Last night, I prayed for answers. This morning, I got them.
To make a long story short, I wasn't feeling at home in Ecuador. It's the middle of March, and I wanted to return home. Which home? No clue. I missed TU. I missed Minnesota. I was beginning to feel the first signs of a marvelous cold. No one was home. I wandered around the house, wrapped in a blanket, tea in hand, bemoaning my situation and talking to the dog.
It was a good time to pray.
I prayed for an attitude change. A heart change. It seems like just about every other TU student here would stay in Cuenca well into the summer if she had a tent and a box of pan. "Not I," said the tall gringa. I miss the burbs, the hipster coffee shop where you can watch them roast the coffee beans, my friends at TU, my family in Minnesota, going to the hipster coffee shop with my dad, Fitzwilliam (my guitar)... So as I was laying it all out for the Big Man Upstairs, I realized that what I really missed was independence. I want to be able to do what ever the heck I want, whenever I want to. Me. My life. Mine.
It was a very good time to pray.
Today in Spanish class, la professora was having us read through papers of past TU students so we could correct grammar and practice conversation about the themes. During one paper, Loli stopped us and began to talk about having a good experience in Cuenca. The gist of what she was saying, translated (since there is almost NO English in class) is this:
"Your experience in Cuenca is what you make it. There have been students who came here who didn't have a good experience. They would talk about the trash in the streets, the weird foods, and other imperfections of Cuenca. They weren't willing to appreciate all the differences and see the good things. They focused on what they didn't like. They didn't have corazones abiertos.
Open hearts.
So after God dropped this chancho on my head, I realized my corazón wasn't quite as abierto as I had previously assumed. Oh yeah, I came here convinced that mine would NOT be the heart of a close-minded American. After all, I'm a Christian, so I understand everything. I would smile at the cultural differences and remember, since I'm educated, that no culture is better than another. And then I would smile contently because I am educated and can comprehend such depths of wisdom. And then I would go have a burger.
My heart needs to be opened, and I think it's only going to happen with God's help. Some people seem to have open hearts from birth, and they are the ones who go on to host shows on the travel channel or become missionaries in the jungle or live with monkeys. As for me, I technically still live in the house I've lived in since day three, I didn't leave the country until I was sixteen, I'm an introvert, and I love being comfortable.
Open hearts are allowed to be comfortable once in a while, but they shouldn't live in comfort forever. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way endorsing the aesthetic lifestyle, which I believe gave God some solid headaches back in the day. An open heart doesn't stay home all the time. An open heart gets into the world and lives in it. And when an open heart visits different countries, it has the will and energy to be a part of the culture, to focus on the positive facades and not the negative.
An open heart doesn't say "I have to." It says "I get to." And open heart welcomes change because change is exciting, not rejects it because it's tiring. An open heart doesn't have to be comfortable, it has to be willing.
I asked God to change my heart. God told me to open it.
Prayer answered.
"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." -Psalm 90:12
Well said!
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