So deal with it, Bekah
I'm having a Just Because day. I love my friends Kevin and Pari, because they coined the term; Just Because days are days when you decide that enough is enough, throw out your schedule, and take time just to be alone and deal with it. This morning I woke up feeling that I needed to scream, and that's never a healthy attitude to bring to a morning prayer meeting at church. Sometimes when I have felt like that, I've gone on anyway, and I realize later that I probably should have stayed away and spared everyone my poison and negativity.
This makes me sound like a wretched person, and I am. I'm going to be totally honest. Sometimes it feels like the only thing redemptive about being in Bosnia is the coffee. I am often frustrated by the lack of morality I see in the mundane: police pulling foreign motorists over and scamming them out of 20 marks, waiters giving incorrect change and then swearing that you gave them a 20 when you really gave them a 50, beggars ceaselessly haranguing you with their stolen sunglasses and perfume while you try to eat lunch...I could go on and on, but this is all every day life here. I signed up for it, but sometimes I feel like I've bitten off way more than I can chew.
Anyway, forgive the complaining; this is reality, though. It always helps me to be real about these things, and to face the fact that it's really hard, and often not rewarding. I think Laura (see Asia and Chocolate) put it best, when she said something along the lines of, "I can't pretend that everything about it [missions] is wonderful..." Something like that. A lot of it is wonderful, but a lot of it feels like crap. That's the truth.
This article gives you a sense of how draining it often is to live in Bosnia. The truth of the matter is that Bosnia seems like a hopeless and forgotten nation, and in many ways it is, but I don't want to paint you a completely black picture. I love Bosnia, and the reason I'm here is because I want to see things change, and I believe they will...but there is a price to pay for anyone who is here and has that desire.
I do NOT consider myself a martyr or a saint because I'm in Bosnia, quite the opposite...often I wonder how in the world I was so blessed to have this opportunity to live in such an amazing country; last weekend I spent the day hiking in the mountains, and it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. But I see now what a huge sacrifice one must make to fight for a fair and strong nation, and after only one year of being in that struggle, I wonder how others have done it.
I am absolutely spoiled rotten. I have an American passport and I could return to the States or go anywhere else in the world and never return to Bosnia. I think I complain more because I know I have freedom and yet God has called me here, and because I am used to all the priveleges and liberties I was born into, but God wants me to give those up, for at least a season. So, in other words, I don't have the right to complain, but I feel so ragged and thin and weary, I need to complain.
My homegroup back in the States was absolutely lovely and sent me a care package recently. You can never know what a comfort marshmallow creme can be. I am sitting here with the jar and the spoon and my laptop, letting the world (or the 7 people who read this) know why I decided I'm at the end of my rope and needed to be completely lazy just because. There it all is, the ugly all exposed and out in the open. It feels wonderful to know that I can feel like the yuckiest scum, and know that I am but for the grace of God.
Please take a Just Because day sometime if you don't already--they're very therapeutic, and they often teach, in wonderful ways, the truth about the desperate wickedness of our hearts aside from Christ. Yuck.
This makes me sound like a wretched person, and I am. I'm going to be totally honest. Sometimes it feels like the only thing redemptive about being in Bosnia is the coffee. I am often frustrated by the lack of morality I see in the mundane: police pulling foreign motorists over and scamming them out of 20 marks, waiters giving incorrect change and then swearing that you gave them a 20 when you really gave them a 50, beggars ceaselessly haranguing you with their stolen sunglasses and perfume while you try to eat lunch...I could go on and on, but this is all every day life here. I signed up for it, but sometimes I feel like I've bitten off way more than I can chew.
Anyway, forgive the complaining; this is reality, though. It always helps me to be real about these things, and to face the fact that it's really hard, and often not rewarding. I think Laura (see Asia and Chocolate) put it best, when she said something along the lines of, "I can't pretend that everything about it [missions] is wonderful..." Something like that. A lot of it is wonderful, but a lot of it feels like crap. That's the truth.
This article gives you a sense of how draining it often is to live in Bosnia. The truth of the matter is that Bosnia seems like a hopeless and forgotten nation, and in many ways it is, but I don't want to paint you a completely black picture. I love Bosnia, and the reason I'm here is because I want to see things change, and I believe they will...but there is a price to pay for anyone who is here and has that desire.
I do NOT consider myself a martyr or a saint because I'm in Bosnia, quite the opposite...often I wonder how in the world I was so blessed to have this opportunity to live in such an amazing country; last weekend I spent the day hiking in the mountains, and it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. But I see now what a huge sacrifice one must make to fight for a fair and strong nation, and after only one year of being in that struggle, I wonder how others have done it.
I am absolutely spoiled rotten. I have an American passport and I could return to the States or go anywhere else in the world and never return to Bosnia. I think I complain more because I know I have freedom and yet God has called me here, and because I am used to all the priveleges and liberties I was born into, but God wants me to give those up, for at least a season. So, in other words, I don't have the right to complain, but I feel so ragged and thin and weary, I need to complain.
My homegroup back in the States was absolutely lovely and sent me a care package recently. You can never know what a comfort marshmallow creme can be. I am sitting here with the jar and the spoon and my laptop, letting the world (or the 7 people who read this) know why I decided I'm at the end of my rope and needed to be completely lazy just because. There it all is, the ugly all exposed and out in the open. It feels wonderful to know that I can feel like the yuckiest scum, and know that I am but for the grace of God.
Please take a Just Because day sometime if you don't already--they're very therapeutic, and they often teach, in wonderful ways, the truth about the desperate wickedness of our hearts aside from Christ. Yuck.
4 Comments:
Bekah ... thanks for being honest. We ALL have those days. I have learned that in order to protect myself and others around me, I must take at least one day every two weeks for "just because." And then I do whatever I want to do, like eat chocolate, stay in bed all day, get a pedicure, go read at Starbucks, or any combination of those and more. It's ok ... it's called REST! :) Enjoy it.
"I feel thin- like butter scraped over too much bread" Bilbo Baggins
I don't want to be a wet blanket, because I totally agree on the need of just because days, and take them myself, now....but wait til you're a mom with a couple of babies!! (nursing)
When that happens, I will help you, my dog :)
thanks mom....i REALLY look forward to that time of life ;). and us kids are so far away now, "grandma" probably won't ever be around to help us either--you will think of the pain we're enduring, take a sip of your pinot grigio, and cackle to yourself.
"We just have our, uhhhh....scrabble club and uhhhh....uhhh, you know, uh, other...people with babies."
thanks, laura...i know you've experienced all this stuff and maybe more...indonesia is very islamic, right? it's so hard to live in such a heavily oppressed place, which i think contributes a lot to my occasional borderline breakdowns.
thanks for the rest tips--i especially like the bed and pedicure ideas (we don't have starbucks :( )--i will have to follow your advice! :)
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