Comfort

I planted these seeds a couple of months ago in front of our house and I'm just starting to see real flowers. It's truly some kind of miracle that I don't even begin to understand. You plant an itsy-bitsy tiny little thing in the ground and from that little seed comes leaves and flowers and beauty. Or different fruit, vegetables and huge trees, it's truly amazing. God is clever.

"For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living enduring word of God. For 'All men are like grass, and all of their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever...'"
1Pet. 1:23-25

We also have a bush of beautiful pink hibiscus' in front of our home. I love them because of the bright pink petals and so sometimes I pick a few and put them in a little glass of water. Usually by the next day they are wrinkled and dying and I have to throw them away.

It has been of great comfort to my heart these days to meditate on the brevity of this life and more importantly the vast eternity of God. He never changes and He is the Living Eternal One who lives outside of time. I love these verses from 1 Peter and Isaiah 40. There is an undying eternal seed within those who love Jesus; something that cannot be destroyed, something that will never die. This life with all of it's pleasures and pains, with all of it's sickness and anguish will one day fade away into something glorious and true. There is a day set in His heart when every tear will be wiped away and everything done in secret, whether for good or for evil will be revealed. There is a day coming, more certain than the dawn, when all of the wrong things will be made right. Even now just writing about it, there is a longing in my heart beyond words. Oh, come Lord Jesus.

All of my plans and ambitions and longings, all of my strivings and hopes, anything that I may ever attain, it's all a breath, a vapor, a twinkling. " The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever." I love that He doesn't change His mind. His word and the intentions of His heart, His commitments, His name and very character, they remain the same forever, for all of eternity. He is love and to the depths of His being He is good and right and powerful. This comforts me. Our lives are so much more than this temporal journey of 70-80 years. He has plans that exist for us outside of time. There is an eternal seed within us that will continue to grow; we will be like Him when we see Him as He is. Christ in us, the hope of glory.

"Longing is the echo of eternity within our souls. It is that which sets us apart and makes us pilgrims on the journey. This world is not our home and our inner ache gives testimony to the brevity of life and the weight of eternity." -D. Candler

hot dog?

Houser and I were walking home the other day and as we got close to the walkway of our house we smelled a pungent odor and heard some funny sounds. We looked over the side wall to our neighbor's house and saw them preparing this dog for dinner. There are actual farms here where dogs are bred for eating, like we raise cattle in the States. This dog is too small to have been one of those. It is not uncommon for people to also eat dogs that were just hit by cars. For a while here at our base, people in the neighborhood were calling and telling some of our boy staff if dogs were found that were hit by a car. Then they would go, collect it, skin it and prepare it for dinner.
Here in the North East people are serious meat eaters. At some of the different markets in the NE you can find all sorts of "meats." People eat cat, dogs, monkey, elephant, eel, hornets, snake, silk worms...the list goes on. It is so interesting to me that people from different cultures and nations have such different tastes and ways of cooking.
Growing up in my family, all of our cats and dogs were like children in the home. It was a big paradigm shift to come here and to learn that people actually eat them. Some people here do have dogs and cats as pets here and love them dearly. Our house owner has a little cat named Vexie that we all love and play with.
I love that God is so diverse in His creation all over the world. People from different nations look different and dress differently, we like different foods and different sounds and there are are so many different languages and ways that beauty is expressed. However the essence of the human heart is the same. We all want to know that we are loved. We were all made to love One who is worthy. We all have hopes and fears and dreams, and we're all searching and longing and aching for something that is real and true and that transcends time. Truly He has put eternity in our hearts, in all of mankind. Truly He is the only One who can satisfy, in all of the world, in all of created order.

new beginnings

I'm just recovering from a bacterial infection that I picked up in Varanasi and as I am beginning to regain my strength, I'm overwhelmed with the goodness of God and His kindness in my life. I'm just learning how to use this whole blog thing and I'm excited to be able to keep in touch with people better and to share the things that are on my heart.

"He has made everything beautiful in it's time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Eccl. 3:11