learning is a process

What am I learning?

A friend asked me recently what I have learned in my time here. Seeing as I'm going through the down section of the roller coaster ride called 'culture stress' I can't actually say I've learned anything. But what am I learning?

There's the language and cultural things I am slowly picking up. They are the only things keeping me here for the next year right now.

I'm learning a lot about myself: a lot of things I don't particularly care to see. I'm learning about perspective and purpose. About reasons for living and dying and how that does or does not infiltrate even the shortest minute of day-to-day life. I'm learning about my own vanity. About my idols. About how much of my heart is given to things that are minuscule and trivial and WRONG in the grand scheme of things.

I'm learning about how to love others, especially my husband. And I'm more often learning how I fail to love others, especially my husband. I have learned to be more thankful and respectful of the man my husband is, but I have also fought with him in such vicious hateful ways.

I'm learning how to do things I don't like or want to do. How to push myself to give up some things for other things. How to live not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I have learned that my heart really does desire some things that I don't have here. And my head and my heart both believe that those things I desire are important - even if they aren't the BEST things I feel like I ought to be wanting.

I want to want to be here. I want to find my joy in this work, in this place, in this role. But it's just not here. Is that because this isn't the place for me? Or because I'm just having to let go of some things that I don't want to let go? Is it because this isn't what God has called me to? Or is it because I am transitioning and adjusting to such a different work?

Why do I just wanna run away? I've always been the fighter not the flighter. Why do I wanna give up? Why do I think that something else would fit? If we do not find any success here, can I go home and assume that I will find it in a different but similar area of work? If I fail this test here how can I pass any other?

I miss Josiah.
I wish my husband understood me.
I want the peace and forgetfulness of my bed.
I want joy in simple things.
I want contentment.
I long for something stable.

How can I find all these things in YOU, Lord? How do you show them and apply them and lay them on me?