08 November 2008

Nothing Articulate

I feel like I need to write something but I'm not sure what to say.  It's been a strange week.  Can't quite put a finger on why but maybe it's the mix of extremely hard circumstances and events and the experience of God's kindness mixed in.  There's a lot of death in the story of my life in the last week, but there's unbelievably a lot of life also.  There's a lot of sin in the story of my life in the last week, but unbelievably there's a lot of forgiveness and redemption also.  There's been a lot of sobering memories in the story of my life in the last week, but unbelievably there's also been a lot of glad memories.  There's been a lot of crying in the story of my life this week, but there's also been a lot of laughter.  There's been a lot of lament of the sorrow and sin and struggle of this world and this life in my story this week, but there's also been glimpses of the world and life to come.

I think it's been a strange week because I'm not used to this mixture.  I think in my life experience in general I am used to experiencing one or the other...joy or sadness, laughter or tears, sin or forgiveness, death or life, not such strong combinations of all of the above.  It's another expression of the paradoxes of life here.  I'm not sure what to do with it all, but I think the point is that there is nothing to do, there's just being.  I can only sit with the emotions and realities of the moment, whatever combination there might be, and ask God to show me whatever He has for me in it.  

2 comments:

Dana said...

Well, strangely enough, I can identify with you here. And, I think that your thoughts are articulated quite well. Thanks for writing.

Matt Allison said...

Hi Heidi,

I think you've nailed one of the chief blessings of living in Uganda. I sense that we're supposed to live a life something like this. The order and tidiness of our American culture minimizes such experience at the expense of the sharpness and clarity it can so often bring. I've been enjoying your blog and am praying for the Kingdom in your lives and the work!