Falling in love

As I was preparing to leave for China, I can't tell you how many people said, "You're going to find love there."  I laughed every time I heard that because when I accepted this job, I also accepted that I likely had many more years of being single ahead of me. What I didn't expect was that I actually WOULD find love here, and I didn't expect to find it in such unexpected places - in the faces of the college students I'm becoming friends with...in the laughter and the tears of the orphans I visit on Saturday mornings...in hugs from the students the Father has entrusted to me...in the cold, cold, short days and long nights of the city I now call "home."

I'm reading a book titled Love Does. In the introduction, the author says, "...we need to stop plotting the course and just land the plane on our plans to make a difference by getting to the "do" part of our faith.  That's because love is never stationary.  In the end, love doesn't just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it.  Simply put: love does."

 For the past few weeks, since I started reading this book, I've been looking at every situation and thinking, "The Father is love.  I'm called to be a woman after His own heart.  So....What would love do in this situation?"

So two weeks ago, when I was invited to travel into a really poor area of town to spend some time in a cold, dark, 2 room house with a group of amazing, beautiful people who don't speak my language, I  went. I sat on a tiny stool and listened to their songs and laughter and words I didn't understand, all the while wearing my coat because the house was so cold.  And those people back in the States were right.  I fell in love that day -- with children who have nothing...with families who are living in shells of houses that are surrounded by the remains of their former community...and with the One who created them all.

This week I was invited to a program to watch those same children sing in a Christmas program. I knew the program would be very long.  I knew it would all be in Chinese and I would barely understand a word. I knew I would likely be the only person there with white skin and blonde hair (and I was).  Despite these things, when I stopped and thought, "What would love do?" I knew the answer: love would go.  So I went. I sat for 3 hours and understood a word here and a word there.  I didn't do much of anything, actually, besides show up.  When the children were finished performing, I found them and told them what a great job they did, and that was really the extent of my contribution to the whole thing.  But I was THERE, and I believe that the hours I spent there wondering what in the world was going on were worth it because they saw that someone was there FOR them.  And to be honest, at the end of it all, I was the one who walked away having been so blessed by the things I saw and heard, which usually seems to be the case with these kinds of things. Then I look back on all the times (even this week) that I passed up an opportunity to show His love because I was too "busy" or tired or just unwilling, and it hurts.  So my prayer is that I choose to be fully engaged in the adventure laid out before me from here on out, one day at a time.

"When people realize there is no agenda other than friendship and better understanding, it changes things."
"I get the invitation every morning when I wake up to actually live a life of complete engagement, a life of whimsy, a life where love does. It doesn't come in an envelope.  It's ushered in by a sunrise, the sound of a bird, or the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen.  It's the invitation to actually live, to fully participate in this amazing life for one more day... Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear of envy.  I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-faked into thinking we haven't really been invited.  But you see, we have been invited - every day, all over again."--Love Does