lamentations 30 : love ?

Today Nikki and I played tennis.

We chased the balls, hit them around a bit, and sweat a lot! Hoping to get better at it.

It's our new committment, to take one afternoon a week and spend it on some fun exercise...adding a little refreshment to the scurry of life here in our little corner of the world. It was fun today... we provided some amuzement for the "regulars" and finished off in the pool to cool down. I guess it's one step for us, although it feels like a big one. We both think, a healthy one.

See... we just gotta beat it the 'ugh'.

I've tried to describe it in more understandable terms in conversation with a few people since I last wrote. This past week since I've arrived back, it's felt like I've been at the circus. (Well not exactly, but bear with me.) And at the centre of the circus ring is a roaring, RAGING lion, an empty, hungry, mercyless beast with a hollow leg. A bottomless pit? It will need far more than me to be filled and satisfied.

And here I am, very free to choose the extent to which I engage in this circus entertainment (although it feels more like the Roman gladiator games), I stand on the edge. I can prance around, walk around, dance around, and the lion rages, somehow confined to the centre of the ring. I can carefully step across the ring, enter into its space, but still keep my distance. I can step in, and step out again. I can more bravely approach, gaining the approval of the crowds...and slink back again as if to tease. However, if I were to dive right in, engage with this wild raging lion as I'm expected to, i might surely and very simply.... be consummed.

I wonder if this picture helps... to read between the lines.

It's so easy here, in day-to-day living, to allow the countless needs to overwhelm, and to consume; to order my day, to dictate my plans and over-rule my oringinal job assignment.

There have been times, when I know I have become more like a slave to the raging lion, or riped apart by him, and rendered 'not so useful' by the circus Master.

I was reading yesterday and came across a precious promise. The king james version struck me.

"It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because HIS compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is THY faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

His compassions fail not. His are un-exhaustable.

And so while I know that in order to dance with this pacing lion (and not be eaten alive), it'll take tactic, careful planning and lots of deliberate time with the Master...I know that God's mercies will not fail the people I have grown to love.

And this means that I can sleep easier, step lighter... and I can even play a game or two.

dinosaurios and the flood of "ugh"

So I'm back home again.

Touched down about 8pm last night. Black night sky, lots of orange lights. Whew. I love runways. Thank you God for being on the ground.

Then I realized where I was. Bienvenido al Jose Joaquin de Olmedo International Airport, GUAYAQUIL. I wish I could describe for you the feelings that rushed over me in that moment. My "life" was really just twenty minutes away.

As I stared out the little window as we taxied to the gate, it was definitely a mix of emotions that swept over...Ahh. So nice to back, it's all going to feel so familiar again..., gee I'm tired, but thank you God for bringing me back here...

But what surprised me, and I write this tonight because I've thought quite a bit about it today (once I woke up at noon!) and talked about it a lot with Nikki...what surprised me, was the flood of "ugh" that I felt at the same time.

Just this "ugh", and I don't really know how to describe it to you. It was kinda like heaviness that distracted me from the excitement. I tried to push it away, but it kept sweeping through the peace of those moments, as I sat still safely inside the stuffy plane.

Whoa, am I ready? Its all going to begin again...deep breaths.

I don't think that "ugh" is good.

In fact, I've spent most of the last 12 hours thinking about how to take the "ugh" out of life here...or at least how to NOT let the "ugh" leak back in.

At this point I am hopeful, and I am SO glad for this frest start. Nikki and I have some ideas about how to help each other, and TOGETHER keep the "ugh" out.

I'm sorry to be so vague. I will write more, I even promise.

But I want to attach a picture and go to be early. Nikki and I went out together for a while this afternoon, and upon returning, there was a knock on the door.

Two cute little brown faces came around the corner smiling back at me (they had knocked and run away). Jhonny and Eddison had come to visit, and they seemed to welcome my hugs as if it hadn't been long since we had seen each other last... The kids talked a lot, which was nice. They talked about buying crates of beer (must have been with their dad), and about their dog that died (at their home in 'la sierra')...all of it with the cutest accents ever, of course. I tried to ask Jhonny about school, but didn't get too far with that. We played with some dinosaur magnets that I had brought from Canada, and read a Curious George book.

I just especially enjoyed holding them on my lap.

Edy could have used a very soapy bath... but dinosaurs and Jorge el Curioso were far more important tonight.

Goodnight Guayaquil, goodnight.