bukid clean
28 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
It’s time to read Isaiah again. For some reason reading that book connects me to who I am, like it’s an old friend I’m glad to visit. Of course, it does connect me to who I am, deep down, in the core of my flesh: the rebellious Israelite who can’t seem to catch on that if I keep walking like I’m walking there’s no healing going to happen except through dark times.
I was walking with Josiah’s sweet hand in mine on the way to Tita Edna’s this afternoon. He wanted to be held but I was able to keep him walking for most of the time. Tita Edna lives out near the bukid, the country, with rice fields in her back yard. So walking to the edge of town you can see the almost other-worldly green of the Filipino countryside.
And I caught myself asking myself, “What is a little Mississippi-turned-California-girl doing out here, in the Philippine bukid? What in the world kind of turn of events got you here?
And yet, despite all the things that you’d think would make me discontent here (namely, driving through jungle mountains to get here so you feel like you’re about to fall off the end of the world; making do with a tiny variety of vegetables and fruits, most of which have to be bought 2 hours away; terrible internet connection and thus scant communication with my family)…despite all these things I see approaching in view that peace that has been so illusive the last 3 years of my life.
It rains daily here, which I’ve just learned isn’t normal for January in Catanduanes. But I’m thankful for it because the rains brings cooler breezes, and I don’t feel so bad staying inside being “lazy” (if you call making everything, including my bread, from scratch, “lazy”). Because for me, the rains are like a prescription from heaven. They are like the long shower my soul has needed after two years of culture shock building up on my heart, like the Manila pollution that I had to scrub off our kitchen table. I’ve had grime in me, waiting to be extracted, but I haven’t had the time.
The kind of time that walking with my toddler with neon green rice plants welcoming us into their slow and steady world gives me.
I’m amazed at how the pagan kings used by God in the time Isaiah were just that, used by God. And I’m humbled, because I realize that God isn’t going to always rescue me from the grime that builds up in my soul. But he may just use a year or two of loneliness on the edges of the bukid to clean me out. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m in exile, for the life we have here is under God’s leadership, and I’m glad to be in the place He has me.
But I think there’s something like exile occurring in the recesses of my heart, and God is using all these things to love me in His brilliant way. Because discipline is an act of love. And I can feel him calling out to me from the rain and the green and the clean wet puddles that my son loves to splash in. It’s clean here, and God wants to use this, I know in my bones, to clean me, too.
