. i stopped reading. my journal was my best friend for a while, then started collecting dust. my ipod stayed off for months. my brain was too overwhelmed, too tired, to shocked to try and really compartmentalize or make sense of the things i was seeing and hearing. i became incredibly critical of worldly things, even my coffee addiction got tackled. you likely heard little from me.

this was like the field trip for all the things i'd studied and read and heard about God over the last 4 years. it was like i got sent out into the bush and had to learn how to kill wild game and start fires and differentiate between poisonous and safe plants and insects. ok, that's a little dramatic, but so am i, so it's cool. basically, my world got flipped on it's hindside and i loved every minute of it.

but, god is calling me to a new place, and i'm actually really intimidated by it. i've been avoiding it for a few months now, but i think these crazy illnesses are part of god's way of opening my eyes to my weakness, my vincibility (if that's a word). in one word, this next season would be called "prayer". yes, it's something i do, sometimes i enjoy it, most of the time i feel guilty if i don't do it "like i should" or "enough". i remember i used to fall asleep praying and thought that was a bad thing. now i see it as a beautiful way to go out for the day, talking to my father and my God.
but this new season is going to be more intense than the book study, more heart-wrenching than the field trip. it's actually going to require more commitment, more perseverance and more faith than i've ever known before.

i look at it this way. god has blessed me beyond measure with life experiences, with journeys from indonesia to burma to moldova to south africa. god has always provided for my every need in this international life i've accepted as my "calling". i've met with buddhist monks and been accepted as their sister and daughter and friend. i've chased orphans around moldova and been miraculously present for the birth of their own children at the tender age of 16. i've walked tsunami-ravaged beaches where body parts and house parts were strewn across the shoreline. i've seen children hit with candlesticks by their drunk mothers. i've felt godly anger as i stared into the eyes of a 17 year old boy who's been raped by a dirty old paedophile. i've fallen in love with the people of the world--from kheminda and uttamasara to galina and tatiana to neiltjie and poem.

this is what i call RESPONSIBILITY. because the most important thing, the biggest change any of these people need is the model of jesus christ living in their hearts, giving purpose to their terribly difficult and trying existence, breathing hope and love into their lonely and drug-addcited hearts.

and i've failed miserably at doing my job of praying for these people.

but being sick has shown me that prayer = time, and i don't set time aside for prayer. i'm an action-oriented gal, but prayer is the most active thing i could do. calling on the name of the most high god and petitioning for his attention on behalf of a wounded generation of boys and girls--that's action more than sitting with them while they come off of crystal meth or sob over their abusive stepfather...although these are important actions as well.

so, can you pray for me, that i'd be a pray-er in the real sense of the word. that my prayer life would become primary in my life? if i don't start acting on this call, i might be sick for a long time!!!