The Beatitudes

A couple weeks before I set off on this crazy adventure, I had a dream where the Bible reference Matthew 5:5-6 was very clearly present in the dream. So when I woke up, I looked it up to see what it was, thinking it would be some obscure line from a parable or the story of Jesus' life. It turns out, it was a couple of the Beatitudes. Specifically, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.

Since I've been so candid during the course of this blog, I might as well fess up about this. My relationship with God was not exactly where it should have been before I left. It was getting better as my departure got closer, but I was still wishy washy about it up until just a few weeks before I left. Part of the state of my relationship with God had to do with my relationship with Jeff and others. There were definitely parts of my life that were not up to the standard I knew they needed to be. As I realized Jeff was being taken away, I started to draw closer to God. Partly just out of sheer hurt and loneliness, and partly because it's where I knew I belonged.

Anyways, I said all that to say this. The hungering and thirsting for righteousness bit made sense to me because that's exactly where i was at when I had this dream. I was trying to put the pieces of my life back together in a way that would honor and glorify God. However the meek one was a bit baffling to me. So I just kinda shrugged my shoulders and was like, ok yeah, whatever God.

Flash forward a month or two to this weekend that just passed.....

I have been having a great time in India. I haven't experienced any of the problems I've heard about experienced by others. Others who have gone before me as well as those currently here that I've talked to. I am firm in my belief that part of it is God looking out for me, because I've been a bit fragile while here and there were definitely times where I would have packed up and gone home if the right set of things happened to me. I don't doubt or deny that. I believe some of the problems foreigners face lie in the attitudes and how they interact with people. We aren't in the US, it's not going to be like home, get over it, adapt and make it work.

Oh, so back to the meekness thing. Because I approach the country and it's people with respect and humbleness. I try to adapt to their way of doing things, however backwards they may feel to me. As a result, I've made friends, enjoyed smiles, felt welcome and haven't experienced any of the unpleasantness that I've heard about and witnessed.

One of the definitions of meek is humble. I really am inheriting the earth thru meekness!