thankful.

Because I'm a lover of words...I'll start this post, as I have started others (and as I tend to start our English discussion groups), with a definition:

thanksgiving

[thangks-giv-ing]  

• Examples 
• Word Origin 

noun

1.

the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

2.

an expression of thanks, especially to God.

3.

a public celebration in acknowledgment of divine favor or kindness.

4.

a day set apart for giving thanks to God.

5.

(initial capital letter) Thanksgiving Day.

I like the idea of "giving thanks." Because it's not just a state of being grateful. It's an active expression of appreciation for the many ways we've been blessed.

We always have a Thanksgiving worship service at my church back home, and I think it's really beautiful how my pastor brings out a microphone and people throughout the sanctuary say what they're thankful for. 

Actually, I'll never forget how my friend said one year, "This may sound weird, but I'm thankful for hardships." He went on to say that even the seemingly "bad" things--the struggles--had been a blessing because they had brought him closer to the Lord. Something to chew on.

Anyway, this Thanksgiving was quite unique for me in many ways. For one thing, I kicked it off by meeting an Italian friend for coffee. So, yeah...definitely never spent Thanksgiving in a foreign country with the first words out of my mouth in the morning being in a foreign language. So that's new.

But aside from the whole extremity of living in a foreign country, this was the first night before Thanksgiving I didn't go with my whole family to see a movie...It's the first Thanksgiving morning I haven't woken up to Mom telling me to hurry up and come downstairs because the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is starting...It's the first year I haven't had TWO ridiculously large and delicious meals to gobble up (pun intended)...It was the first year I've had to take part in the cooking (my amazing Grandmothers always have that under control)...It was the first year I didn't help my grandparents decorate their Christmas tree, put candles in their windows, hang that plastic mistletoe in the living room doorway, and turn out the lights to "ooooh" and "aaaah" at the finished product while Bing Crosby crooned in the background.

So on Thanksgiving (and I'm sure I'll also feel this way at Christmas) I did so deeply miss my family and friends. I missed Grammy's pumpkin cake and Nanny's sweet potatoes and stuffing. I missed getting to love on my little cousins and holding my baby cousin (who I've never actually met in person). I missed the southern accents and the love and the laughter.

But I wouldn't trade the texts I got from Italian friends that morning wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving (even though that Thursday is just another day for them, really). Thanks to technology, I was able to watch a live stream of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I wouldn't trade getting to hang out with Italian friends and having dinner with the fellow American ex-pats and followers of Christ who have become such a huge part of my life. FaceTime even allowed me to see my mom's side of the family at lunch and my dad's side at dinner from six time zones away. 

I also hosted my first Thanksgiving party the day after, so Courtney and I got to introduce this American tradition to about 20 of our closest Italian, British and German friends. So I wouldn't trade the six hours of food and conversation and games and laughter either. 

I love how I've always spent Thanksgiving in the past...so many wonderful traditions that are close to my heart and make me feel so at home. 

But I also love how I got to spend it this year. Tradition is great, but change isn't always a bad thing. Life shouldn't be stagnant. Nor should faith. Nor can it, I think, if it is a faith in Someone whose "love is better than life" (Psalm 63) and with whom you have an ever-deepening relationship.

Although where I live and what I do is presumably outside of most people's definition of "normal" and "comfortable," I'm thankful for all the people in my life who I never would have met had I not stepped out of my comfort zone.

So this Thanksgiving, I'm so thankful for the many individuals I have the privilege of loving, from my supportive family back home to my supervisor's daughters that I get to snuggle up with to watch Disney movies to European friends who have become so inexpressibly dear to me in a relatively short period of time.

Ah. I feel more thankful just by expressing my thankfulness. There's something to be said for this whole "giving thanks" thing...

And now that my first international Thanksgiving is over, it's completely socially acceptable to start playing Christmas music now...right? Hope so, because it's playing on Spotify as I write this ;)

And I'll end with this verse, which is such a great example of how we should live...

"Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Love y'all!

sense & sensibility

Tim Keller has been a significant part of my life lately.

First, I read his book, The Prodigal God (see blog post from June 14). Then I met him a few months ago when he came to speak in Rome. The theme of a recent church retreat was his article "The Missional Church." Now I've just finished reading The Reason for God.

I enjoy reading. And I appreciate writings like this that are thought provoking and convicting and compelling...that speak to me on a mental, spiritual and emotional level...that appeal to my rationality as well as my sentimentality. 

Because this life is a journey and a learning process, and I don't think I'll ever get sick of learning more about God and how I relate to Him. In fact, the more I learn about Him through reading His Word and commentaries on it, the hungrier I am for it. For Him. The more I spend time with Him in prayer, the more I want to.

It brings to mind a line from Romeo and Juliet:

"And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,The more I have, for both are infinite."

My God is both infinite and intimate. And His Story is strong and complex and intricate enough to be both deserving of scholarly scrutiny and able to hold up beneath historical and philosophical and theological dissection. Yet it is simple enough for a child to accept.

"But Jesus called for them, saying, 'Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.'" (Luke 18:16-17)

Now, according to the Myers-Briggs personality test, I am a little more of a "thinker" than a "feeler." So maybe the first half of The Reason for God (with all its arguments and counterarguments and rationalizing though questions and debunking doubts about God) should have appealed to me more. And it was really interesting to reason through the belief in the existence of a creator and redeemer. It was intriguing to investigate tough, legitimate questions like...

"How can there be only one true religion?"
"How could a good God allow suffering?"
"How can a loving God send people to Hell?"
"How can you believe in God when science seems to disprove His existence?"

(If any of these questions peak your interest, read the book and we can talk about it. Or ask me and I'll get you a copy in English or Italian).

But I have to admit, I didn't really enjoy the first half as much as the second. I got a bit bogged down and overloaded with 118 pages of attempts to reason away disbelief. Because at a certain point, you just have to throw in the towel and realize it's not all about proof! You can't prove, with tangible, incontrovertible evidence that a supernatural, unseen God is real. You also can't prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that He isn't. 

Even doubt requires a leap of faith. 

Because you may be so set on the fact that there could not be an ultimate creator who came to earth in human form to take the fall for us and that the only way to this "heaven" place is to surrender your life to him.

But what if you're wrong?

What if your disbelief determined your eternity? 

Okay, there's just too much in this book for me to possibly babble about everything I got out of it. So without entering any of the great theological debates (I'll leave that for Tim Keller to do in his own published words), here's how the second half of the book spoke to me:

1. One legitimate argument for the existence of God is that we have the ability to reason at all. Let's face it. Our brains are pretty miraculous. We are "above" every other living creature (we "run the world") because we have the capacity for mental analysis and creativity and extreme emotion and deep love. 

How could that have just happened, ya know? 

In Chapter 8, "The Clues of God," Keller says, "If we believe God exists, then our view of the universe gives us a basis for believing that cognitive faculties work, since God could make us able to form true beliefs and knowledge...All the things that we see make perfect sense. Also, if God exist our intuitions about the meaningfulness of beauty and love are to be expected."

Without such a belief, what is the meaning of life? If there's nothing beyond ourselves or this finite life, then who cares? That kind of a view just makes it all seem so pointless. So hopeless.

2. Maybe I should have written a blog post solely about this (and stay tuned, I just might!), but I have been so smacked in the face by my sin of trying to find my identity in anything other than Him. I'll let some quotes from Chapter 10 explain for me:

"Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from Him."

"The primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God." 

Does that hit anybody else right between the eyes?

3. My God is beautiful and, by His very nature as three in one (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) He is a relational being. He doesn't need me or anyone else to love or glorify Him. He is complete in and of Himself. 

I don't deserve His love and never will. I can never repay Him. I could never be worthy of Him. Yet he wants to have a covenant relationship with me. (I'm so tempted to ramble on about the book of Ruth as well as biblical parallels I see in Pride and Prejudice, but I shall resist. Another time).

So If you're still reading this, bless you. I know this one is getting long. And as much as I'd love to go on, I'll wrap this up.

But do tell me...what do YOU think about all this? Life...eternity...the meaning of existence? Really, I want to know.

Personally, "for me the meaning of life is centered in our redemption by Christ and what I see in the world I see in its relationship to that." -Flannery O'Conner

Okay ONE more.

"I believe in God the way I believe in the sun. Not because I see it. But because by it I see everything else." -C.S. Lewis

Fear Factor

fear

[feer] 

noun

a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined.

something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of.

anticipation of the possibility that something unpleasant will occur.

I'm pretty sure that simply being human sets us up for feeling some degree of fear at least occasionally in our lives. Because we are finite...because if we are honest, we don't and can't know it all…because no matter how hard we try to make it so, very little is actually in our control.

So fear, as stated above, more often than not is at least loosely linked to what might happen. Because we are uncertain of the outcome, we may be afraid of a particular circumstance. 

Most feelings of fearfulness, if not arguably all such feelings, arise from some degree of dread, distress and trepidation towards the unknown. 

Let me just preface this by saying that I'm preaching to myself here. Fear can be paralyzing. And I'll confess that, even now as I write this, I have let fear -- fear of failure, fear of people's reactions, fear of what could result -- keep me from even attempting certain things. 

And not that I'm at all letting myself off the hook here, but living in another country is scary! I love it here, but I just so often feel like I'm going to strike out (insert appropriate, yet perhaps slightly cheesy quote: "Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game"). When I first got here, I didn't even want to go to the supermarket by myself because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find something or someone would ask me something in Italian and I wouldn't be able to adequately respond. Which, by the way, that happens all the time. That's when I shrug and say, "That wasn't so bad. This is my life right now. I'm struggling to function in a foreign language, and I will and do make a fool of myself. Daily."

Che sarà, sarà…Whatever will be, will be. (Oh by the way, that's Italian ;))

But God's really been convicting me of this lately and bringing the concept and reality of fear to the forefront of my mind and heart. Because there are so many things that I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of trying to use things I'm passionate about (like Zumba and art) because…what if I can't find a place to do these things? I'd have to work out the logistics of any type of event in Italian, and what if I mess that up? And what if I plan something and everything seems in place and then no one comes? 

Sometimes I'm afraid if I walk around alone at night or if I notice a man staring at me (any young woman who's lived abroad or even in a big city in the U.S. knows exactly what I'm talking about). I'm also afraid that I'm not doing anything all that helpful or useful or important here. I'm afraid I'm not doing an adequate job of telling people who Christ is and what He's done for me…for them…at the same time, fear of messing up a relationship or not doing the gospel justice keeps me, I'm sure, from sharing truth and love as often as I should.

Here are two big ones I'd dare to bet most people struggle with: Fear of loneliness and fear of the future. I don't think these need much elaboration or personal anecdotes from me, because I'm sure you can easily insert your own thoughts on these subjects…married or single, fresh out of college or head of a company, white picket fence or living without the guarantee of electricity or clean water each day.

But where there is fear, I know my faith is weak.

Just writing that immediately brought to mind the story of Peter walking on the water:

"During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
"Lord, if it is you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
"Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord save me!"
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said. "Why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:25-31)

That's me. That's all of us as believers who have said, "Yes, Lord. I will follow you out onto rough, stormy waters." But that doesn't mean we aren't going to look around at our circumstances…check out the wind and the waves and freak out and flail around and try not to drown until we can finally shout out, "Lord save me! Save me from my fear! Save me from myself."

But the beauty of all that is…He catches us. 

"Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him."

Another example that God has led me to (a couple of different ways at a couple different times lately, actually) is the story of Joshua and Caleb and their mission, along with the other Israelite spies, to scout out the Promised Land. 

Let me explain…no. There is too much. Let me sum up: (…The Princess Bride…anyone…anyone?)

So this is after God leads the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and Moses parts the Red Sea and God provides food for them in the desert. These people are right on the brink of the Promised Land…what they've been hoping for and heading towards for so long. So God commands Moses to send out some men for 40 days to explore the region and see what they will face in this new land…who they would have to conquer in order to take possession of the land that had been promised to them.

In Numbers 13 and 14, the Bible tells us the spies saw that the land was fruitful and good, but they were afraid of the people.

"But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large….We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." (Numbers 13:28, 31)

Only Caleb and Joshua remained faithful. Even while the people grumbled that they'd rather return to slavery in Egypt than face the uncertainty of this new land and its challenges, Joshua said, "The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them." (Numbers 14:7-9)

How often to miss out on opportunities…potentially exponential blessings…because we are afraid?

One last thing.

"When I am afraid, 
I will trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
In God I trust; I will not be afraid." (Psalm 56:3-4)

So how do you combat fear? With Faith. And no, faith in yourself or another human being just isn't going to ultimately cut it. 

He's bigger than all that.

Assurance of the steadfast love and goodness and holiness and justice of God. Abiding in the Word of God. 

Knowing that the ultimate goal of my life IS God. 

That's it. That doesn't mean I'll never be afraid of anything every again. Don't I wish… But that reality makes everything else so small. All the things I'm afraid of are like a speck of dust in the light of Him…in the light of Eternity.

He is with me. I know Him. And I love Him.

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)

home is where the heart is.

I've lived here for over six months now. Can you believe that? It still blows my mind.

I recently went to Naples for a week, which is the longest I've been away from Rome since moving here. It was fun visiting friends there and eating my weight in pizza and helping with a kid's camp and relaxing in gorgeous Sorrento and exploring the ruins of the tragically destroyed ancient city of Pompeii. 

But while I was there, something strange happened.

I felt homesick. For Rome.

Now that may seem extreme, especially considering that six months is no lifetime and obviously my hometown and family will always hold a special place in my heart. But I think since college, "home" has become a bit more spread out for me. For four years, Alabama was my "home away from home," then I left part of my heart in Florida after working there for a summer, then after graduation my friends dispersed throughout the South. So I miss and "feel homesick" for a lot of places and people.

But "home" isn't so much about a location as it is about the people you love that live there. 

Yesterday I watched Finding Nemo (in Italian…it was language practice, purely language practice…), and there's a scene near the end when Dory says, "I look at you, and I can feel it…I look at you and…I'm home." I think that's when a place and the people in it become home…when you feel that way.

So being away from Rome for a little while made me really miss our friends here…and I was so indescribably happy and thankful when, within hours of taking the train back, we heard from almost all of our friends about hanging out in the following days. 

Yay!!! We have friends!!! When you live in a foreign country where, a few months ago, nothing was familiar and most things were intimidating, this is a substantial victory. In my opinion.

So to my friends in Rome, I love you and I'm grateful to have you in my life!

Not that I love you any less, friends and family "across the pond." I love and miss you deeply. 

What a blessing it is to have people to love! And what a challenge, too, at times. What a concept, huh? Love. I think it's safe to say it's something everyone wants. I mean, I'm no expert, and I'm not one to wear exceptionally large floral headbands or round sunglasses. But…"all you need it love" and "the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

And I'm not even talking about "romantic" love, because it's so much more than that. Loving a friend or family member is just as much of a joy (and challenge) as loving a significant other. Love is work. Love isn't just a feeling with a visual equivalent of pink bubbles or butterflies. Love does. And it's worth working for. It's worth fighting for. 

"Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." -1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Now, if that's not one of the toughest standards to live by, I don't know what is. Because who of us isn't often impatient and unkind with our loved ones? I'm so guilty of letting my pride keep me from apologizing, I'm often rude and self-interested, I get mad and I have trouble with that whole "forgive and forget" thing.

But hey, I'm only human. We're all so flawed. We're all "fixer uppers." (This is the part where I quote yet another Disney movie and promise you that that's not all I do with my time…). There's a song in Frozen that says, 

"We're not saying you can change him, 'cause people don't really change.
We're only saying love's a force that's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed,
but throw a little love their way, and you'll bring out their best."

So love. Life-changing stuff. I also honestly really like the overall message in Frozen. "Only an act of true love will thaw a frozen heart." And it wasn't any kiss from some handsome guy she barely knew that did the trick. It was (SPOILER ALERT) the selfless, sacrificial act of saving her sister's life. Olaf even says (should I feel ridiculous for quoting an animated snowman? #noshame), "Love is putting someone else's needs before yours."

That's good stuff right there. Biblical stuff. I could quote Disney movies all day, but all I really know about love, I learned from the One who created it (the one who said, "It is not good for man to be alone," and so created Eve for Adam). The One who created me.

The Bible talks about love a whole lot. (So many good verses. I cannot pick…) It has a lot to say about God's love for us and about how we should love others. The type of sacrificial love that's just plain tough.

"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:8

Because of this, we have hope. Hope for a love I could never deserve, and the potential for loving others like He does. 

"And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." -Romans 5:5

I'm FAR from perfect in the "loving people well" department, and I know I've hurt people (intentionally or not) and I have so often been self-seeking. I can only pray He continues to make me look less like myself and more like Him. There's no one else I'd rather resemble.

So now that you've ingested this admittedly strange combination of Disney quotes and Scripture references, I'll leave you with this one:

"I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." -Ephesians 3:17-19

Prodigal.

I used to think "prodigal" meant something like "wayward" or "rebellious" because of the Prodigal Son story in the gospel of Luke.

What it actually means is

prod·i·gal

  [prod-i-guhl]  

adjective

1.

wastefully or recklessly extravagant

2.

giving or yielding profusely; lavish 

3.

lavishly abundant; profuse

Quite a different definition.

Which is the platform off of which Tim Keller's The Prodigal God springs. I recently read this short book (which is available in English and Italian! And I highly recommend it), and the main idea is that God is "recklessly extravagant" and "lavishly abundant" in His love toward us.

Only a "prodigal" God would behave like the father in the parable. After His son had squandered his inheritance and was reduced to a state of near starvation, he decides to return home and beg to become merely a servant in his father's house. But "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20). He calls for a grand celebration and spares no expense as he welcomes him back into the family. And he counts it all as joy.

"'For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now he is found.'" (Luke 15:24)

In the same way, regardless of our sinful, runaway hearts and our tendency to succumb to selfish desires, our Father will accept us back if we are willing to come home and ask for forgiveness.

But this story isn't just about how far the "prodigal son" was from his father when he demanded his inheritance (essentially wishing his father was dead) and ran away to spend his money on whatever he thought would truly make him happy. No, there is another brother in the story that we often gloss over. And, because Jesus told this story to the pompously puffed-up religious leaders who were criticizing him for eating with "sinners," this elder brother deserves a closer look.

The elder brother becomes angry and bitterly envious that his younger brother receives special treatment even after all he has done. He takes pride in his good deeds. He feels slighted because he has earned his father's love. He's done everything in his power to deserve it.

"'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered you property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'" (Luke 15:29-30)

So we focus on this lost younger brother and don't often dwell on the fact that the older brother was just as lost, if not more so. After all, at the end of the parable, we don't actually know if he made amends with his father. 

This elder brother represents those of the moral, "religious" classification who do not fulling grasp the gift of grace. 

Keller puts it this way: "The elder brother is not losing the father's love in spite of his goodness, but because of it. It is not his sins that create the barrier between him and his father, it's the pride he has in his moral record; it's not his wrongdoing but his righteousness that is keeping him from sharing in the feast of the father."

He also sums up the sinful motives in both brothers' hearts by saying that they both "wanted the father's goods rather than the father himself."

That was convicting for me. How much of my praise flows out of thankfulness for His gifts and not Jesus Himself? How many times do I ask for the things I want and human relationships to fill me up when I should be resting in and marveling at who He is and what He's done? I am so selfish.

And how much do I think I "deserve" those good things because of what I do? I strive to be "good enough" and "obedient," which isn't in itself a horrible thing, but it is when I look to my own strength and "goodness" to save me. No, Elizabeth. That completely negates the gospel.

"If, like the elder brother, you believe that God ought to bless you and help you because you have worked so hard to obey him and be a good person, then Jesus may be your helper, your example, even your inspiration, but he is not your Savior. You are serving as your own Savior." (The Prodigal God)

Ouch. Churchgoers and "religious" folk, may we never become complacent concerning our need for Him. May we never forget the importance (and joy) of a relationship with Him. Christ alone. Not what He can do for you or give you. He's so much more than that.

Okay that's all I've got. Read the book and we'll talk about it :)

Love from Rome,

Elizabeth

Out of the Dust

I just cleaned an embarrassing amount of dust out from under my bed. 

That's partly because I just never sweep under there. But also I'm convinced there's a dust/pollen/floating particle epidemic in Italy. Seriously. Stuff, in daunting sizes and quantities, drifts through the air and into your nose and eyes and throat and you sneeze and tear up and cough and it's just not fun.

I'm pretty sure nobody likes dust. It's dirty. It makes you sneeze. Having a layer of gray fluff on your furniture just isn't attractive. 

But as I was dumping those unseemly balls of dirt and debris into my trashcan, I couldn't get that Gungor song out of my head:

"You make beautiful things, 

you make beautiful things out of the dust.

You make beautiful things,

you make beautiful things out of us."

After all, God made man from the dust of the earth:

"Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." -Genesis 2:7

I've never really thought about how incredible it is that God took the lowliest, most mundane thing and transformed it into something as beautiful and complex as the human body. But God has a way of doing that…of taking the lowly things, "the least of these," and using them for his glory.

"God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." -1 Corinthians 1:27-30

In the same way, He can take our dust, our dirt, our broken pieces, our ruins, and make them beautiful. He can change us and use us despite our deficiencies and just our absolute mess. "But we have this treasure in jays of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2 Corinthians 4:7)

Just as flowers bloom after the long grayness and lifelessness of winter, He has the power to create and resurrect. Spring feels hopeful in that way, doesn't it? Seeing new life in flowers and plants and birds and sunshine. The good news is that there IS hope for new life in the one who "swallowed up death in victory." (1 Corinthians 15:54, Isaiah 25:8). The One who, Himself, arose from the dead.

And now as I listen to the rain hitting the balcony outside my window, I think about how he can cleanse us from the old, from the dust.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." -2 Corinthians 5:17

In case you haven't heard the Gungor song, Beautiful Things, give it a listen. This video is my favorite visual interpretation of it. I hope it gets stuck in your head too ;) "You make me new, You are making me new…"

"He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!'" -Revelation 21:5

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Living in another country is hard.

I'm tired all the time because I have to process information in a foreign language and I'm constantly meeting and talking to new people. Even going to the grocery store makes me a little anxious because I might not be able to find something or I may have to ask for help in Italian. Even something as seemingly simple as paying my cell phone bill can end up taking all afternoon. Courtney and I have different keys, so she's accidentally locked me inside the apartment a couple of times (true story). I also can't just hop in my car (because I don't have one) and drive somewhere (because I can't drive stick, and that's all they have here) so getting somewhere may take an hour on foot or by metro/bus, so it's just not possible to get a ton of things done in one day. And when I leave my house in the morning, I better not forget anything because there's a good chance I won't come back until late that night.

BUT. Living in another country is a blast.

I get to learn a new language. I'm constantly meeting and talking to new people. I'm learning so many eccentricities about this beautiful, quirky culture. People are generally friendly and go out of their way to help and spend time with me (several people have invited us for dinner, and just today one sweet friend gave us a list of free language programs she had researched for us as well as inexpensive hairdressers!). I laugh when I get locked in the apartment (because really…who else would that happen to?). Maybe not driving is a little inconvenient, but walking is great exercise and the metro only has two lines so it's super simple to navigate. And being so busy that I'm rarely home is preferable to being a bored, friendless recluse who sits in a dark corner of her bedroom nibbling on pizza bianca and watching American TV shows online. 

So as I take a step back from the emotional roller coaster that is living overseas...analyzing the positives and negatives, frustrations and joys….one thing is certain:

Living in another country makes me (somewhat painfully) aware of my neediness.

I was talking recently with another American who just moved to Rome as well, and he said that is something that has struck him the most: It's human nature to shy away from weakness, submission or dependence. Neediness is seen as a negative quality. But living overseas makes it virtually impossible to deny our dependency. We have to ask for help. I depended on people to show me how to apply to, ya know, legally live here (which you have to do at the post office within eight days of arriving, by the way), to continually correct my language failures, to show me around this unfamiliar city, to teach me how to make Italian-style coffee and typical Roman pasta dishes…the list goes on.

But above all else, being here and feeling lonely and struggling with negativity and frustrations and homesickness reminds me every moment of how desperately I need the Lord. I know it would be impossible for me to survive the next two years without prayer and daily encouragement, fortification and just flat-out, straight-up truth from His Word.

And I want to go through life like that…being so thirsty for Him and His help and His truth alone and knowing that only He can truly satisfy my needs.

I love the imagery in Psalm 42: "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God." I imagine that feeling of coming back from a run and being so exhausted and thirsty that you drink a whole bottle of water without stopping to take a breath. I pray that my soul always thirsts for the living God, that I desire to be with Him and spend time with Him and with other believers. Anything else would leave me soul-sick and empty.

David wrote Psalm 63 when he was in the Desert of Judah, and it's such an encouragement to me when I feel like I'm in a "desert," emotionally or spiritually:

"O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land 
where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life
my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing my mouth will praise you.

On my bed I remember you;
I think of you though the watches of the night.
Because you are my help, 
I sing in the shadow of your wings…"

Gosh. I love that.

So yeah, living here is humbling. I feel dumb every day. I make mistakes constantly. I do not know it all. I'm never as kind or compassionate or selfless as I should be. Thank God for His grace and mercy and for that of the people around me.

But even on my worst, most self-depricating days, I can and do and MUST "sing in the shadow of His wings."

We're all human. We all have needs and desires. We all try to fill these little holes in our lives with something. But…

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (Matthew 5:6)

So. Stay thirsty, my friends ;) And allow Him to fill you.

Love from Rome, 

Elizabeth

Babbling

I still can't believe I live in Italy now. It's different from anything I've ever known or any place I've ever lived, but I love it. I love the people I work with with and new friends and the food and the coffee and the climate and my apartment and the fact that I live within a walk or a metro ride from a vast array of ancient, architectural beauty. 

Some adjustments are tough, and I guess I'm still in the "honeymoon phase," but all in all it's already starting to feel like home.

One of the major challenges, though, is learning a new language. I'm amazed by so many people I've met here who can speak multiple languages. Apparently it's not uncommon for Europeans to learn Italian, English and French, for example, from a very young age. Or German. Or Spanish. And here I am making what often feels like a pitiful attempt to be merely conversational in something other than what I've spoken all my life. 

So I've struggled with that a bit. I realize you can't learn a new language overnight (and hey, appropriately enough, Rome wasn't built in a day, right?), but I can't tell you how frustrating it is not to be able to communicate what you're thinking in a language the people around you will understand. And I often feel mentally deficient when everyone from small children to sweet "nonnas" (grandmothers) start gibbering away to me in Italian and I can barely recognize one word. So I am typically pretty oblivious to what's going on around me and I usually feel intellectually inadequate, to put it nicely.

In an effort not to be taken for a deaf-mute for the next two years, I'm going to language school. Fittingly, my school is called "Torre di Babele," which in English is "The Tower of Babel." It really is perfectly named, considering the diversity of the students there. In my class alone, there is a Russian lady, a Libyan medical student, a Japanese girl, a Turkish guy, a French girl, a Brazilian lady, a man from Belgium, and a Nigerian nun. My teacher doesn't speak English, so asking questions in English doesn't do any good. None of us can really speak our heart language with anyone else in the class. 

That's crazy, isn't it? It really does make me think of the Tower of Babel story in the Bible and how the thousands of different languages originally came to be.

In Genesis 11, the Bible tells us that "the whole world had one language and a common speech." But their pride and vaulting ambition was their downfall. They tried to build a tower that would reach to the heavens so they could make a name for themselves. 

They sought their own glory and forgot that all glory belongs to the God of the universe.

To display His power and teach them a lesson in humility, "the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth."

Can you imagine what that must have been like for those people? To be able to understand each other perfectly one minute and the next everyone is babbling seemingly incoherently? I'm sure they felt as frustrated as I do when I don't know the Italian word for the thought I wish to express or question I want to ask or explanation I want to give.

There are many things I learn from this story. One being that it's ridiculous to try to go above God's head or accomplish something apart from him or for my own glory. Look what happened to Satan when he tried that…he was once an angel and was cast out of heaven! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, but not apart from his strength and power.

So another thing is humility. Plain and simple. And I can imagine few things that could humble a person more than trying to learn an entirely new language. And I mean, gosh, I have it easy compared to many people I know. At least I took Spanish in high school and verb conjugation and some vocabulary words are similar. I would probably spend my days in a puddle of tears if I was trying to learn Arabic or Thai or Mandarin right now. To the friends I know that have done that, I salute you.

Language learning is humbling because it makes us (sometimes painfully) aware that we do not know everything. We have to ask for help. From God and from people around us. And luckily, people here aren't shy about correcting your grammar and pronunciation. So you make a fool of yourself and you learn.

Another thing the Tower of Babel story shows me is how exquisitely dynamic our world is because God created different languages. People dispersed and spread and formed different cultures. We are all so beautifully different, yet so innately similar. So as frustrating as it can be to have linguistic failures of communication, how bland would the world be without different cultures?

I also think that's part of getting to know people here. You get to be the stupid American with the verbal capacity of a three-year-old (an honestly, that's being generous). The locals get to laugh at you, and you get to depend on them to explain things. 

It's difficult, but doable. And I am praying for the "gift of tongues." It's going to take a miracle for me to be able to express myself clearly in Italian. But I am grateful for struggles (even though I know this one is comparatively more minuscule than most), because they make me more acutely aware of my need for Him.

I literally cannot do this whole language-learning, overseas-living thing without Him. I need to draw my strength and sustenance and satisfaction and joy from Him alone. I need to stay connected to the Vine.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing." -John 15:5

I have to abide in Him.

So here's to hoping I'll bear the "fruit" of full sentences in Italian soon :)

Love from Rome (what a joy it is to finally be able to say that!!),

Elizabeth