Finding joy in the boring.

I am a horrible updater.  I apologize.  So I am not going to talk about that anymore.  Here is the 411:

I wake up.  I wash the dishes.  I read la Biblia.  I go to school.  I come home.  I kill a tarantula.  I brush my teeth.  Rinse and Repeat.  Rinse and Repeat.  Finding          joy in the boring can be so hard sometimes.

I did not climb any mountains today.  I did not dance a jig.  I did not start a revival or revolution.  I did not invent something new.  And I did not change someone's life for the better. I did not. I did not. I did not.

I sometimes feel this pressure here.  As I live in the deep, green, mysterious rain forest  how could amazing exciting things not happen to me?  Shouldn't I battle anacondas?  Constantly play with adorable happy and beautiful children?  Eat amazing organic fruits and veggies?  Save lives?  Battle horrible jungle diseases? Swing from vines and meet Tarzan? 


Number 1: Tarzan lives in Africa.  Come on people.

Number 2: Sometimes life is normal.  Slow.  Irksome.  Ho-hum.  Even in the rain forest of Ecuador.  Describing that to people can sometimes be hard.  


I have been extremely blessed this last week.  I skyped many amigos and had fantastically wonderful conversations with fantastically wonderful people (my community that is half-way across the world).  You know what we all had in common?  Life being just life.  Nobody became president, but we all recognized this need to live life full of love despite the normalcy of it.  It can be so hard, because of my great desires of adventure and sprightliness.  

Allison gave me this quote from Brother Lawrence that seemed to so perfectly describe my feelings

"Lord of all pots and pans and things....Make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates."

I am totally taping that next to my frying pan.  I hope it reminds me to find love and joy despite days that I find boring.  I hope I can have grace, mercy, and patience on days where the highlight is doing the dirty laundry.  Because the excitement or adventure in doing something crazy?  That moment is fleeting.  It won't bring me joy.  

Well, I am off to joyfully scrub dirty bean pans.  Or I might possibly try to search for Tarzan on this continent.  

Love and monkeys.   

This on the other hand was a super duper exciting moment.  Mixing all of Miss Keri's games together to create a mega-awesome banana-monkey-animal barrel of fun.

Who AM I?

What is your identity? Do you ever think "I am a mechanic", "I am a doctor", "I am a mother", "I am divorced", "I am a teenager", "I am an extrovert", "I am a lover of fried chicken"? These things are not our identity if we know Jesus.  

They define our life, not identify it. 

I may be single, I may be a 22 year old chica, I may be a new missionary, I may have suffered in my past, I may teach, I may struggle with sin, I may love serving children, and I may love peanut m&m's and coffee late at night.  These things describe me, but my IDENTITY- it is in Christ.  How often do I forget that fact? How often do we forget that fact?  How often do we forget that our identity is not in what WE are doing each day, but rather in what He so graciously, and beautifully did for US? When we recognize what He did and who we are, then we can go out and live this crazy life. 


Stop trying to find that one thing that makes you YOU- your job, your personality, your friends, your passions, your successes, or your failures. Jesus is that THING.  He wants to be that THING that makes you YOU. Isn't He awesome enough to be it? 

Isn't He AWESOME enough to be your identity?