So here I am. 72 hours left in Cuenca, a few in Quito, then hopefully back in Indiana by Tuesday night.
I can almost taste that Starbucks Frapp. And there are random times throughout the day when I will cringe at the sudden thought of how much I miss one person or another. Some of the most important people in my life, including my family, I haven't seen for nearly five months.
Turns out that's a really long time... longer than I thought.
But God has taken me into His hands over the past few months... and placed me in front of a mirror. He told me to take a good hard look at who I was and what was important to me. And since I didn't have the option to go home for three and a half months, I had no choice but to look.
God showed me a girl who He has chosen, rescued, guided, and molded into a servant. He showed me a girl who is searching for Him, but who isn't searching only for Him. He showed me how I had let my love of comfort take precedence over my love for others. And He showed me how I could change.
God showed me that I needed Him every single hour of every single day. He called me to spend my mornings with Him, and He blessed me through that. I suddenly found myself outside of my room more, and I grew closer to my family here.
God showed me that I don't have to live with a lack of confidence. I thought I was confident enough. I liked who I was, but apparently God wanted more. He asked me why I assumed people wouldn't like me, and I had look to hard in that mirror to figure out why.
But most of all, God showed me an impatient daughter, a girl who always wanted the next thing, the weekend, the next trip, the return flight. A girl who was rarely satisfied. Nothing else God showed me shocked me more, and nothing brought me greater frustration. So God got to work. God taught me patience more times than I ever thought possible. Waiting for taxis, waiting for family, waiting for months. He asked me why it was all about me, and I told Him because I wanted it that way. So He kept working. He broke my anxious spirit until I began to learn to enjoy the moment, even when I wasn't in control. He's still working on that one.
Yesterday I stood to the entrance of my host family's house. We rarely walk through the front door, but I remember walking through it on my very first day in Cuenca, dragging my life behind me in suitcases. A house always seems different after you've lived in it. Your perspective of the colors, the sense of space, is always different after you've seen it from every angle. I stood there and remembered my first impressions. I remember I was weighted by the idea of being away from home so long, and I still am.
But I'm glad that I came. And not just because it's been fun, but because the house isn't the only thing that seems to have changed.
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