"Constantly choose rather to want less, than to have more." --Thomas A Kempis
We are home. Mark and I arrived home a little over a week ago and have been trying to settle back in and get back into life here. I am not sure how we do that completely when so much of our hearts are back in Teguc.!As we were coming through the Houston airport we had a few moments to sit before our connection so we stopped at Starbucks, now that is a marker that you are back in the states, no??? Mark picked up a paper and as he read the sports page, well of course, I read the local news. The first article I read was how the gas prices were affecting and changing the lives of families. As I read I guess I expected something very different but what I read was how these families were "suffering" because they could not take the kids to Chuck E Cheese, because the kids were bored, that they could not buy a pass to a local water park because they could not afford the pass and the the gas to go. My reaction was strong and Mark kept telling me Lori it is just because you just got back from Honduras. My thought was "are you kinding me right now? You have a comfortable house to be in..your children have food and toys to entertain them...what is the problem, well, honestly what I also said was WA WA WA...(is that how you spell that). I know not very kind. But I was blown away!
My time in Honduras gives me, at this time, a perspective that allows me to look at the world through different eyes, with a different focus and I do not want to loose my sensitivity to the pollution of this world. I do know that the things of this world are alluring and if not careful I can easily forget what is so clear to me right now. I want to remain sensitive to what is truly important. Scripture tells me a true and faultless religion is to care for the poor and the widows. That is what I want to live, I do not want to come back and fall back into a life "about me" but, in the midst of the Kingdom in a differnt culture, I want to still be about Kingdom work and not buy the lie that this life is about me ...because if I am not careful I will begin to feel sorry for myself because I can't go to Chuck E Cheese, so to speak.
10 comments:
Lori I agree it is soooo easy to get caught up in our "stuff". I had been starting to think in the way that everyone I know has a better camera, computer, cellphone, etc. than me. I am working hard to reverse my thinking to being thankful that I have a camera, computer and cellphone at all.
And if the gas situation gets bad enough, what will we do if we don't have gas to go to the store? We'll walk and, who knows, we may even meet some of our neighbors who we've never spoken with along the way!
When I read your comment, Lor, I wondered what in the world you were doing up on the computer at 6 AM! Then when my post was timed at 7:48 AM (I knew *I* wasn't up that early) I realized it must be on Pacific time! LOL
i ike ur site. i like ur work. =P
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I wonder, Mom, if that is what is happening to me too? I mean. Sure I still went and got a manicure this weekend, but I am really trying to be better and more conscious of things like you mentioned. Hmm....Something cool is happening to me.
Lor, your feelings are justified. If more people realized how unaware we are of what true poverty and hardship is,Americans would be kinder to each other. I have never been caught up in material things, but I do catch myself whining and complaining about such trivial problems. Working in Community Nursing has been a wake up call to how poorly people live, even in this country. I have started trying to think of someone less fortunate each time I start to get annoyed with the weather, traffic, other people. I truely realize I have nothing to complain about. I love Ya Cher
Lori,
I am with you on that! People make comments now about how bad things are for them. At the moment they complain about something, I am back on that mountain called San Miguel. I see those children who have so little. Or I see the woman going through the dumpster. And I cringe at our selfishness, of which I am most guilty.
I hope all of us who have seen these things remain sensitive to what is important, just like you said.
Hey guys...
I will be praying for your heart as you "settle back in" here with a heart that feels out of place. That phrase and transition is always tricky isn't it because you never do truly settle back in in quite the same way. One of my favorite quotes is "My eyes have seen now my heart has responsibility." So very true and it's that responsibility that compels us to live a life that becomes less about us. Oh Lord please that there would be more of You and less of us every moment. I appreciate your heart and the things you share so much.
Continue to be blessed and be a blessing. JEN
Lori,
Thanks for sharing this. You time in Honduras has changed you forever I think, and in a very good way. I thank God with you, and though this is the first time I've commented here on this blog, I've followed your Honduran adventures and so I also thank God FOR people like you and Mark. May the things God taught you in Honduras continue to inform the live you seek to live back in Alabama as a disciple of Jesus Christ. May your life continue to be different. And by the way, keep blogging; you have a "voice" that needs to be heard. Thanks for blogrolling me, and I'll be doing the same for "God of Wonders."
Peace to you and yours
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