Morning walks

I have recently switched to walking in the early morning instead of the evenings and it's interesting to see the difference in the sights I see along the way. It's fun to watch the city waking up and it somehow puts a spring in my step as I also feel my body waking up and energy pouring into my veins. I love to see the school children in their uniforms, walking down the road toward their school. The merchants are putting out their wares for the tourists to purchase, the horse & buggies go clopping by, a forlorn-looking woman dressed from head to foot in a long veil carrying long loaves of bread home for her family, men already gathering at their favorite cafe to hear the latest news and drink their coffee. My usual walk takes me down to the beach where I stand and ponder the greatness of the God I serve and wonder how he chose me to be here in this place at this time. There is nothing more energizing for me than hearing the waves roll in and watching the seagulls and fishermen and everything else that goes with sea life. I start back up the hill toward home and I feel full of joy and excitement as I look forward to what God has in store for the day. Morning walks are definitely better than evening walks for me! 

feelings!

I have recently been keenly reminded of what I've known all along, that after almost 50 years of being a follower of Jesus, my feelings/emotions are still very much controlled by my circumstances. I have probably given more than one sermon in my life about not allowing our circumstances to control our emotions and being joyful in all situations, but...it just somehow doesn't compute in this stubborn old brain of mine. Here's the recent scenario that has brought this to light in a poignant way:
It was a very hot, humid morning and my teammate & I decided we'd go over to the guest apartments and get them ready for our upcoming short term team. We would wipe out all the new wardrobes we'd just purchased and make a list of other things we still needed to buy. Upon opening the first wardrobe, we discovered that tiny black termites had completely destroyed it, leaving piles of sawdust in every corner and covering the floor underneath. They had even found their way across the room and begun to destroy the bedside table also! They were threatening to eat our brand new wooden beds which fortunately my husband had varnished, making it more difficult for them to attack. (although the varnished wardrobes did not deter them one bit) We swept out the piles of sawdust made by these monsters and sprayed relentlessly. We then went to the next apartment and sure enough, the same thing all over again, even worse! By now we were drenched in sweat and feeling quite debilitated. Knowing that it's almost impossible to get anything replaced in this country and having very limited funds, we were depressed to say the least. After cleaning out all 3 wardrobes and using up 3 cans of bug spray, we left without having accomplished much else. I felt downhearted and depressed the rest of the day. On top of that, none of the ATM machines worked in our town and we were totally out of money. You have to drive 10 km to even find a machine so that's a lot of wasted time. So that was my bad, horrible, good-for-nothing day and I felt depressed. Today, I left home before 8AM to beat the crowds in town. I went to the ATM machine first and it worked! I got all of my money and went to the phone company to pay my bill. That also worked like it's supposed to. On the way home, I decided to stop at a butcher shop that I've seen many times and wondered if it would have the meat we wanted. Getting beef in our town is nigh unto impossible. The shop was clean and air conditioned. The butcher was very kind and gave me 2 kilos of beautiful ground beef. He also gave me his phone number and said to call him ahead of time and he'd have my order ready for me, even filets or steaks or anything I wanted. Oh, this was turning out to be a joyous day. My spirits were soaring by now. I was 3 for 3! Upon returning home, I was able to get lots of important little things done at my desk and around the house, had a lovely cup of coffee and now I am off to the beach to celebrate my happy day with sweet Kali, an 18 year old intern who's living with us this year.
I'm sure I will give the "rejoice in all circumstances" sermon again and I will be preaching mostly to myself, because I still haven't learned this lesson but as long as there's breath, there's still hope, right? Oh Lord, help me to learn that you are good and you are God in the good times and in the bad!