Out Of The Comfort Zone

Hello, Stranger!
If you are one of the two people who follow this blog, you may have been wondering what happened… where did she go? On the last post, she said she had been sick… is she still?

One of my favorite quotes from the movie, Dances with Wolves is the scene in which the crusty tracker, Timmons leans over John Dunbar who is looking at a skeleton hidden in the prairie grass and says, “someone back east is asking, ‘Why don’t she write?’” …and maybe, if truth be told, I have been that bony corpse hiding, hunkered down deep… hoping not to be discovered… slumping from sight into a sea of green oblivion … I suppose this analogy is spot-on to the emotions one feels after completing a project… coming home from overseas… finishing a tour of duty or deployment… it’s just so very complicated…

And perhaps, this is just the way of it… If we are to think about it logically, the bowels of the body, which are nothing more than a very long, cavernous tube, can be greatly affected by just about everything that happens, put into in a terrible state, twisting, turning adjusting to the changes in environment… how much more so, the mind. The mind is far more complex than the gut and rightly so, needs much time to process the sensory input and overload of such experiences that push one beyond comfort into a new realm… the God zone.

After leaving the kids of Cainta and the work of the Philippines, it has been hard to re-integrate back into the normal routine. I see things differently. I hear nuances that I haven’t heard before. I seem to be comparing things in light of that experience. And I know, it sounds crazy! How can one be so affected in such a little amount of time but, we have to admit it… These experiences change us…

I think, at least first, the change is inward and depending on how we choose to let it affect us; how we process it; we can choose to allow it to change us outwardly… behaviorally… demonstratively…creating something new… as the scripture says, “The past is forgotten, and everything is new [and] God has done it all (2 Cor 5: 17-18). We have become a new creation in Christ and “risen to walk in the newness of life” (Romans 6: 4).

So what does this mean? Well… I don’t know… yet… but I do know one thing… I am praying… for you and for me that we will …

Holy Father, “fan the flame…kindle afresh… Get out the bellows and stir up the fire” of the gift, your gift, God … that you have given us. That Your spirit which is not a spirit of fear, but of holy courage to overcome trials, persecution and heartache will quicken… awaken us. That Gods spirit will give us love for others so that we may share His rescuing love, unabashed and unashamed. Thank you for saving us and calling us to this holy calling and your purposes”… And together we will say, we know whom we have believed and are convinced that You are able to guard what we have entrusted to You until that day” (2 Tim 1: 6-9; 12). Amen