The end of ourselves ...

We're at that point in the trip when enthusiasm has waned, when frustrations are piled on top of frustrations and it seems like nothing good is really happening. I have to be honest, we've talked about quitting a number of times. Usually after a particularly difficult day when we've been stranded at the house because transport is tied up elsewhere. Or after someone dies and we can only sit with the widow unable to really help with the grief and a very uncertain future. Things just don't work the way we want them to around here. We've been waiting for a phone line to be put in at the house since we arrived here. Still nothing. The need still seems so very, very big. But yesterday I felt God was telling me to stop striving so hard to see something change, but to rather trust that He is working in the midst of the chaos to produce change. It's bigger than me. Bigger than Ann, but not bigger than Him. We can push so hard, try with all our strength to impact the people around us that we actually end up pushing them away. We can become overly critical and discouraged, when we are the ones who aren't seeing what is really going on. And we've missed the real purpose we're here for. I have to trust that God will fill the gap between the end of my strength and abilities and the fulfillment of a need. So we'll persevere through boring weekends stuck at the house, through deaths and illness, hunger and despair. Because God was here before us, and will be here when we are gone. Always working, always comforting, always faithful.