False ideas and expectations...

I think many people with a brain do not actually use them.  Use them to think, that is!!  Just yesterday my theory was proven right once again.

I was walking home with a visitor of our neighbours. We had just attended the Bible teaching that my husband presents twice a week in the local language, when this young lady asks me if I am now also done with language learning.  Done with language learning….hmmm what did she mean?  Could she be so naive as to think one ever stops learning?  No, it wasn’t that.  Could she possible think that I in the role of wife, mother of 3, teacher, chef ( :) ), house cleaner, resident helper of the sick,  was just so brilliant that I did it all and could actually now be done with language?  Tempting thought – be done with you old friend!!  No, I am quite sure she did not think that!!  :)  The dreaded question.  Some just throw it out there with their mouth full of home-baked bread (because there is no shop to buy it from!!), others are puzzled and think there is something wrong with my intellectual abilities ....i do have a university degree by the way.  :)

It all comes down to expectations and not using your upper faculties.  Her and others expectation was that all missionary moms speak the language just as amazingly as their husbands.  They do it all and are it all!!  Wow, speak of not using your brain!  How will this poor girl ever survive the real deal?  She will definitely frizzle out and feel like an utter failure if she does not attain that goal.  Or even if she does speak the language one day as well as her husband in the same time, something else will probably slip…maybe she will send her kids away at the age of 6….or maybe she will not have kids?

Or there will be no food to eat.  Somewhere she needs to realign her expectations with reality and then make choices based on that.  Or she might do it all!!  But that is not me, sorry.

Could it be that God has something else for me in line?   Heaven forbid, but could it be that He is ok with the fact that I speak a little but love a lot?  If He is ok with it, then so should i.  I just need to clarify something here – I do not say that as the missionary mom you have a license to not learn the language, of course not!!  Why are you here then?  I am just saying that it might take you longer as you focus on other more important God-things and as life’s challenges changes you might have more or less time for this.  But work towards that goal, just don’t let it be the ruler to which you measure your being a “successful” missionary or not.

What I am saying is that you need to know what God wants you to do.  Not what people think you should be doing.  Believe me, that is not a good place to be.  People place unrealistic expectations on you and judge you with their own limited scope.  If you live to please people you will live in vain and exhaust yourself.  And actually miss what God has planned for you.

So yes, I am still learning Y and rejoicing in small victories, on top of all the other things I do so that we as a family can live and function well here.  We are a team!!  Even though it is not me up there talking in Y and sharing God’s amazing plan of salvation – we are doing it together for Him!!  So please don’t judge me or compare me with my husband or the missionary up the road or that amazing woman in that book you read just last week.  Ask me what is God’s plan for my life here.  Ask me how I have grown closer to Him.  Ask me to share from my life; what I have learned here, out in the sticks.  And please think for a second before you speak.

Bella