Humbling Weekend
“Love the Lord your God, and love one another. Love one another as He loves. Love with strength and purpose, and passion and no matter what comes against you. Don’t weaken. Stand against the darkness, and love. That’s the way back into Eden. That’s the way back to life.”
-Redeeming Love pg 462
This was a very humbling weekend. I read this quote on Friday night with big plans to love people the following day. Have you ever tried to do that? It seemed so simple in theory but I’m afraid I didn’t do so well in practice.
We had been invited to our friend’s home on Saturday evening. It’s a home where three of the nurses live. They’re friends of ours that we’ve visited before. I found out about the invite while waiting to go on the platform at church. So mentally in my head I started planning on it.
During the late afternoon Liz, Esther, and I started out on a small adventure to a HUGE tree I’d wanted to climb for awhile now this tree is exhausted. It’s your classic African tree that looks like there should be wildlife hanging from it. So we exerted ourselves trying to climb goliath with a crowd of local on lookers. Then while we were on a branch precariously balancing stupid killer ants attacked Liz! So we were done for the day, we were hot and worn out anyway.
When we got back to the house Liz went over to give meds to a little girl fighting tetanus and I went with her. It was dusk and Dr Bond was in the middle of health talk and going to show a video when the generator game on. When we saw one of the guys whose house we were going to go to we wondered if it was going to happen. It was partly a going away visit because this nurse was getting transferred by the government to go to N’djamena. So Liz and I talked to him to see if he wanted to just postpone the whole thing. We decided on the following day, Sunday, at noon to visit. So Liz and I scampered off to the house with what felt like a load lifted off our shoulders. We could stay at the house and watch a move, fix my pasta that Rachel sent me and relax. Something that hadn’t been done lately.
The pasta was cooking nicely and the computer was set up to when we heard a text message come in on our phone. After searching a good 10-15 min for it we found it and we saw it was from Job, one of the 3 nurses we were going to visit. When we read it, we read: we’ll wait. Which we assumed meant we’ll wait to visit later. Good we figured everything is okay for the next day and we sat down to our penne and pesto pasta and a movie.
When the movie was over and we were heading out we showed Hans the message and he said it meant Job was waiting for us to arrive!! Oh no! Poor guy had been waiting for us!!! And we didn’t go. Then to make everything worse the next morning Mathieu asked me about going over to Jobs because he had bought all the fixings for a salad and such because he knew the majority of us were veggies eaters.
I felt awful. I had chosen the easy path because I wanted my own comfort and enjoyment. How was that showing love? Doesn’t love give up self and put others first? Instantly that Sunday morning my heart cried out “I’m sorry Father! Help us to right this wrong.” The pain was great. What would they think of us? How did this affect my relationship with them? Why did I choose me that night?!
I was humbled and I will learn from my mistakes. As of today – Monday we’ve fixed our many, many communication misunderstandings and we plan on rescheduling our visit. I just pray that God can help me to learn to truly love.
-Redeeming Love pg 462
This was a very humbling weekend. I read this quote on Friday night with big plans to love people the following day. Have you ever tried to do that? It seemed so simple in theory but I’m afraid I didn’t do so well in practice.
We had been invited to our friend’s home on Saturday evening. It’s a home where three of the nurses live. They’re friends of ours that we’ve visited before. I found out about the invite while waiting to go on the platform at church. So mentally in my head I started planning on it.
During the late afternoon Liz, Esther, and I started out on a small adventure to a HUGE tree I’d wanted to climb for awhile now this tree is exhausted. It’s your classic African tree that looks like there should be wildlife hanging from it. So we exerted ourselves trying to climb goliath with a crowd of local on lookers. Then while we were on a branch precariously balancing stupid killer ants attacked Liz! So we were done for the day, we were hot and worn out anyway.
When we got back to the house Liz went over to give meds to a little girl fighting tetanus and I went with her. It was dusk and Dr Bond was in the middle of health talk and going to show a video when the generator game on. When we saw one of the guys whose house we were going to go to we wondered if it was going to happen. It was partly a going away visit because this nurse was getting transferred by the government to go to N’djamena. So Liz and I talked to him to see if he wanted to just postpone the whole thing. We decided on the following day, Sunday, at noon to visit. So Liz and I scampered off to the house with what felt like a load lifted off our shoulders. We could stay at the house and watch a move, fix my pasta that Rachel sent me and relax. Something that hadn’t been done lately.
The pasta was cooking nicely and the computer was set up to when we heard a text message come in on our phone. After searching a good 10-15 min for it we found it and we saw it was from Job, one of the 3 nurses we were going to visit. When we read it, we read: we’ll wait. Which we assumed meant we’ll wait to visit later. Good we figured everything is okay for the next day and we sat down to our penne and pesto pasta and a movie.
When the movie was over and we were heading out we showed Hans the message and he said it meant Job was waiting for us to arrive!! Oh no! Poor guy had been waiting for us!!! And we didn’t go. Then to make everything worse the next morning Mathieu asked me about going over to Jobs because he had bought all the fixings for a salad and such because he knew the majority of us were veggies eaters.
I felt awful. I had chosen the easy path because I wanted my own comfort and enjoyment. How was that showing love? Doesn’t love give up self and put others first? Instantly that Sunday morning my heart cried out “I’m sorry Father! Help us to right this wrong.” The pain was great. What would they think of us? How did this affect my relationship with them? Why did I choose me that night?!
I was humbled and I will learn from my mistakes. As of today – Monday we’ve fixed our many, many communication misunderstandings and we plan on rescheduling our visit. I just pray that God can help me to learn to truly love.
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