Reflections

February 6, 2010

Before I write about the week (hopefully later today) I wanted to take a moment to reflect on two lessons the Lord challenged me with so far this weekend. Yesterday morning I was at La Casa de Mi Padre helping with the Family Day that occurs every two weeks. Family members of the children come to the home to see their children, receive counseling,and/or participate in a literacy class. There is also a devotional time and lunch for all who come. I ended up being in the literacy class and sat with one woman (I would imagine her to have been at least in her mid-50's), helping her sound out letters and even recognize them. We spent the whole time on sounds like ma, me, mi, mo, and mu. Just when I thought she had gotten the sound, we would move on to the next two letters and she would repeat the sound we had just done.

As I sat there trying to help her, my thoughts were, "I am not cut out for this kind of teaching." "I do not have patience for this." And, "Ahhh... not again!" Internally I was battling my impatience and praying that this was not to be the method in which God works on patience in my own life in this coming year. Then the thought struck me, I wonder how God feels when time after time after time, I keep making the same mistakes. How does He feel when I just do not get it nor understand what He is trying to teach me? Thankfully He is patient and loving and He has not given up on me. I wanted to give up yesterday and say forget it to the teaching, but as I thought about God's work in my life and His patience with me, I received encouragement and strength to stay with the woman and help her try to learn the letters and sounds. And my prayer too after yesterday's experience is that I will get and accept what God is teaching me. I do not want to hear from Him and then walk away and forget it.

This morning I had another experience that made me think (I will never tire of analogies I fear). Yesterday there had been a note under the door saying something about the park being in poor condition and so no one was to use the fields/courts etc.... From my understanding of the note, it did not say that I could not run there, but I was not sure. So this morning I headed up the stairs to enter the park and stopped because the gate was closed -- something that has never happened before. I inwardly groaned because I envisioned the worst -- it was locked and I would have no place to exercise. I almost just turned around and went home but I decided to go and see if it was actually locked. It was not and so I entered and did my running/stair climbing. As I ran I thought about that closed door. It was an obstacle in my path because it had not been there before and in light of the note, I thought it meant the park was off limits. And so I was tempted to just turn around and give up. I realized that often in life I do the same thing. I encounter an obstacle in my path or a seemingly closed door, and I want to just give up. But sometimes I think that God wants to see if I will persevere and push forward, not allowing obstacles nor circumstances to hinder me from following His call. (not always because there are moments when God has a door closed and locked and I should not try to enter) With our muscles they get stronger when they face resistance and have to lift more weight than previously. And so I need to be careful not to just turn and run or give up the moment something does not seem to be going quite right. I need to first investigate and ask the Lord what He wants -- is the door locked or just temporarily closed? Is it an obstacle in my path so that I go in a different direction or does God want to see if I am willing to follow and obey Him even when the going gets tough? And so those are my reflections.