Growing Into My Skin

I like to call them our Christmas bugs - bright red - this is their season

So much for thinking the rains are tapering off. True enough, it isn't exactly pouring down buckets most of the time, but the number of days it has rained in one fashion or another has definitely rivaled its sunny counterpart. Last thursday, when I returned to Mama Viviana's after my day of rest at home, was no exception. After plowing through the afternoon heat trying to finish my post, I went to hit "publish" and the internet cut out.  Rain clouds blocked the satellite connection. I dashed from the office to my tukul just in time for the floodgates to open. DELUGE! Rain thundering down so raucously you could barely hear anything else, and lightening so bright and close that the thunder clap felt like it could set our walls heaving inwards. With little else that could be done (and Christine having just gotten home from a hot afternoon of teaching Physics at the local secondary school) we got the dvd player for some down time with Temple Grandin.

Mama Viviana's before a big rain storm

For any who haven't seen the movie - I commend it to you HEARTILY. It is based on the true story of a girl, Temple Grandin, born in the 1950s and diagnosed with the then little known condition of autism. It's a story of fighting back, of challenging the norm, of learning how to deal with weakness and finding ways for strengths to shine. It's a story of what love looks like when all its usual avenues are gone, or rather, different. You will laugh and cry. (Well, I did.) And probably marvel at the wisdom and work of God in creating us the way we are, and working in our lives the way He does. Clare Danes does a brilliant job of playing the main character. And if you're remotely interested in animal husbandry - that'll be an added bonus to your viewing pleasure.

Christine and I made it roughly half-way through by the time the rain let up enough for me to consider getting back to MV's (that's what I'll call Mama Viviana for short). It was cold (75 degrees?), so everyone bathed early, with water piping hot from the fire, and then we all piled into MV's tukul, sitting or laying on the two single beds either side of a glowing little charcoal segili (one pot cook-stove). The kids fell asleep one by one as MV told me the story of how she met her husband (who moved on to another family long ago), how she moved from her home village, got involved with the forestry department as a typist and clerk for over two decades, had children, moved from one place to another based on where the fighting was going on during the war, and more. The battery on the light went out as we talked, and we carried right on in the dark, eventually ending with our usual song and prayer before I walked across the compound to my own room and bed.

That night as I fell asleep at MV's, I realized something. I'm learning something unexpected on this home-stay - or perhaps growing into it. A new freedom to be myself. Embracing who I am and who God has made me to be instead of fighting it. And finding grace in self-forgetfulness. How long, throughout my life, I have lamented that I am not this or that, or wished that I was more knowledgeable or skilled or socially savvy. How long I have been self-conscious about what I look like, or what I'm wearing, or what I've just said, or how I'm getting along with people. At Mama Viviana's, no one is thinking a thing about what I'm wearing, or what my hair looks like, or if I've clipped my toe nails, or if I'm keeping up with the latest fashions or trends, or if I've heard about this person, or know about that subject, or how bad I smell (which on some of these hot days, I'm certain is disgustingly unacceptable by Western standards . . . ). One might get a compliment on a certain piece of clothing, but that seems to be where it ends. It's just not that important.

I wake up in the morning and put on whatever set of clothes first come out of the bag, because clothes are what you wear. I wash my face with a cup of water onto the dirt yard to wake myself up, and pin my hair out of my face so it doesn't stick to me when my sunscreen starts melting off my face from sweat. I barely use a brush, and rarely look in a mirror. It's amazing for these simple things to be simple once again, utilitarian, rather than a way of comparing people one to the other. I can walk around with torn clothes, because just about everyone here has clothes worn, torn, faded, or soiled in some way (and usually a combination of all four). I can smell like a fire, because everyone else cooks over one too.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like envy, or favoritism, or the temptation to compare yourself to someone else are absent here. We are all human, and these things will be a part of us as long as we remain so.  But the bar is different. Other things take precedence. Like being hungry or getting food, or cooking, being sick or healthy, getting water, or going to the garden. If you don't do these things, you won't survive. And because most of your time is taken doing these things, and you most likely don't have much in the way of money, you have less time and inclination to spend on other things - like ogling at pretty things in magazines (if there even were such magazines or ads to be had here), or strolling through stores of beautiful merchandise (no malls either), or making sure you look great in front of a mirror. Surprisingly, it's actually very freeing NOT to have a mirror larger than my hand.

Life is more about being and doing.  And I feel a new freedom to be myself instead of worrying that people will think I'm boring, or weird, or that they prefer someone else's company. I'm feeling freer to be exactly who God made me - personality, interests, body weight or shape, capabilities, weaknesses, lacks, giftings, and everything else.  Each of these areas is in motion, on a journey. Journeys of increasingly unfolding beauty and growth into the child that God has already made me, and is continuing to make me.  It's a breath of fresh air to embrace the uniqueness. I don't know what is flipping the switch. It must be the faithful prayers of many people, combined with God's perfect plan, and the right set of circumstances to bring it about. I think it's also an added blessing of spending much of my time around children. Children might point out differences here and there, but for the most part, they couldn't care less what you're wearing, or if you fudged your speaking, or anything else. It's there in the moment, and in the next, it has vanished as though it never existed. And it all comes back to relationship. If only every relationship could be that simple!

I couldn't be more grateful God is seeing fit to free me more thoroughly. And I couldn't be more delighted: To express myself without hesitation. Not to feel less or ashamed when people rub my skin and ask me what all the brown spots are. To be different and see that as an asset rather than a liability - another beautiful stone or jewel in the grand pot of all the wonders that God has created and is forging through this oft messy life. To know that I don't have to be good at everything.  To sing aloud - lustily and with good courage as one of Maddy Prior's albums says - from my heart because I have a voice made to express what is within. To speak Moru imperfectly, to laugh at my mistakes, to tell the kids I have no idea what they're saying (for the 50th time) and be fine with that. For a change, I'm not that bothered by being different and I don't feel pressure to be any certain thing. (!!) I shouldn't say this too loudly . . . or maybe I should knock on wood . . . I could be back in the mire in less than a moment! But I'm going to relish it and take it for the profound gift that it is. Jesus breaks bonds.

I don't say these things lightly. Fear and self-consciousness are two of the things I have most struggled with in moving my life to Africa. I will be painfully honest and admit that I hate it when kids chant (yell) "white person of the church" at me every time I go by, in hopes of getting some reaction out of me. I hate it that they want to touch me as I pass on my bicycle, as if I were some strange circus attraction rather than a real person with feelings. It drives me nuts that someone would come to my yard and just stand and watch every move I make. I hate it that many times what attracts people to me is not a genuine desire for a mutual relationship, but the color of my skin that speaks of money and opportunities. I want people to understand, or at least want to understand. And when they don't, or I don't perceive them to, it is HARD to move toward them. Not exactly the Christian attitude I was hoping to exude: not only loving those that love you back in the way you want them to - but those that make you uncomfortable, or those who are rude, or those who are enemies outright. And most people here just don't know any different! Many of their cultural values are poles apart from my own - how can I fault them?

Watching Temple Grandin and the love her mother had for her, gave me such a clear picture of what this all looks like. To fight to be yourself and not be afraid of it. To rejoice in the diversity. To help people understand the differences, and to be gracious when they don't. To see that we all have things to offer, and all have places where we need growth. My cousin Sarah epitomizes the idea in this photo her brother took of her.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Eph. 2:10 ESV

He made all of us unique.  He's got great reasons for that. Even when we think He's got it all wrong, or others tell us so. Don't listen. Grow into the skin He's given you. Enjoy it. See what redemption He means to weave into it. No one else can do it for you. I love Natasha Bedingfield's song Unwritten for glorying in discovery, rejoicing in being, having a heart open to all that life has to bring:

"Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your life begins
The rest is still unwritten . . ."