“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
This verse caught my attention many months before moving to Thailand. Shortly after arriving, it quickly became apparent that it’d be one of the more prominent themes of my two years here. It’s encouraging, isn’t it? To be told before spending two years abroad, You will have moments of weakness and failure. But that’s okay! If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be apparent that it is God and God alone who made these two years possible. That’s what I’ve been slowly, painfully, coming to terms with over the past 10 months.
Take last Saturday, for example. It’s a lazy Saturday morning and I’m getting things done at home. Suddenly, my neighbor turns on traditional Thai music, which blares through the entire building. This isn’t anything new – in fact, it usually comes on at 8 a.m. on any given day – but it’s louder than usual. I’ve lived here for ten months now and it still perturbs me sometimes. In America, the landlord would be called and noise policies would be reinforced; but here, in a poor community in Bangkok, those things don’t quite exist to the same degree. So I get to put up with it – and decide what to do about my attitude, the only thing I can change.
I have one too many moments like these. Whether it’s the meeting that ends up being three hours instead of one or the spontaneous visit with someone we foreigners “have to meet,” things get on my nerves… all the time. It’s inconvenient. It’s intrusive. As an ESFJ, or maybe just as an American, I like having my life planned, organized, and conformed to my schedule. If things happen exactly as I’ve already planned, then perfect. Of course, life never works out that way, but it’s a lot more doable in a culture that embraces that ideal. Since Thailand does not host that ideal to the same degree, you can imagine how much life here has stretched and grown me. I’d like to think I’ve become more patient, more flexible with time, and more understanding and gracious, but there are still many moments when I break and my humanity takes over: I’m irritated, impatient, selfish, not present, or some combination of any of those.
I’m working on it… I really am. But apart from doing my best, I’m trying to embrace the reality that Grace is there to catch me when I fall. If there was no Grace and doing my best was all I had, then God’s power wouldn’t be all that evident. It’d be easier to say, Look at what Gary’s done! rather than Look at what God’s done! It is by God’s grace and God’s grace alone that I am here in Thailand. On my own, I am weak, but with God, I am strong.
Thank God for a Grace that never runs dry.