Love, Rain, and Other Good Gifts

On this day of Love and Friendship (as February 14 is called in Nicaragua), I'm quite content. Last night, I went to church at my church. Yes, I've chosen a church here. It's called Comunidad Cristiana Promesa (Promise Christian Community), and it has services on Thursday night and Sunday morning. I love it. Promesa is a place where I feel free to worship God. The preaching comes from an entire passage, not just proof texts for a theme. The people are friendly (though reserved... maybe eventually I'll crack through the surface to have meaningful relationships there). Most importantly, I meet God at Promesa church, and it's an environment where I feel free to truly worship.

Yesterday I had some work to do, but I ran out of things that I could do. So for the afternoon, I was forced to have a long devotional time. I say forced because I was very antsy, but there was nothing else for me to do. When I had a week of silence at Taizé, the sister encouraged us to allow ourselves to be antsy in contemplative times, but to resist the temptation to distract ourselves. So I sat in the backyard yesterday, trying to pray and read the Bible, and wanting to do anything else.

However, these times of quiet contemplation are the most important for me in Nicaragua. I need to be rooted in God's Word, centered on Christ. If all my activism comes from a desire to do something good or fulfill some cosmic purpose and is not motivated by my love for God, it is worthless. I work from a place of anxiety and uncertainty until I surrender all my activities, hopes, and control to Jesus Christ.

Yesterday I was reading in John 13 where Jesus washed the disciples' feet. 

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. 

Jesus served from a place of security because he knew his identity in God. From that root grew his act of service. Finding my identity in Christ continues to be an opportunity for growth, to say the least. I am very uncertain of my actions, my clothing, my words because I want to gain the approval of other people. It's not a bad thing to want to avoid offending others - especially in a foreign culture - but I should root my identity in the God who made me just as I am, not in the ads and rules and expectations of the world around me, Christian or not.

Despite my restlessness yesterday, God still spoke to me, still listened to me. I am still learning from him. And then, like dessert for the day, I got to go to Promesa church, which generally sends me home singing and skipping through the street.

The best gift, though, was the rain! Normally, these months in Nicaragua are dry. The rains come in May and end in November, but December through April, it's dry. After 6 weeks here, enduring the heat and dust, my body was longing for rain. I have spent the last two years of my life in the Pacific Northwest, after all. It seemed to rain all the time in BC, and I got used to it. I have been missing rain. 

Last night as I left for church, it was sprinkling a little. Soon after I got into the church doors, it started pouring. We were singing songs while the rain poured down and the fragrance of wet filled the room. It was delightful. I was elated because even though I hadn't been asking God for rain, I had mentioned that I missed it. Mind you, I know that God does not send rain showers for just me specifically. But it was a gift to me nonetheless, and I felt incredibly loved. God's gifts of love are all around us if we only open our eyes and enjoy them. Happy day of love and friendship!