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Ever felt exhausted, out of place, mostly useless, nearly hopeless, a bit used, a lot disappointed, drained, stress-sick, jaded, burnt out, angry, and cold? That's me right now.

"But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

Working in Vain by Jim McGuiggan

It's been a rough year, I've been feeling like a lot of things have been in vain. I recently came across this article by an author that I really respect, Jim McGuiggan (from his website www.jimmcguiggan.com) and it's just what I needed to hear. Maybe you need to hear it too.

Working in Vain

In 1 Corinthians 15:58 Paul said, “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Assuming you are in the Lord Jesus and you live to further his purpose your efforts are never in vain, he said.

Oh! Really? Can that be true? Did Paul not get carried away with the grandeur of the thought of the future triumph over death and the grave and say more than he really believed?

Your efforts are never in vain? Even when you tried to win your parents for the Lord Jesus and they died far from him? Even when we’ve prayed and worked to bring our children into a saving and transforming relation with God and they spurned it and spiraled down to permanent loss? Even when we worked for years to build a little business of truth and honesty and fairness only to see it collapse in an economic downturn that resulted in our losing our homes and living in a hostel. How can these and many other instances not be labor in vain?

Well, we’re not to be silly; we’re not to pretend we got what we aimed for when we manifestly did not! Even Paul said he was afraid he might have labored in vain with the Galatians [4.11 and see 2:2] and God admitted that even his loving chastisement of the nation failed to bring the response he was looking for [Jeremiah 2:30]—I chastised you in vain, he said.

So Paul’s word to the Corinthians means nothing? Hardly! What we do for the Lord’s sake is never wasted. What we do to honor him and further his loving purpose is never in vain even if it doesn’t bring the “success” we hoped for, even if it ends in “failure”. What is done out of love is always the right thing to do and a record is kept of it. A cup of cold water in Jesus’ name is never forgotten and it shapes the world even now and prophesies of a world of the future.

A mother running back into a burning building to save her child may lose her life along with the child but her loving act isn’t wasted. She doesn’t achieve what she wanted but what she has done changes the world. It inspires, reveals, strengthens, kills cynicism, and having heard of what she has done we secretly [or openly] wish we were more like her.

What great men or women do for us is this, said Wordsworth, they do something that we haven’t seen before and having done it we are no longer content with less than that.

Broken-hearted parents, distraught children, devoted friends, preachers working for years with tiny out-of-the-way congregations—anyone, everyone, who has done something for the Lord Jesus though they didn’t gain what they were longing for have not labored in vain. All that is shaped by and done for the Lord Jesus is observed, remembered and has its reward in the Lord.

All I want for Christmas...

Mist rising from a stream like the dust of dancing faeries

A towering thicket of bamboo waving in the wind

A deep tub full of warm water and a mixture of oatmeal and honey

An early morning walk in the cold with a steaming cup of tea

Ancient ruins awaiting my discovery

A fog-shrouded castle perched atop rolling hills

A colorful, bustling marketplace with haggling in many different languages

Curry and カツ丼 and döner kebaps and kinder überraschung

...snapshots from my life thus far; things that I love and miss.

3 months later

3 months later and a lot has happened, but nothing much has changed. I've had a birthday since the last time I updated. I also have an apartment, and I've gone to New England and back. But I still have no job, no idea how to get one, and less than $300 remaining to my name. I still feel awkward around large groups of Americans, still occasionally forget which side the steering wheel is on, and still, as always, feel like a stranger in a strange land. And I am so, so blessed. Eventually I'll get back to writing semi-good posts, but for now I'm too busy trying to stay afloat.

iherb

Well, I'm about as broke as broke can be, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel...it was just the train. So I'm now going to make a sad attempt to tell you about iherb so that I can perhaps afford my supplements for one more month.

You should visit this website: www.iherb.com. You can get just about anything your healthy heart desires. If you use my customer code, which is ORE678, you'll get a whole $5.00 off your first order! That's a pretty good deal I think. It also gives me something like 5% off my next purchase as well; so it's a better deal for you than for me. Just to give you a sample of things you can get at iherb, I'll list some of the things I buy there.

1. A whole food supplement. I buy one by Nature's Plus called Nature's Plus Source of Life Rainbow Lightning Whole Food. It's a great way to make sure you're getting all around good nutrition every day. I notice a big difference in my skin when I don't take it.
2. A women's multi-vitamin. I buy one by Now Foods called Eve, a superior woman's multiple. The bottle says to take 6 a day, but after talking to my natural doctor I take 2 a day because of my age. Younger women should take less, older women more.
3. Face wash and face lotions. My face wash is Now Foods brand Green Tea Pomegranate Facial Cream Cleanser, and my face lotions are Now Foods brand Green Tea Pomegranate Day Cream and Moisturizing Night Cream. They're moisturizing without being too much for my skin, affordable, and best of all they have natural ingredients! The only questionable ingredient I found was in the lotions (ceteareth-20).
4. Jojoba oil. I buy it from (you guessed it) the Now Foods brand. It gives you instantly glowing, radiant skin and hair.

Okay, that's my sales pitch. I do hope you actually go to the website and look around because I'm sure you'll find things to make you feel healthier. Well...I guess it's time for me to get back to fruitlessly job hunting...I have barely enough money for this month's bills...next month I'll be joining the ranks of the homeless. Cardboard boxes, here I come.

chameleon

Sometimes just being alive is difficult. When every sight, smell, sound, and taste drowns you in memories of all the yesterdays, all the other worlds, it can be almost impossible to keep your head above water. As a TCK, I think of myself as a chameleon of sorts...a broken chameleon. An un-broken chameleon sits on a green leaf and turns green. But I sit on a green leaf and turn just green enough to semi-blend but unmistakably stand out. Here I am again in the states, as out of place as ever. Cultural adjustment is extra interesting this time. I'm overwhelmed by all the English everywhere. Suddenly I'm expected to actually talk, so I'm tripping over my tongue half the time. I'm self-conscious when eating in public because table manners are quite different. I have to really concentrate when driving so that I stay on the American side of the road; I didn't drive much in the states and I got my first car in Japan, so Japanese-style driving is the default mode in my head. I miss my kids. A lot. I'm exhausted at the end of every day just from the effort of adjusting. I wish that somewhere outside myself my worlds would collide.

remembering

I'm leaving in a week, so naturally I'm in a very reflective mood. What a couple of years its been. I feel like I've grown quite a bit, and at the same time, failed in many ways. One thing I regret is expecting. I expected the AET group to be like military dependents; I expected the group to be diverse, welcoming, and world-savvy in the same way as military dependents are. And because that wasn't the case things were a bit difficult. For the first six months or so, I tried to be part of the group, tried to fit in, to be involved. It was a difficult six months. It seemed like everyone pretty much knew everyone else and I didn't know anyone. Everyone was making plans with everyone else and I wasn't a part of it. Eventually I got the feeling that I was more of a bother to the group than anything else, so I stopped trying and kept to myself. The most blatantly obvious example of my bothersome-ness to the group was at this past year's welcome party for the new AETs. I told people that I would be a few minutes late; when I got there, everyone acted like they were surprised I was there (even though I had pre-paid and talked to people about it) and so hadn't saved me a seat. So they put me at a table by myself in the corner with my back to everyone. And when I speak it tends to be taken the wrong way or I get that glazed-over eyes look. It's been a silent two years. I don't have any bad feelings toward anyone here; that's just the way it is. My life experience is rather drastically different from theirs so I suppose such things should have been expected. Some of the really rewarding relationships were with people that don't speak my language- my kids. My 6th grade girls and I have inside jokes despite the language barrier. I'll really miss all my "monkeys," as they call themselves. So many good times, so many learning experiences. I look back at these two years and smile, refusing to forget the bad or the good and learning from both. Japan...goodbye, my friend. さいよなら。