I Choose to Be Here

I was reading a selection from 2 Samuel today (2 Samuel 15-16) and had a thought I wanted to share. I hope that you're all in happy, wonderful places in your lives. I hope you love where you are emotionally and physically. I hope you love the place where you live. I hope you love where you are with your love life, your career, your family life, and your spiritual life. But if you don't, I hope you choose to be there anyway, at least for now. Let me explain.

In 2 Samuel 15:19-20, David says to Ittai the Gittite, "Why should you go also with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you are a foreigner and you, too, are an exile from your own country. You came only yesterday, and shall I have you wander about with us today, wherever I have to go? Return and take your brothers with you, and may the Lord be kind and faithful to you." David and his people are on the run, and he knows it is going to be difficult. He turns to the man next to him who doesn't really owe him any loyalty and essentially "lets him off the hook." David says, "Look...you don't have to come with us. It's going to be hard. I give you my blessing to turn back and leave us behind."

But what does Ittai do? You guessed it. He doesn't turn back. Instead he replies in 2 Samuel 15:21, "As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, your servant shall be wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life." Basically, he says, "Thanks, but I choose to be here with you, even if it is going to be difficult. Because where you are, there also is God."

That got me thinking a little bit. How often when I am "let off the hook," do I actually do as Ittai did and choose to remain in the difficult situation anyway? Not very often, I can tell you. I am much more likely to pray for a quick exit from a tough situation - and to take that exit opportunity if it comes - than to stick it out and look for God in it.

Please don't get me wrong, though. Sometimes it is necessary to get ourselves out of difficult situations. (This is especially the case if there is abuse or something going on. Please don't remain in an abusive situation.) But I am realizing that sometimes, being in a difficult situation is actually a blessing; it is a chance to find God and to choose to be with Him through thick and thin. God won't let us remain in that difficult situation forever. But perhaps if we choose to patiently stick it out with Him just a little bit longer than we otherwise would have, we will come to know Him - and to know ourselves - just a little bit better.

A New Year

Tea with the Family to Ring in the New Year!!! Here's to the best year yet.

Hello friends. I highly doubt that anyone is still reading this blog since it has been two and a half years, but it's a new year, and I miss blogging so much that I need to get back to it. See, the last year wasn't spectacular. Sure, there were absolutely wonderful moments. I met a new best friend. I became a godmother. I continued building my teaching skills and confidence in the classroom. But unfortunately, I had to leave the school sooner than expected, which was very difficult,  and I have spent the last few months working out a plan b. (It's still a work in progress haha.) 

But as I discern that plan, I am determined to make this the best year yet. I am turning a new page, and the last few months of 2017 are not going to cloud my 2018. One of my resolutions to make 2018 a happier year is to return to my blog. Apart from missing my blogging friends and from missing this rather unique way of processing and understanding my life, you know what really made me want to start blogging again? The fact that I read this beautiful quotation about the new year when I was reading a short story by Charles Dickens last week, and I thought how some of you probably would have really appreciated it. So...if anyone is still here, here you go:

"So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful share in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy." 

- Charles Dickens, "The Chimes"

What will you do to make this year happier for those who depend on you for happiness? What can we all do to make sure that those struggling still feel joy in the New Year that God has created for them? How can we help each other to make this a happy year for us all? These are the questions I'm pondering this first week of 2018. Care to ponder with me?