Home again, home again...

After my last post I made a spontaneous, last-minute trip back home for the weekend. I think it was the best decision ever. It was filled with time with loved ones, visits to my churches, chinese food, and just that lovely feeling of being able to recognize someone you know everywhere you go. And the familiarity of the landscape and seeing how beautiful it was...I felt like I had been holding my breath without knowing it and was finally able to relax and breathe normally. I feel so refilled but am still homesick. Who would have thought the mountains would feel so like home? I cannot say how wonderful it was to see everyone again. I guess 13 years in one state is enough to make me feel attached. It is very bittersweet because it is so nice to feel like someplace is home although I can't really be there.

After such a whirlwind weekend I am tired and think that there is lots to think through and pray about. I think the past month of being in a new place has opened my eyes to how good God is to us. I am so grateful for life.

West Virginia

I miss it. I miss the mountains. I miss the sunsets. I miss the ability to drive 15 minutes or less away from home and be out in the quiet places that offered such beautiful views of our shabby little town. There were so many spots that allowed you to get up high enough to look out over the city and see it sitting in the mountains with the river running through it. That little town that was my home and the place where I learned so much. Not just academically. Funny, academics is the reason I lived there, but academics seems to play such a small part of all that I learned in the four years that I lived here because some of the greatest lessons I learned during my stay here were these:
1) Jesus loves me...and I don't deserve that.
2)Joy and happiness and being content are rooted in gratitude.
3)Gratitude is rooted in the knowledge that I have been forgiven and loved by the Creator of the world and that is everything.
4)Blessings do not equal money, ease, and comfort. Hardships have driven me straight to God and have been instrumental in spiritual growth.
5)I can trust this Savior who loves me.
6)Patience...trials are a chance to practice joyfully trusting and obeying my Savior.
7)Friends and family... they try your patience and you try theirs. They also provide joy and love and you don't realize how much you love and depend on them until they are hundreds of miles away.
8)Forgiveness is something I need frequently for messing up on all those lessons I've just begun to learn.

Those lessons above are never fully mastered. They are always being learned in new ways and they have levels that constantly become more intense. But in the past few years I began to understand those things in ways that I never did before. And I really believe that being out on my own a bit was part of the reason I learned those things.

When I think of West Virginia I don't immediately think of a poor economy and the problems associated with the state. I think of a place where I began to really fall in love with  my Savior and of the people who challenged me and encouraged me and have been a part of my life. I think of a place so beautiful that it's impossible to see it without gaining a glimmer of insight into the God who created such beauty. I didn't used to care for the mountains. It wasn't till I left them and came back that I realized that they felt like home. It's not my place of residence anymore. It probably never will be again. But it will always be a place I think of as home.

I guess I am missing it a lot right now.

Some quotes I have been thinking about lately.

Some people think that the Christian faith is a message that comes along and tells bad people to become good people. But it's actually much more radical than that. The Christian gospel is something that comes along and where Jesus Christ tells us we are actually dead. All He wants to do is make us alive. Have you ever known that life because it's right at the very center of what it means to be a Christian?

--Michael Ramsdon

Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger--according to the way you react to it. And we have reacted the wrong way.

--C.S. Lewis 'Mere Christianity'

Little something

Almost finished with my volunteer hours. Hoping to try out a few new ideas this coming week. :)

Last night I dreamed I was back in China

It's been almost three years since I left to go to China. I loved China. I cannot really explain it, but I felt God's presence so keenly while I was there. There was a line so clearly drawn between those who loved Him and those who did not. I was the only Christian on my trip. I usually have a church to be involved in or a Bible study to fall back on whenever I am here in the States, but there I had none of that. For me being a Christian in America with a church and friends was way different than being a Christian in a different country with a group of people whose attitudes toward God varied from disinterested to hostile. It made me very aware of my insecurities, my weaknesses, and my vulnerabilities. It taught me how much I needed God. And it taught me that my relationship with Him was, indeed, my own. It was me and Him. He taught me so much in that semester. It was one of the most amazing and difficult semesters of my life and it took me a long while to process that experience and understand it. I think sometimes I still am learning from it. I still dream about it pretty regularly. And when I do dream about it Xi'an is almost always part of it. I loved Xi'an. Of all the cities we visited and stayed in besides Jingdezhen, Xi'an stands out more boldly than the others. Something about Xi'an engaged all my senses and somehow imprinted itself on my memory. Also I met a Christian man while in Xi'an...the only Christian I met on the entire trip with the exception of a brief visit with a very dear friend who happened to be there at the same time. We randomly met while I was at Starbucks one time and we chatted over tea. After three months without a church or Christian friend there with me I cannot say how much this really blessed and encouraged me. And our conversation, though very short, left a big impression on me. I guess being there also taught me that although our walk with God is personal having a church that functions together is so vital! It was the most refreshing part of the whole trip.

Yesterday while at Starbucks (coincidentally) I read an article in the paper about China, and Xi'an in particular, which I have no doubt is why I dreamed about it last night. It and its people and culture have a hold on my heart. I miss it.

Sun set

 

Last summer we had some really beautiful sunsets back home and I got into the habit of photographing them. As it happened there was some pretty color here tonight as well. Capturing color or a scene behind the silhouette of trees reminds me so much of the old Asian style block prints. I used to think they were slightly cheesy, but now I like them.

Back to the studio!

 This kid has a new ceramic studio to work and play in! And new ideas too!

 I am officially the volunteer studio tech at a local art studio which means I get to be involved in helping maintain the studio and fire the kilns. I also get to play and make new things. It's a good opportunity!

This sounds crazy, but there is something about wearing a little clay on my clothes that gives me a sense of pride. It's a clue about who I am and what I like to do. I love ceramics and I don't mind if a little dust or slurry gets on my clothes. It washes right out anyway. :)