And then there were two...

I regret to inform that my dear cousin, Talia, will no longer be joining me and Cheryl in Scotland and Ireland…a moment of silence please. She will be missed, truly.

Catherine has repeatedly expressed a desire to have me stay on and some days, I do admit, the thought plays on my mind for a bit; but at the end of the day, I know I’d rather come home as scheduled. It’s a strange feeling to have the option, though, because as I’m going to be working on call, I really could stay here for as long as I wanted.

On Friday, Catherine and I took all the kids into town to go grocery shopping. We picked up a trolley (shopping cart) and headed inside together, but then went separate ways so Catherine could get started while I took the boys for a wee; all 4 of them. Even after being here for over a month, having all 4 kids under my wing in a public place was an experience all on its own. The hardest part was not controlling the children, it was maneuvering the push chair (stroller) without running one of them over. We did manage just fine, but the looks of horror and utter shock I received while traipsing through the aisles in an effort to locate Catherine was absolutely hysterical.

So, here’s more of what God’s been showing me: I’ve been putting so much effort towards growing so that my actions and my being might reflect God’s character, but I’ve realized that I’m approaching it completely wrong. If I focus on "acting" and "being", not only am I depending on myself, I’m fighting an uphill and never ending battle full of failure and shame. I realize now that I need to refocus my efforts and learn to abandon myself, open myself up to God without inhibition and let His Holy Spirit work from the inside out. I came across this after a little (and likely guided) probing: Romans 8:9-11, "You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your Spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you." I’ve come to believe that once His Spirit is truly living in me, its fruits (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) will begin to exhibit themselves genuinely and without pretense. Just like a caterpillar can not just start acting like a butterfly; it has to go through that conformation and then those characteristics will come naturally. Essentially, it’s the process of being sanctified. This realization materialized tangibly a couple nights ago, but as I started writing this, I remembered reading about it in My Utmost for His Highest and just went back to find it: July 23, "Sanctification means the impartation of the qualities of Jesus Christ. It is His patience, His love, His holiness, His faith, His purity, His godliness, that is manifested in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be Holy; it is drawing from Jesus the Holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation." It seems God started work on this one a while ago; it just takes me awhile to get the point. The upside is that this approach takes a lot of the burden off my shoulders, but the downside (if you can call it that) is that it’s not necessarily an easy answer and it’s still a process. I suppose all I can do is to just continue seeking and above all, praying that I would be sanctified wholly and that God would manifest His Holiness in me. Of course, this is still just my interpretation, so if anyone has any insight or difference of opinion, please feel free to enlighten me.