OK, well, I have to first tell you that I absolutely loved this chapter. This was the chapter that was a chapter of remembering. Those 4 words that she used through out the chapter were words that I can so easily relate to. I have experienced them full force. It is like nothing that you can ever explain. "Gloriously Ruined" and "Seriously Disturbed".
Like she said in the book, when we think of those and use the word seriously disturbed, we typically think of someone with a mental illness or someone that may have shattered under the weight of this world. In this book, it is totally different and that is what I just loved.
Let's get to a question or 2......
1- Putting "gloriously ruined" in your own words......
WOW, I wish I had know about this terminology a long time ago. It would have been so much easier to explain. Going on a mission trip will always leave you gloriously ruined. I have been blessed to be a part of mission trips since I was just a teen and even before that. I can remember living in Georgia (until the age of 12) and going on a mission trip with the church and riding in a school bus that my Dad was driving. Talk about a L-O-N-G trip...... but I know we were on a mission trip. I have had the opportunity to travel to Ukraine twice, India twice and Nepal once. Those for me were truly times of being "gloriously ruined" and "Seriously disturbed". I am sure that even to this day, people still probably think that I am "ruined and disturbed". There is something about reading the magazine, seeing it on TV, hearing about it from a missionary, reading it in a book and when you step off the plane, and it smacks you square in the face..........you can not help but be "gloriously ruined" and "seriously disturbed". Even to this day, going to Ukraine, there is not a time that I don't eat mashed potatoes or beets or cook sausage -kielbasa- for my husband that I don't get the rush of memories and faces of those precious women. There is not a time that I don't see a couple from India that I just want to stop and ask, "What state are you from?" "Do you now how to prepare Chi?" "Can you tell me about your family?" I can go into my closet and find my Salwar that I have that I have even worn to church in the past 6 months to make people think and cause questions about "What in the world are you wearing?" I have a passion for India. I love Indian food. I love the people. I love the culture. I love those precious children. Their beautiful skin, those beautiful dark eyes that can look straight through to your heart and know if you are falling in love with them. Yes, there is the other side of India. The Hindu culture and religion. It is something for me as a Christian that I can not wrap my head around. Reasoning of serving a million gods that makes no sense to me. Reasoning that everything is a god. The simplicity of Christ and the offer of salvation is such a simple message. I do not understand but that won't stop me from praying for them. I also have been to Nepal. This is the one that can really hit home with Kay and the AIDS epidemic and how people will disown their own family. We had the privilege of going to a Leper colony. It was an experience like nothing else. I saw men and women, missing toes, fingers, noses, hands and feet. It was absolutely gloriously ruining experience. I remember being called in to a small room. Sitting on the floor and listening to a "sermon" from the Pastor. I can remember the smells, the tears that burned my eyes for that hour and half sitting there. I remember seeing the kitchen and watching this precious Saint stick her small little hand into the boiling hot water to get out the boiled eggs that they had prepared for us for a snack. You see, with Leprosy, you don't have feeling in your fingers. I am hear to tell you that standing on the roof of that flat top home I enjoyed the BEST boiled eggs, cookie (cracker), and Chi-Tea that I have ever had in my life. The pastor there knitted. He knitted with out fingers!!!!!!! He knitted wool sweaters. Sweaters that you could only wear in a Nepal winter. I HAVE ONE!!!! A treasure that I will always treasure!!!!!
I can honestly say, I have experienced and still experiencing being "Gloriously Ruined" and "Seriously Disturbed" I have experienced "Life before Ukraine/India/Nepal" and "Life after Ukraine/India/Nepal".
What about you? Have you ever experienced this? Do you want to? I can only pray that you do!!!!!!!
I am excited about Chapter 4. I am working on the post.........WOW WHAT A BOOK!!!!!!
Doula Mama Pam
Let's Pray.....
Father, I confess that asking you to ruin me is something I'm still considering. I'm not sure I'm ready to ask you to do it. I don't know the implications of such a radical surrender. I want to be ready. Will you begin to rearrange me and my way of doing life? I want to create space in my heart for hurting people. Help me to grow every day in my willingness to let you gloriously ruin me. Amen
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