Oh dear, my heart is breaking for you. This guilt, this split in half feeling has NOTHING to do with God! If you are feeling condemned, guilty, ashamed, limited-- that is SATAN, clear as day!! Please, oh please, enjoy the blessing of this time God has given you. It will be 'intense' again soon enough and you must ENJOY the reprieve He has so mercifully given you!
I understand your double bind in enjoying what the first world has to offer while knowing how many have nothing. With only a fraction of your experience, I feel the same way at times. It modifies my choices of hotels or other luxuries when I think how many children could attend school, or receive immunizations instead. However, for reasons we cannot appreciate, God has blessed some with such wealth of choices, while challenging so much of the world with so little. It doesn't mean we cannot enjoy it when He makes it available to us. Each of us is guided down a different path, with different options and choices, and each of follows God's guidance in what He wishes us to do for His glory. He has given you this time to enjoy the first world luxuries, so do so, giving Him the glory! Don't feel guilty, and revel in the time you have. He has given you a heart and an ability to give love and care in His name to others who have not enough, and you have done/will do this with grace, leading others to do the same!
God Bless!
Nicky
Thanks for posting and sharing your heart, my prayers are with you! Perhaps if more of our hearts were broken and sensitive to the Spirit like yours, the world would be a better place!
Maybe think of this time as one of recharging? You are making memories for a lifetime, you and HoJ, whether it's in the first or the third world, and maybe this is part of God's plan for you both.
I've been reading your blog for quite a while now, and admire you tremendously, although this is the first time I've actually responded to any of your posts.
I'm living in Haiti right now, where there are still thousands of people living in tents. There are nights I can't sleep because I just keep thinking about my clean, safe, warm apartment compared the their cold, wet, vulnerable, cramped tents. It doesn't matter that I tell myself I'm doing God's work and he's provided this place for me to live. It just doesn't seem right that I have SO MUCH (even after leaving the Land of Plenty called the US) and they have so little. I pray that God would give us both wisdom (and peace) as we wrestle with this issue.
I am another who understands on a small scale what you are feeling. I will bring you before our God, He knows, He cares. {{big hugs}} - from Perth Western Australia none the less! Waving from the other side of the country.
Ali, as you write your thoughst, the prose is powerful. Perhaps your transparency and humility will inspire and/or help us all. It is difficult. We have so very much in the developed world, while 1/4 of the world goes to bed malnourished with water that can kill.
Your heart sounds amazingly like the Heart of God. Dr. Bob Pierce, who founded World Vision and Samaritans Purse used to say 'let your heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God'. You capture this well.
Thank you for serving with Mercy Ships. This too is a gift of great grace. Don
Thank you for sharing your thoughts... I just returned from Rwanda for a short term mission trip and was also in Ethiopia in Feb. 'Reentry' does a lot of crazy things. I can't imagine what is like living for long periods of time in a certain environment and then re-entering, but I think once you've seen any part of it, the change the takes place in our hearts can't be escaped. I struggle with finding the words at all...I feel guilty for admitting the things I do; unsure of how to fit back into this country that I was born into. I find encouragement that 'for those whom much is given, much is required.' I was born into this country so that I may bring its resources there, when the time is right. He created all things...and somewhere there is balance. Perhaps we'll never understand that balance fully until He's brought us home.
Blessings to you and HoJ as you continue your journeys to reach the least of these.