Thriving With Beauty and Grace

Don't you just love the term Global Nomad?  Usually we hear it in reference to third culture kids, but it's also an appropriate picture of what it means to be a “woman of the harvest.”  A nomad moves around a lot rather than settling in one place.  Does this describe your life?

    

You do your best to bloom where you’re planted only to be uprooted AGAIN.  This is a recurring theme for many global workers.  How do we make a “place where we temporarily reside” into a home, knowing that we might have to pull up stakes at a moment’s notice?

In my first year of marriage we lived in a mobile home before moving to an apartment that we managed in exchange for free rent.  The second year we were at Jungle Camp (six weeks at base camp in Texas and six weeks in Mexico, or something like that), then in Ohio at dmil’s condo for five months, and then to Antigua where we lived with a Guatemalan family during language school until we moved to missionary housing in Guatemala City.   

Count them: five moves in one year.  I'm not sure we ever fully unpacked suitcases that whole time.

The next several years we averaged one move every nine or ten months until finally relocating to Oaxaca, where we persuaded our landlords to sell us the house they would no longer need for themselves.  What a blessing to call a place our own, to fix up the yard, put in a swing set, add a bedroom and second bathroom, and periodically throw out some seeds and hope for a garden.

I say this not to make you envious, but to hopefully demonstrate that I’ve been on both ends – of uncertainty and being settled.

Looking back I often wonder what I might have done differently to make those temporary dwellings feel more like home.  What could I suggest to help women quickly and inexpensively bloom where they are planted?  Then I decided I would open it up to the WOTH forum of readers here.  Some of you can answer with a lot more authority since you are living this out currently, not looking back twenty years through rose colored glasses.

You know how it goes.   You rent a house, fix it up, and the landlord either raises the rent where you can't afford it, or he decides to let his son and daughter-in-law live there.  You have weeks to pack up and move out.  Or you move into a flat, get curtains made, put a few pictures on the wall, and your visas are denied and you have to leave the country for an indefinite period of time.  The possible scenarios are endless and varied, but the result is always the same – you have to leave much sooner than expected or hoped.

What do you do differently the next time around?  Is it worth putting any time, effort, or money into landscaping or beautifying a place you can’t call your own?  Is it possible to make a rental property home even though you might get evicted on short notice? 

Again, it's always comforting to know that we are strangers and aliens and that our true home is in heaven, but in the here and now we still need some practical suggestions on surviving and thriving with beauty and grace.

IRL* I'm looking forward to hearing what advice you might offer each other. Please leave your comments below.

Zest that Exudes

When I die, just put me in the box as is, or is it as am?  As I will be? 

Some women beg their friends to promise there will be no open casket when they die.  Why?  Mercy, they say, what if my hair isn’t done just so?  What if they put on the wrong color of lipstick?  Ew, what if I look gross?

As for me, I say put me on display for all to see.  Don’t bother with my hair or make-up.  Let everyone comment about how horrible I look.  Maybe people will finally appreciate all the effort I put into looking presentable at this season of life.

At the same time, tell everyone that for the first time ever, I do not care about my appearance.  Finally I will be free from my mortal body and sin nature that always cared too much how I looked and what people thought. 

Then I will be truly beautiful inside and out with no vanity or wrong motives.  Let my decaying body be a reminder to all who see it that I am not there!  Don’t waste money on embalming and beautifying my corpse.  Let my pale wrinkly old face serve as an object lesson.

I’ve shared before about my ongoing struggle against becoming a frumpy missionary, but as I grow older and wiser I wonder why on earth I fight the inevitable.  Money is precious, and worldly beauty is costly.  How can I rationalize the haircuts, the makeup, the clothing, and the shoes? 

Yet I look in the mirror, and I shudder to think what my family would be seeing all day if I didn’t touch up the results of a restless night’s sleep. Lord, help me to find balance!

This past week I met an exuberantly vivacious (is that redundant?) old woman who epitomizes true beauty.  I want to grow up to be her.  She radically changed my definition of loveliness.  True beauty has nothing to do with glamour, jewelry, clothing, hairstyles, or even teeth. 

If there were a missionary magazine looking for a centerfold of the most beautiful woman on earth, I would submit Valentina.  She has curiously split ear lobes, no teeth, failing eyesight, wrinkles galore, unruly gray hair, feet that shuffle, posture that stoops, and a voice quality that warbles and squeaks.

But you know what else she has?  Valentina possesses an inner glow, a zest that exudes joyfully from every pore of her being, even though she lives spitting distance from a cemetery and within sniffing range of the city dump. 

She is the me I want to be when they put me in that pine box someday. 

I want people to stand around and tell stories about my life, not about my decaying body.  I want people to smile and remember the real me, the radiant me who reflected God’s beauty and glory, just like Valentina.

What made me chuckle is that even my hero, Hermana Valentina herself, attempted to smooth down her long gray braids when she saw the camera, braids that were once carefully tied with red satin ribbons.  Vanity is an issue even among the world’s most astonishing beauties.

IRL* When I grow up, I want to be a Valentina who still acts young, not an old person trying to look young.

Blog On

Normally problems go away after a few weeks, or I at least gain some spiritual insight in the midst of them. Sadly this is not one of those times. The house remains stinky, the summer heat is increasing, the flies are multiplying, and dust is everywhere. The various unsuccessful attempts to solve the plumbing problems have just made the house a wreck. Still life goes on.

Do you want to know how I spent my weekend when I wasnʼt killing flies, lighting candles, and sweeping up the dust and debris?

On Saturday I spent hours of glorious solitude (after successfully ridding my room of the kids with the old “Go ask your dad!” trick)... Are you ready for this? After watching videos of the royal wedding, I spent my weekend reading blogs.

Since apparently I am still at a loss for any personal lessons learned from my current trials (besides perseverance), I thought Iʼd share the wisdom of some fellow bloggers.

Criticizing our hosts or learning from them? From a blog called Olive Tree: Growing Green in God’s House.

Swimming in New Waters by Marilyn Yocum (... fighting procrastination … or at least thinking about it). Don’t you love her byline? Here is a poignant quote from this particular post:

TRUE ‘culture shock’ occurs -
I learned at a conference in February -
when you are in that new and unfamiliar place,
when you are there to stay
and are not returning (at least any time soon),
when it is your new dwelling place
and you must learn to swim in new waters.
There is no
holding your breath until it’s over,
so you better learn to breathe
in the midst of it.

(That’s what I’m learning about stinko houses; you can’t hold your breath forever!)

Belonging by Inky’Spot (Musings of a Missionary Mom), an IRL friend of mine here. One quote from her that sticks in my mind: Two plus years living here does not a man from the pueblo make.

Polarized Lenses, from a blog called Joy’s Graffiti (Count it all, Joy) by another IRL friend in Mexico, a mom raising a special needs adopted son on the mission field.

The could’a, would’a, should’a game from a blog called The River into Words (… a journey from safety to risk, and all places in between …). The title says a lot, doesn’t it?

We call it good by Koodaigirl (… simple thoughts from one of God’s girls).

Living a Powerful Story: Being Myself from a friend whose blog title I love: Sitting on a Cactus Smiling ... (Life… its joys, pains, pressures, blessings sometimes feels like sitting on a cactus smiling … observing life through the window of my heart.)

My Life as a Tour Guide by A Common Woman (living an uncommon life). This one cracked me up. I’ve been there, done that one many times, answering the same exact questions over and over, never knowing the real answer, but trying to sound like the expert people expect me to be.

And last, but not least, I’ve enjoyed reading the new Yellow Dress WOTH blog. I highly recommend you add her to your blog list.

In case I need a harmless diversion next week, please leave me a comment linking some helpful or humorous blog that you enjoy. If you are a blogger yourself, feel free to link a particular post you’ve written that you would be willing to share.

IRL*sharing our lives, one post at a time.