Experiences make us happier

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/15/materialistic-people-less-happy-less-liked/?hpt=Sbin

After 2 years in Mexico, I have precious little to "show" for it. 5 extra pounds, maybe, from all the flan and arrechera and sopa tortilla and tres leches and jamaica water and tacos arabes and... well you get the idea. (or maybe you don't, bc it's in Spanish, but just assume that anything with a name you can't pronounce is NOT low in calories!)

We have a few pieces of artwork for our walls and our bookshelves, a few pieces of clothing for our closets, a few pieces of jewelry for special occasions, an amazing bedroom set :) and thousands of pictures.

But I also have a lot of experiences that can't be cataloged on an insurance form. (we're talking house insurance this week in math class). Learning to rely on each other when there's no other friends or relatives or neighbors or co-workers or church acquaintances who know our names or speak our language. Floating on a boat through a canal smelling flowers and watching the birds while debating the history of Cuba in Spanish. Negotiating a lower price on cheap souvenirs and paying double for my avocados. Teaching others how to teach or how to engineer or how to speak English or how to survive in Mexico or how to get through airport security so that after we're gone, even if we're forgotten, we still left a little piece of ourselves behind here in Mexico.

Yesterday at Spanish Class/ Bible Study, we found this question in our book: "What will we do when someone tells us that the best God has to offer us has passed us by?" We had a nice long discussion, in Spanish, about whether or not the Bible supported the assertion that God would let His plans for us slip by unnoticed. We basically decided that no, He would not, although some in the group were still skeptical, asserting that God might put them right in front of us, and we just wouldn't take the chances being offered to us.

Is it possible that God has great things planned for us, but we can decide not to do those things? Sure, I guess so. But is it also likely that no matter what our choices, if we keep coming back to Jesus, He'll keep giving us great opportunities?

The author (of the book we were using for our study) also seemed to remind us that not everything God wants us to do is something we want to do. Or even something we think we're good at. Or something we think is important. A lot of the "best God has to offer us" is stuff we don't want to pick up and take.

Sometimes Jesus calls us to raise babies or care for an aging parent or sick spouse, when we'd really rather not clean up after these people. Sometimes He calls us to lead craft time at VBS when we'd rather not be covered in glue. Sometimes He calls us to make sandwiches for the homeless, when we'd really rather be at home eating steak and potatoes (or, in my case, advocating on capital hill for better homeless funding).

Sometimes, Jesus calls us to move to a new place, where we don't know anyone or anything and we are working for incompetent people and we don't know why He couldn't have called someone else to do this because our lives are really going to be interrupted by this little "break" far away and when are we going to get back to the life we had planned and a slightly larger checking account, Lord?

Sometimes, Jesus explains why He asked us to do this, and sometimes He doesn't.
I'm still not sure exactly why He asked us to move to Mexico, and work here, and live here, and absorb this culture. But I do know that I feel, deep in my soul, that this is where we were supposed to be for the last 2 years, and that even though part of me wants to stay here, and part of me wants to go back to the life I had before this experience, I'm peacefully ok with the fact that our next adventure just might not be anything I had ever imagined.