Sometimes...

Sometimes I feel so far away from God, even though I know He's right there waiting for me to come back to Him. Sometimes I get frustrated that I can't see His plan for my life, and I feel like I am wasting time where I am in life. Sometimes I get confused and hurt and sad and wonder where God is, even though He wants to help if I would just ask.

Sometimes I glimpse His face and everything is perfect in the world for that one instant. Sometimes I hear His voice at the unlikeliest of moments and feel like I could walk on the clouds. Sometimes through all the confusion I see a thread of my life leading back to God, my maker, my friend, my master, and I shake my head in wonder that He could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean. Sometimes He calms the storm, and other times He calms His child.

Sometimes I feel ashamed to even talk to Him. Sometimes I wonder if the people I work with all day even know I'm a Christian. Sometimes I think about what people think of me more than what God thinks about me. Sometimes I feel unworthy and unclean.

But He is always teaching me, growing me, loving me, protecting me, preparing a place for me, guiding my every word and thought and deed. He is always there, even when I'm not. He is always faithful, always just, always GOD.

I can do all things through Christ...

So tomorrow starts a big change for me. I am finally (with a lot of help from God) quitting smoking. For those of you who don't know, I have been smoking since I lived in PNG (about six years now). I've tried quitting a few times in the past, and the best I've done, on my own strength, has been about two weeks. In the last few days the Lord has really impressed on me the need to quit. It is an addiction that says I can't get by in life without help from something of the world; it is an area of my life that until this point I have been reluctant to give over to Him. I don't feel like the Bible specifically says anything about smoking any more than it does about drinking coffee, not getting enough sleep, or not exercising. It is about the gift God has given us in these human bodies, and maintaining what He has given us.

It's going to be rough at first getting back into work (tomorrow is my first day back in a while) and also breaking a very ingrained habbit, and I would appreciate prayer if you think about it during the next few weeks, especially. Thoughts and suggestions from anyone who has fought this addiction in the past would be very welcome, too. :)

I'll try to keep you posted on how it's going. I am actually looking forward to this very much, and dreading it at the same time.


Anson


Update: It's been over a week now, and God is truly amazing. I haven't smoked once since I committed to quitting, and what is even more incredible, I haven't even really had a strong urge to at all! I could have never done this by myself. Truly we serve an awesome God!

Music and motorcycles

I just got back from a long motorcycle ride today, and wanted to share part of it with you. I was driving from Green Bay to Waxhaw, so I had a lot of time on my hands. About an hour into the first day of the trip, the song "I Stand Amazed in the Presence" started going through my head. At first I just sang it thoughtlessly, but then I started actually thinking about the words. What a powerful song! If you don't know how it goes, I'll post the lyrics at the end of the post. I broke down crying, there on my bike speeding down the interstate. The Lord is truly amazing; his grace, his love, his forgiveness, his patience are beyond all human understanding. What a humbling and at the same time uplifting song!

While music is by no means a necessary part of worshiping God, in my life it is one of the most powerful ways for me to get in touch with Him. A good song I can feel all the way down to my bones, and it'll send a shiver up my spine. What an amazing God that has given some people such creative talent and such a deep relationship with Jesus that they can produce such moving and powerful music.

If you have the time, read through the lyrics, even if you know the song, and really think about them. What an incredible sacrifice Christ made for us, and what an awesome future He has bought for us with his life. All our sins, all our pain, all our past... washed away by His blood. Incredible. The version of the song I have on my computer is by Chris Tomlin off the album "Passion: Everything Glorious." If you've never heard the song and can spare 99 cents, it's available on iTunes, or probably any other music store site, or you could just buy the whole album. Worship music is awesome!

I stand amazed in the presence

Of Jesus the Nazarene

And wonder how he could love me,
A sinner, condemned unclean

Chorus
Singing, how marvelous, how wonderful
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous, how wonderful
Is my Savior's love for me

He took my sins and my sorrows

He made them His very own

He bore the burden to Calvary

And suffered and died alone

Chorus

When I'm ransomed in glory

His face I at last shall see

It will be my joy through the ages

To sing of His love for me

Chorus



Update: changed the artist and album of the version of the song I have... I wasn't at my computer at the time and remembered wrong.

The way I feel... in someone else's words

http://www.xanga.com/pngpianist/577845149/i-miss-png.html



Mandy, thank you for writing this. I have read it half a dozen times now, and I feel like I am back there each time I read it. The pain never does go away for me. I stuff it back into a corner of my life most of the time, so I can get by in this 'new' place (even though I've been back almost six years now), but it's always there. Whenever I get lonely, whenever I sit by myself somewhere quiet and think, it all comes rushing back. For those few minutes I am back in Ukarumpa, Goroka, Madang. Back with people I knew and trusted, back walking the familiar roads, riding along the ridge, walking through Madang at night stopping and talking with people we knew. Back at the Bird in Goroka for the day, enjoying the pool, buying old shilling coins at the market. Back at the Teen Center for a swing dance, for Soul Purpose, for Banquet, for basketball on Wednesdays, and hamburgers on Fridays. Back at Jais Aben, diving the wrecks, or Pig Island. Back at Gusap airfield, walking through the wreckage of old warplanes, finding spent casings and bomb shells. Back in Port Moresby staying at Mapang for the night on my way to somewhere else, sitting on the porch in the hot evenings swatting mosquitos. Back at Lae International, playing with the band there, staying at the Guesthouse for a class retreat...

Thank you.

Wierd...

I think I just had the longest phone conversation of my life... I just got off the phone with my brother and looked at the phone and it said I'd been talking for 55 minutes. I'm pretty sure I've never even had a 30 minute conversation on a phone before.

I spent most of today and yesterday and Friday over at Jake's working on his bathroom and kitchen. Hopefully we'll be done enough by the end of tomorrow that he can finish the last few things himself. I have some work I wanted to get done here this weekend, too, but I guess it'll wait another week to get done.

Four-off

So this is my nice four-day weekend, except that I'm still going in to work tonight... sigh... I have part of my SRO qual that I have been trying to get the last few days, but plant conditions didn't support it. I was up last night until about 2:00AM trying to get it, and finally went to bed. So tonight I called in to work to see if they were going to do it, and they said if I was there at 11:30 I should be able to get it. My qual date is before the next shutdown, and since this is a shutdown qualification, I need to get it done now.

I spent the afternoon over at Jake's house laying tile in his bathroom, and getting his kitchen ready so we can lay tile in there tomorrow. My bathroom is almost done. One more coat of paint should do it, I think.

The weather man says it might snow tonight. It was almost 60 degrees here during the day, but somehow it's supposed to get below freezing tonight. On Wednesday it was almost 70, which was nice. I wish it would just stay warm for a while.

In other news, it looks like Ukarumpa just got its own power station. I guess Yonki has been getting worse about keeping the lights on. There's an article about it here