Wednesday, July 14

silence.

Here in America, everything is different.
yes, thank you captain obvious.
but i mean, my desires, my thought patterns, my life drive - it's all different here. the struggles have shifted from sweating while walking, bucket washing, toaster oven cooking and keeping track of my padlock key to getting lost on the streets of the city, keeping updated with my cell phone calls and finding the best deal on a camera charger.
yesterday was a remarkable day.
i got up around 8 and began going over GRE strategy tips and practice questions - mostly math, since thats what i kept forgetting. i printed off my directions, took a shower, and headed out the door at 11:00 to drive my 21-minute route to my 12:00 test.
and i was late.
i was actually thinking about how nice it was to be able to drive my cute black car again when i realized there was a tricky portion of the directions, and it was really all downhill from there.
so, i was late to my GRE. the nice old lady calmed me down and assured me i could still take it, and i felt a little better. i was still uneasy because i had little time to prepare for the graduate-level test and i am still feeling jetlagged. my fears turned out to be well-founded, as my scores were well below what i would expect of myself.
whatever, i shook it off and went to buy a new phone charging cord to replace the one i left on a different continent, and took my car to fail its two months overdue inspection.
oh, life mundane.

there is one thing that is the same in both cultures that i've noticed...
there isn't a lot of escape from the noise.
whether it's traffic and bellowing vegetable vendors or ringing phones and chattering people, i find no silence.
i plug my ears with headphones. i put my pillow over my head.

but when i talk to God, silence is all i hear. How real He is, but how quiet.
"Father, how do i reconcile what i've seen with where i am? Father, how can i keep from becoming apathetic? Father, who have you given me to help today? Father, where am i meant to be?"
....

my open-ended questions trail off into the silence. the trust that was so recently so real to me is again a grasping at straws. I trust i have a reason to be here. I trust that if i follow Him, He will use me. I trust that my American life is purposed.

God of my details, God of all nations, God of the silence.
How good my God is.

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