Little Dreams Big

I used to want to be an actor. When I was nine. And I was so angry when my parents encouraged me to maybe find something a little less outlandish. So I decided to be a missionary. Or more- God gave me a deep-rooted desire sown in my heart under a starry sky in Mexico. And oh how that desire guided me for so long. It even became my identity.

In America we ask people what they do. It is one of the first questions of small talk and it creates a suddle pressure to have a good answer. What do you do? Oh I am just finding the cure for cancer while volunteering at the local food bank and teaching Sunday school and raising the next Bill Gates.

I was always so proud of my answer. It became a large part of my identity. So much so that I contemplated very seriously breaking up with Hank due to his 'lack of a calling.' It sounds horrible and it is, but my passion for missions had consumed me to an unhealthy degree. I didn't know who I was without it.

Last year I lived my dream. It was amazing. I got to teach ESL, live in a foreign country with some of the most beautiful people I have ever met and share the Love of the Lord with some of the coolest students-become-friends ever. And yet, part of my pined away for my sweetheart. I thought life would be perfect if we could one day get married and then live the dream overseas.

It is still a deep desire and I still think it would be pretty awesome.

But why is it that I am never quite content where I am? Why is it that I always want the next stage to come on and get here?

I have a job and a husband and a house and a garden. But I hate the job most days and neglect to clean the house or water the garden. I praise God for both in the morning light but when they start to need some TLC, I offer it only begrudgingly. Sometimes I do the same with my husband. He gets the dregs left over from a day of helping people who rarely say thanks.

And i think that maybe if we could just live overseas, I would find more fulfilment in my work and have energy to clean and love and more of a burn to worship and grow.

My goodness I must have a short memory. Because I never felt like cleaning last year and would regularly procrastinate on lesson plans and when there were over 200 students to love, I often felt discouraged and empty and frustrated. I often bemoaned all the aspects of the culture I didn't agree with or couldn't even begin to understand.

No, there is no perfect place. There is no perfect phase of life.

But there are gifts for the taking today. There was a beautiful woodpecker to watch at the park and several hours just to sip too-sweet coffee and work on lesson plans at the coffee shop. There were resources to use to teach refugees the alphabet and there was rest and energy. There was a long overdue visit with my best friend and her adorable family and hours to just talk and explore other-worldly parks lit with fireflies and legends.

There were conversations with beautiful grandmothers and a beautiful mom and there was time to burrow deep into the Word for rest and healing and hope. And there is God's never-failing and never-changing character and the compassion, mercy, love, and kindness he shows me daily.

And I am going to keep dreaming big but perhaps I will keep my small dreams bigger. I will rejoice over clean laundry and the tasks that get checked on the daily list. And I will rejoice over what I can't see yet and the promise that the future will be good, hard but good, and that I do not go alone.

Loads of Laundry...

           It has been a while since I had so much energy. I have new respect for career women. Goodness me, you work all day and then come home to a house that needs cleaning, plants that need watering, people that need feeding and maybe you can squeeze in some alone time to read, write, create etc. Maybe.

   Hank and I don't even have any kids yet and it still seems busy. This past week I was offered a position teaching another refugee ESL class. I admit I am nervous. These are people from across the world who likely have never learned to read or write. We are started with the basics- ABC's and numbers. How do I even begin a class like that?? "I am" (point to self) "Kelsey." "My name is" would even be too much.

    So, it is definitely going to be a stretching experience but I am excited. Also, this puts me back working two jobs but I have a gracious boss who is letting me leave work early to get to the class. Thankful!

    Today, in preparation for the crazy week ahead, I cleaned the house. It was dirty. Plain and simple.
Hank was gone flying most of the day, so I headed out to garage sales this morning and was triumphant. *Praise the Lord! We needed a weed eater and a 7' ladder. I got both for a steal!
 
    Once home, I attacked the laundry, swept the floors, cleaned the dishes and then read alot. It was one of those beautiful days that is not quite too hot but sunshiney and perfect. It was a day to be thankful for this moment, this stage in life, this house to clean and a class to pray and prepare for. It was much needed rest.

    Hank and I went on a walk to the nearby park and around the track of the elementary school around the corner. We talked about life and then made salads for dinner. We discussed our garden, our families, the upcoming week. It was just good.

     And now we are looking forward to a lovely Sunday. Hank has been really busy flying this week. I think that everyone is calling to make up for the slow first week of May. He even has a flight tomorrow! But again, I am thankful. He has a job that he enjoys. We are learning and becoming more dependant on our Lord for our strength. When he leaves,  I don't pine away for him(most of the time). I get busy or do a craft or (as will be the case tomorrow) I lesson plan!

Sweet Sundays

On our latest library scavenging trip, Hank and I browsed the Christian books section looking for resources for a retreat we are leading. While I scanned the rows of all too familiar titles, my eyes landed on a tiny book by Kathleen Morris, titled "The Quotidian Mysteries." The title grabbed my attention and I was fairly certain I had heard of the little tome.

     I plopped it haphazardly atop the stack of new arrivals and best sellers I was checking out and Hank and I headed off to check out our precious finds.
     
     As I began to read the book later that week, I found that this book, while tiny, would not be a 'quick read.' Wooh. I had to read most of the sentences twice in order to digest them.
     Morris was a latecomer to Catholicism, happening upon the tradition in a rather unorthodox way. She describes watching her first wedding mass and the shock and awe she felt seeing the priest wash the dishes used for the communion.

    Morris describes the low place given to the monotaneous tasks like house work and child rearing. She talks about the cultural shifts that have landed Americans with the attitude that menial tasks are for the poor or uneducated and we were meant to achieve more or accomplish more with our lives.

   While I am only a few pages in, I have been deeply convicted. I hate laundry. I do not enjoy housework in general. In fact, I am perfectly happy letting my husband take out the trash AND wash the dishes. Lately Hank has started to ask that I perhaps take over dish duty a few nights a week. I knew the day would come but that didn't stop me from selfishly hoping I had married Mr. Clean and would never have to stoop to scrubbing dishes ever again. After all, Hank always washed dishes when we were dating... HAHAHA. And I was sweet, docile and always in the mood then too...

      Dishes just aren't romantic. I pictured married life filled with the smells of fresh bread, kitchens that magically absorbed the floury gunk that gets glued to the countertops, and mornings spent staring dreamily at one another over steaming cups of coffee and plates filled with perfectly cooked eggs and bacon. My dad asked me two months into our marriage whether I was still making breakfast for Hank as I had declared I would do. I admitted I had only done it once and had no great ambitions to make the dream a reality. Oatmeal and cereal seemed nearly as romantic when compared to the value of sleep.

     Hank is a servant and I can easily take advantage of that. We have certain tasks that we usually do. While he washes dishes, I dry them and put them away and put all the food away. While he takes out the trash, I try to keep laundry going. But sometimes I slack off and return to my college habits of waiting to wash clothes until I'm nearly out of underthings and then leaving said clothes in the dryer until they are wrinkled beyond belief.

    So, after feeling particularly convicted by Morris, I set out to catch up on housework today. I finally attacked the mold that had flourished on the ceiling in our bathroom, swept up the floors and even did TWO WHOLE LOADS of laundry. Someone say "Praise the Lord."

      And while I feel mighty good about my thirty minutes of labor, I know that this won't make me a better person or give me the perfect marriage. Within the daily doing of the tasks that must be done, there is a bit of transformation that I am hoping for. There is a slow learning (because I am not a quick learner when it comes to cleaning- ask my mother). It is in the menial and monotoneous, Morris says, that true thinking and inspiration occur. So I am going to try to 'lower myself' (HA!) to these tasks in the hopes that I might just learn to see the beauty in them.