Hot and Cold and Awesome

The last couple of weeks have been kind of a roller coaster.  Going from WinterCon, back to school and everywhere in between has been a total whirlwind for my mind…

            

Allow me to elaborate.  Last week I found out I was accepted to go to Bangladesh for a month through the fellowship I’m involved with at school.  How I came to apply is kind of an awesome story, but I’d really prefer to tell it in person because the magnitude of awesome is just too great for my typewritten words here on the interwebs, so if you want to hear it, let me know and we’ll unite over tea/coffee/skype…(or if you don’t really want to know and just want to talk, that’s cool too—we should just talk anyway J).  I don’t think it’s totally sunk in that I’m actually going to do this yet, I’m still just totally amazed that my relationship with God is at a place where I can trust Him enough to agree to do something this big.  When I think back to a year ago, two years ago, three years ago… at any point in my life, I’d never pictured myself doing something like this, especially for the Lord.

Then the next day my parents came to visit, and they were actually excited for me and totally on board with the whole thing (which was NOT the case when I first told them about it).  I’m so glad that my relationship with them has improved the way that it has.  I used to say that the best thing that ever happened to our relationship was when I moved out, but that can’t even compare to what has happened since I fixed my relationship with God.  It was like I couldn’t be their daughter without also being His daughter…

            

And then the next day after that, I got sick.  Nothing huge, just a cold/flu type thing, but I was pretty miserable.  I didn’t change any plans for the rest of the week though (that was a dumb idea).  I’m a warrior, and I usually power through stuff like this.  So that is what I continued to do for the rest of the week, until Thursday, when enough was just enough and I bailed out of all of my plans for Friday just to have a day to myself in bed to try and get better…  Then, that night, our furnace broke.  No heat in the house.  Normally, I’d probably just laugh it off and have some kind of winter campout in the house, but being sick and irritable, I wasn’t having any of that.  So as I was trying to cry myself to sleep huddled under the duvet, watching awful reality television on my laptop (I know, it sounds super morbid, but sometimes it’s just the best way to get me to sleep in a stressful situation), I got to thinking—Okay, I’m sick, and cold, but what is really wrong with me?  Nothing.  I’ve been hurt, stabbed in the back, insulted by people who were supposed to love me, I’ve had more surgeries in my life than vacations, I’ve got the arthritis of a 65-year-old, I’m damaged goods--a hopeless romantic, I have no idea what I want to do in the future… the list goes on!  But it’s okay!  I’ve got people and a God who love me for who I am, and that helps me love myself so much.  I thought briefly about people never have any heat, but then I thought about my trip to Bangladesh.  If I can gather anything from what others have told me about the country, it’s freakin’ hot! And crowded!  Hot and crowded places kind of freak me out.  The people there are kind of in reverse of my situation last night, except I bet many of them don’t have the luxury of calling up their HVAC guy to rectify the situation. 

            

My point?  Whether I’ve realized it the whole time or not, and despite my many flaws, I have been blessed by God far greater than I deserve, and I owe it to Him to share this love with the people of Bangladesh.  It’s going to be super awesome.