Stripping Away...

A little less than a year ago I was spending my days renovating our Cultural Exchange Center and Coffee Shop in China. My teammate and I decided we wanted to furnish the place with used furniture. We spent many, many hours hunting for suitable furniture all over the city. Many of our Chinese friends and acquaintances thought we were crazy. They thought that the stuff we were looking for was old, ugly, and unusable. My teammate and I did not agree. You see, we knew that once you cleaned off the dirt, stripped away the old paint and fixed up the broken areas, the furniture would be beautiful. We were right.

If furniture could have feelings, they would have felt the pain. To have the sandpaper rub against them for hours would not have been easy at all. They probably would have yelped out in agony and asked us to stop. The furniture may have even said it is not worth it and they don’t really want to be beautiful and whole again.

Lately I have been feeling like that old furniture. I feel like Dad is going through a time of stripping me. I am starting to feel the sandpaper against my skin and I want to cry out and ask him to stop. I know that this stripping is needed and important and yet in the middle of the pain it seems so easy to quit.

Many overseas workers will tell you that reentry back into their home culture can be very difficult. I have come to agree. It has been difficult. I only just realized this less than a week ago. Until then I chose to ignore the emotions that were welling up inside. I had built a wall around my heart. Well, the wall has now come crumbling down and I have been a little emotional.

I have so enjoyed being here in the States with my family. It is a blessing to be able to spend time with them. They are what makes living and working in China so difficult at times because I miss them so much.

That being said, not too long ago I realized that I really miss China. I do! I miss so many things. I miss the work that I was doing there. I miss my colleagues. I miss my friends. I miss my dog, Boaz. I miss the shopkeepers. I miss the fabric market. I miss the Coffee Shop. I miss teaching English on Saturday nights. I miss authentic Chinese food. I miss speaking in Chinese. I miss so many things and yet they have been stripped away from me. I am starting to feel the rub of the sandpaper and it hurts.

John Piper in his book “Don’t Waste Your Life” (I know I already quoted him once but I am really finding this book to be enlightening) says, “One of the reasons we are not as JC-centered and cross saturated as we should be is because we have not realized that everything--everything good and everything bad that He turns for the good of his redeemed children--was purchased by the death of JC for us. We simply take life breath and health and friends and everything for granted. We think it is ours by right. But the fact is it is not ours by right.”

He really does give and take away. He has given me this wonderful opportunity to spend time with my family. He has taken away many of the things that I loved and maybe even put my identity in. JC is the source of everything. Everything good was purchased by the death of JC for us -- for me. I want to understand that more fully.

Only Dad knows what the final result of this cleaning and stripping will be. He knows that it is needed so that I will be beautiful and whole -- just like the used furniture in our Coffee Shop.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qp11X6LKYY