my morning

Mallory rolls over at approximately 7:45 this morning. 

She lets out a groan and the cat jumps on her face. 

Too late for coffee but declared presentable, a grumpy Mallory gets ready to leave the house, but is intercepted by 10 hungry boys and a breakfast crisis. 

Crisis resolved, Mallory departs the house at 7:56, with a dreaded unwillingness to be inevitably stared at this morning. 

She gets about 200 feet past the house, and is approaching her first crowd of onlookers, who have stopped everything they are doing to stare at the mzungu that they see EVERY day (I hope you can’t taste my bitterness), and she sees a familiar face. 

With a feeble attempt to wave, she drops everything in her hands (Bible, water bottle, pencil, and money) into the mud, and 10 africans all stare and mumble “sorry.” 

Flustered, she collects all her muddy possessions and makes it another fifteen feet before she drops EVERYTHING a g a i n. The good news was this, this time the africans were a little louder in proclaiming how sorry they were, and the possessions lost a little mud in the transit. 

Mallory picks up her things, feeling like quite the idiot, not really sure why she was supposed to get out of bed this morning and proceeds on. Two minutes pass peacefully, before a group of africans are approaching. Looking up briefly, Mallory didn’t see the huge rock in front of her, and trips. 

Hands in the mud catching herself from totally falling on her face, tears in her eyes, curse words on her tongue, and her broken foot feeling like it would be better off if she went and kicked a concrete wall about 142 times; she bends over and scrambles to pick up her very muddy Bible, water bottle, pencil, and money. 

So when she reached the next corner, it’s needless to say that as 7 children ran up to her screaming MZUNGU MZUNGU; she was not in the mood to play happy, cheerful, Jesus-loving mzungu, and she stormed off....as best as she could with her newly acquired limp. 

She only slipped once more right in front of the church’s driveway, and she must have played it off really well, because right after that a van of men stopped and three of them proceeded to make marriage proposals. Mallory made an angry retort, in English and Luganda, she didn’t want there to be any confusion; and immediately regretted it as she turned around and a crowd of church goers (whom I will add, were also LATE to church)had stopped and looked to see who that sinning tongue was. 

She hurried in to church, trying not to hang her head, or show anybody how muddy hr Bible had become. 

Isn’t it funny how so many times we hate the thought of the journey? 

I’ve had a rough couple of days...I’ve been struggling with a broken foot, sick children, my own upset stomach and fever, and the departure of my best friend. I’ve just been in a funk. 

Last night, I declared FUNK NO LONGER and swore to myself that I was getting up for church in the morning. And after my treacherous journey, a seriously HUMBLED heart that sat down and prayed right when I got into church...my day did pick up tremendously, minus the guy standing next to me in church who kept hitting me in the face when he worshipped and the smell of fish from the market that started wafting in about halfway during the sermon and was making my already upset stomach do back flips. I got over myself, my distaste, my bitterness, my frustration, and I laid it all down before God. 

There are usually three feelings that I can have when I am dreading the journey, but I finally reach where I am going. 

1. Disappointment, the final destination is not worth it. 
2. That bitter taste in your mouth where you are really WISHING the journey hadn’t been SO hard, so that you could enjoy your destination better. 
3. Satisfaction, joy, peace, comfort, and accomplishment as you reach and you know that it was worth the walk. 

When God calls you to walk somewhere, you will not be disappointed. That means option #1 only is applicable when you really want a home-grilled burger topped with mom’s homemade tex mex sauce and real CHEDDAR cheese, and you settle to go to Java’s in Kampala, where you’re not sure if they know what well-done means and you know that the cheese is going to disappoint you. 

Option #2 is the result of usually when you’ve packed too much. The journey has been too hard, because you’ve been carrying all your junk. For me, it’s this entitlement that God has been working with me on. I do not deserve to walk perfectly. I do not deserve not to have people stop everything they are doing to stare at me. I do not deserve to walk by and have nobody yell at me. I do not deserve to have a day uninterrupted, because I have been working so hard serving God’s children this week. HA! I’m judging myself by works and not faith. And when I don’t leave those things behind before I start walking, they will get heavier, and heavier, and heavier, and heavier....to the point where when you reach you are sweating too hard, too out of breath, too tired, too annoyed and perturbed to finally enjoy where you have reached and the whole time you are thinking WHY did I bring all this JUNK? 

Option #3 is what we receive when we walk after surrendering all our junk, “For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord.” Romans 14:7-8. If I’m walking, it’s for the Lord and not for myself. That makes it easier when people yell at you, stare at you, get in your way, laugh at you when you stumble, and are talking behind your back about you to their friends. 

We KNOW and BELIEVE that we are not walking for ourselves, not for our satisfaction, not for our glory. We know and believe that we will not be walking forever, because we have a HOME and a destination with the Lord. 

And we know that when we are walking and we grow heavy, we have either picked up something or someone that we are not supposed to be carrying with us; or we didn’t stop at Sonic and get a Diet Coke and rest when we were supposed to.