Other | Amy Medina

Be Thankful…But In All Circumstances

On November 27, 2010

Give thanks in all circumstances.

What does that mean, anyway?

Yesterday, I did not want to give thanks. The power went out at 7 am. I had huge loads of laundry to do that obviously would not happen. It was hot. Our house is dark. My house worker was sick. How would I get everything done? At 6:45 pm, when we realized it still wasn’t coming on, we sent out dozens of text messages to our students, changing the location of Youth Group. The power came back on at 10 pm last night. Lots of chatter in the Dar community about this and we all are coming to the sad realization that electricity rationing has started again, even though the power company has yet to publicly announce it. That means that the 15 hours without power yesterday will probably be a regular occurrence.

Yet I am told to give thanks in all circumstances.

This morning my eyes popped open at 6 am, early for a Saturday. Immediately I thought, “I’ve got to get the laundry in the machine while the power is on.”

The laundry went in, the flour came out. I spent the morning doing what I love: creating with dough. The washing machine hummed and my electric beaters whipped up the cream beautifully. There’s my thankful heart.

My gardener called me outside. “There’s a problem,” he said, “A small one.” He told me he was fixing a drain outside our house by pulling up some concrete slabs that cover our drain pipes. He pulled up the slab for me. “Wadudu,” he said. Bugs.

I looked inside the hole and shrieked. There were about 100 cockroaches of varying sizes. “SO THAT’S WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN COMING FROM!” Those nasty, nasty creatures who are not fit to live have been creeping into my kitchen cupboards. Two inches long, those beasties are.

I raced into the house, grabbed the insecticide, and proceeded to empty the entire aerosol container into the hole. “DIE!” I screeched. My gardener must have thought I had completely lost it.

Does God want me to be thankful for cockroaches?

Be thankful in all circumstances.

The afternoon was easy. At our friend Kathy’s house for our “Thanksgiving Saturday,” turkey with all the trimmings, a group of friends ranging from ages 2 to 65. Laughter, chattering, exclamations over every dish served and “Can I get this recipe?” Kids hyped up on sugar barreling through the house. Just like a Thanksgiving should be, except without the blood relations. It was a wonderful day. Easy to be thankful.

But…Be thankful in all circumstances. All. Not griping, not complaining…but trusting His goodness and His Sovereignty in every situation.

I still have a long way to go.

A Different Kind of Pilgrim

By Amy Medina

On November 25, 2010

In Other

Thanksgiving kind of feels lonely when you are not in America.

True, it’s sweaty here and there are no leaves falling off of trees. In fact, I discovered yesterday that the reason my turkey baster is perpetually sticky is because the rubber is disintegrating in the humidity. But we do always manage to track down a turkey….we can make mashed potatoes and stuffing and green bean casserole and even sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top. And last night Daddy and the kids cut up my yellow pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern and slept with it in their room…here’s hoping it will still make great pie!

But anyway. There’s still something missing, and it’s not just the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Because that’s big, of course. It’s just….It kind of feels like, living here, we are just pretending. In America everyone drops everything on the fourth Thursday in November…everyone has the same menu, the same parade on their television sets, the same cranberry sauce out of a can.

But here, well, today is just a normal day. Everyone goes on with life as normal; rush hour, work, school. We go on a treasure hunt for Thanksgiving foods instead of having them prominently displayed in the grocery store. And we do our best, we re-create all the memories….but you can’t keep the kids up too late…school tomorrow. Or, in our case, we celebrate on Saturday. It kind of feels forced.

It’s funny; this is my 14th Thanksgiving outside of America, and these things never bothered me that much before. Maybe it’s because now I have kids. Maybe it’s because on the last 4th Thursday in November, we were gathered around our parents’ tables.

Of course, I still am reflecting on the multitude of what I have to be thankful for, and I am most definitely looking forward to Saturday. I am not looking to feel sorry for myself; I am not asking for sympathy. I love my Savior, and I love this life He has given me.

And now I need to go cook up that Jack-o-Lantern.