Lately I have been really convicted of ugliness in my heart. And that ugliness is criticism. I am quick to be critical, even if it's just internally, in my mind. Critical of people, of organizations, of systems, of music, of food. It's not always bad. It's also not always. But it's reared it's ugly head recently when I was critical of someone I observed to be critical themselves. So, I'm aware now. And I'm instead focusing more on being grateful, looking for the good and the holy and the sacred and the beautiful in people, places, and things. Because I consider myself to be an overall joyful, hopeful, optimistic person, however, I still deal with being critical. And I'm over it. Therefore, I will seek the Lord and ask His forgiveness and for His help in ceasing criticism and increasing gratitude.
So, there's that.
We had a good day. Many good days lately. I have so many things swirling around in my mind that I need to type out at some point. We were going to go to Boo at the Zoo today since Nathan is usually home on Fridays but it was raining all day and Ezra came down with a fever last night and it persisted through the morning (and all day really, still dealing with it), so we decided to just stay home. Isaac and I ran some errands and picked up a couple things to make a Native American costume for Halloween. He mostly just wants to be a Native American because of the rad weaponry he believes they all used (bows and arrows and tomahawks mostly). So be it. My Ethiopian American Native American. So be it.
We went to the library and picked out some cds and dvds to have at home and then headed back to the house. The power was out because of the storm. We sat and just read books and snuggled a little bit, our little family of 5. At 1 our counselor came to our house. It was a good hour long visit. He had some great things to say. The one I want to really hold on to is that wherever we are, it will be important to talk about and establish a sense of "home" with our kids. A safe home that is theirs. We can talk about how aspects of America are always our home, but our new home is in France/Burkina. Establishing home to help in the transitions.
Tonight we had dinner at the Vaughn's home. They have 4 awesome kids. They were missionaries in Benin for 9 years and their youngest daughter they adopted from Benin a couple years before they exited and moved back to America. I could sit at their feet for hours and just soak in their wisdom. I am thrilled to know them and eager to spend more time with them. I am so grateful for this connection and thank the Lord for people like this that we are getting to meet here. One thing that Randy said tonight was something along the lines of taking time away, taking vacation time, giving ourselves grace and permission to take that time to get away, refocus, breathe, whatever. He said it will be important for our psyche and will help us to stay on the field, to take regular mini-breaks, because our work will be full-on, full-time, and those vacations will be vital to our spiritual, physical, relational, mental health. I get that. And want to remember that.
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