Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Maybe It's Enough

You might have noticed my kind of down-in-the-dumps post from the other day. Well, today I was reading a post of a Christian blogger who I recently stumbled upon and I found it kinda helpful in my question to "find the perfect job here in TZ" (or anywhere, for that matter).

Let's Be Ordinary. Let's Be Extravagant. By Moma Monk, Micha Boyett 

You can click on the link if you want to read her whole post, but my favorite part is when she says:
I’m convinced that when we carry guilt for the great things we are not doing, we miss out on the Ordinary and Beautiful Things God already has for us to do. If we are only following Christ when we do Big Things, we have set our ambitions too small. Because it’s all big. It’s all radical.

It is radical to do the small, daily work of keeping the suffering of others before my eyes. And it is also radical to remember that the pain of malnutrition and disease is real and tangible for so many people in this beautiful and terrifying world. It is ordinary but profound to remember that I am among the privileged. (Emphasis original)
Maybe this gives me a little hope that just being here is enough. And by "here," I don't mean TZ per se. I just mean here here, where ever that may be. Maybe I don't need to (and shouldn't expect to) do amazing, big things where ever I am. Maybe I am doing something great in the small things. Which actually is a good thing for me to keep in mind when the next person says to me, "WOW! You live in Africa. You're so amazing." Because when people say that (and they say it more often than I'd like to admit) I feel like the biggest fraud in the world. In my mind everyone else is doing much more amazing-er things than I am or ever will. So maybe it's good advice for all of us to keep in mind.

"It's all a big deal. It's all radical." We are doing the small work of God in our daily lives and we are doing amazing things. All of us.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Katie, we always seem to have similar thought patterns. Funny thing, I hear "Wow, you are a professor! You are amazing" and I think I am a fraud and question what kind of difference, if any, my teaching or research does and is making in the grand scheme of things. -Love ya, grrrrrl. -Kaiser

Waldie said...

Thanks again. I just had a conversation with another friend about this and it seems like all of us are in a similar place. Maybe it's just a demonstration of how awesome we are because we always want to be doing more and more. ;)