Every once in a while, I find one of THE books.  The first books.  The books I remember reading that first year I learned to read real books.  The books I read when I was five and six and seven.  Sadly, they’re recognizable because I put Garfield and Odi nameplates in them as a little girl.  But I would know them anyway.  They’re the books I don’t have to read anymore since I’ve read them so often.  I can just look at the book and close my eyes and be there.  I’m alone in the darkness with only touch to guide me like Laura in Child of the Silent Night.  I’m plowing through the heavy snow with Buck in The Call of the Wild or watching people pass on the road in India with Kim. I’m feeling the bombs drop all around the family in Of Whom the World Was Not Worthy or swinging on that pole with M.C. Higgins the Great. Whatever we read influences us in some way, but it would be interesting to understand how much those First Books shape our view of the world.  In my life, there are humorous or odd stories that demonstrate just exactly how these books shaped me.  More tubs of books are calling my name, but I’m left with the conviction that if I ever have children I will be deliberate in the choice of their First Books.  And I’m thankful for God’s grace in leading me to exactly the odd collection of First Books that I needed for my crazy life.

My dictionary widget defines culture shock as “the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life or set of attitudes.”  It doesn’t define reverse culture shock, but let’s assume that means experiencing the same feeling of disorientation by returning to your own culture, which is now unfamiliar.

I have my own views about culture shock, mainly that I’ve only really felt that actual disorientation a few times.  It’s more like culture strain, a constant feeling of adjusting that begins to weigh upon you.  And I’m not really sure if I’ve lived long enough outside my own American culture to really understand reverse culture shock.  But I can think of a couple of metaphors to describe what I’m going through personally.

For the last two years, I’ve been living a certain way and now I don’t have to live that way.  That’s probably the easiest explanation.  But imagine that for two years, I was Ebenezer Scrooge.  For two years, I hoarded money.  From the time I woke up until the time I went to bed, getting and keeping my money was a primary focus of my existence.  Or, imagine that I was a squirrel for two years that was collecting nuts for the winter.  Every day, all day, constantly, the acquisition and the use of nuts dominated my thoughts and actions.  That’s how it is to live in a foreign culture, except instead of money or nuts, I’ve been hoarding information.

Every day, all day, through every activity, there has been the shadow of trying to gain knowledge about the country and people and life of China.  “Where do people go to get this?  How do they handle this situation?  What do they do in response to this?  What does this mean?  Why?  Why?  Why?”  It’s not just gaining the information, as if I’m preparing a giant research paper on how to live in China, it’s using the information properly to connect myself to the life around me in a way that brings glory to God.  It’s been serious business.  It relates on a basic level to survival and on a more advanced level to the actual purpose of my life.  Collecting the money, the nuts, the information, sharing the money or nuts or information, using the money or nuts or information overshadows or comes between every other aspect of life.  It colors every transaction or exchange with other people around me.

Living this way creates a physical and mental strain, but, as God designed humans to be amazingly resilient, you adjust.  You adjust to constant adjusting.  You adjust to always learning and trying to change.

Then, one day, you return to America.  Like Scrooge waking up to a world where money grows on trees on every corner, or a squirrel finding that nuts are now piled like winter snowdrifts everywhere, you find all the information about the culture and people that you hoarded so faithfully is unnecessary and irrelevant to your current situation.  It’s an odd feeling.  You should be immediately relaxed and at home in your own culture, and you are, but that somehow feels wrong.  The struggle, the effort of learning to thrive in your new environment is gone, and you feel slightly empty at the loss of such an important part of your life.  You feel like you’re sitting on this giant pile of information, “How to adjust to living in China”, that was a pointless waste of effort.

It’s not that I ever became so Chinese in my thinking that living in America is now unfamiliar.  My Chinese friends would laugh at that.  It would take much longer than I lived in China for that to happen to me, if that’s even possible.  It’s that I adjusted to living as a foreigner in China: I adjusted to constant adjusting.  Now I don’t have to work so hard at life skills, and, well, um, it’s an adjustment.

For me, I try each day to trample down the lies of my heart as I return to my home culture and build up my mind in the truth of God’s Word.  I remind myself of His good and sovereign plan.  My time in China was not wasted.   The change in me and the change in others around me were ordained by His will.  Wherever I am, I am required to adjust and readjust so that my life brings glory to God.  None of the cultures of earth should really feel like home to me, and yet I should strive to reach people in whichever culture I am placed.

Perhaps my view of culture shock and reverse culture shock is a bit simplistic.  Many of my views are.  But now you know, when you see me staring at a plate of spaghetti and the fork in my hand, that I’m simply taking a second to set aside all the work that went into learning to eat noodles with chopsticks.  I’m putting the nut down and realizing that I’ve no need to hoard for now.

So, this is for you , Divena!

“We are thankful for…

*the 203 bus

*Peter and Jackson (dear brothers who were there through the registration/ testing process)

*the room is cool (it was about 100 outside that day)

*Dr. Guo

*was at the front of the X-ray line and had my EKG in the room

*Guo Ba Rou

*beautiful weather (the next day)

*Crutches so you don’t have to be carried piggyback to the bathroom

*taxis

*Solomon is able to come because of the holiday (a brother who sat with Divena and Jackson throughout the 4 hours before I came out of recovery)

*the fact that our bodies can be cleaned and our hearts already have been

*the peace of God

*skype, computers, and ipods

*God’s Word

*cold Coke

*McFlurry’s

*Divena (that was my contribution to the thankful list)

*Carol put money on my phone

*the sheets are clean

*the roommates are nice, if many relatives

*Karyn and thankful for Karyn’s thankfulness (must have been Divena)

*Zhang Min and Cui Guo Zhen

*doctors and nurses in the operating room.  very professional and yet fun

*lack of privacy wasn’t an issue during surgery

*tiny stitches

*surgery is over

*oxygen tube cancels out the smoke smell

*Kelly

*Karyn’s mom

There’s a longer list I found, too.  A list of the visitors I had that week.  about 6 foreigners and 25 Chinese friends, many of whom came multiple times.  So much to be thankful for which I hope to share in future posts.

I’m spending several days with a Chinese friend and her family in another city over the lunar New Year.  Right now, I’m tired and so very full of food and thinking about returning home on the train tomorrow.  My mind is a bit overwhelmed, and I’m having a hard time processing the sights and sounds and tastes and emotions of the last few days into intelligble words.

However, I keep being struck by memories.  Memories of the occasional holidays that we spent at my grandparents with our other relatives on my mother’s side of the family.  Smelling cigarette smoke and hearing loud talking and eating vast quantities of food.  Playing games with your cousins and watching tv your grandpa.  Those things are all the same here.  Sure, the language is different and the food is different, but older ladies are still spending long conversations discussing why I’m not married yet.

I’m so thankful that I’ve been included in this family event on the other side of the world from where I grew up.  And I keep wishing my grandparents, who were adventurers at heart, could be here to see me… and to taste the food!

Being such a large life issue, it’s something that tends to be revisited often, re-worked, re-thought as new life situations happen in and around me and those that I know.  I’ve listened to sermons, taken advice, read books, and pr-ed a lot about it.  Probably it would be the same were I married: it’s a part of life that needs constant evaluation to be brought into the light of truth.  Relational areas are places where we need great grace and serious sanctification.  They are areas where we can bring much glory to G as He is seen working in us.

That being said, I believe I see growth in my life in my handling of this area.  At least, a light bulb has gradually been starting to glow that now seems to shed a lot more light than I used to have.  I want to let you in on some thoughts that I’ve had recently.  Be aware: 1) I’m a work in progress, and 2)this is long.

When I was younger, I often felt like I was tied to a pendulum while thinking about this issue, swinging from one direction to another.  I mean, you’re either going to get married or you’re not.  So, I had an intense desire to know what was going to happen to me and become settled in that thought process.  (Yes, I can be kind of control freaky.)  Most of the time, I’d be securely convinced that, of course, I would be married in the future.  So, I’d plan on it, be looking for “the one”, be constantly trying to improve myself to be more appealing should “the one” come along, putting myself “out there” through dating websites or by letting friends set me up with nice, single men that they knew.  Then, in my discouragement that “the one” hadn’t appeared, that yet another relationship had fizzled, that I was tired of waiting, I’d swing on the pendulum over to the side where I’d focus on the idea that His plan for me was singleness.  I’d work very hard not to care about being married.  I’d throw my energy into other things.  I’d try, beating my head against the wall, to reconcile this permanent singleness with my inner desire for a husband and family that never seemed to go away, no matter how much I begged.

As I grew older, and supposedly more mature, I began to think that my view of singleness and marriage or my response to my singleness was less a swing back and forth on a pendulum and more a balance on a tight rope.  Instead of going to extremes in my thinking, I tried to keep my mind and thoughts focused on Him and what He wanted for me.  But as I tried to find contentment, there was always this emotional balancing act going on.  It wasn’t violent swings, but there was a constant tension about handling my future and the thoughts of it.

“How do I pr with confidence?” I would think.  ”Should I ask for a husband and a family?  What if that’s not His will?”  Setting aside all thought of ever getting married, though, seemed to close off possible options and lead to discouragement.   To be honest, for several years I’ve given up pr-ing about this issue really.  I’d fallen into kind of a negative, almost fatalism about it: whatever He wants will happen and I will just deal with it.  I was outwardly content,  but there was a less dramatic wobbling from side to side, a preoccupation that often caused me to lose my balance.

This past year, I believe that He has been really shaping my view of this life issue in a new way.  He’s been putting together little puzzle pieces in my brain until now I’m starting to see enough of a picture to recognize some things.  These are things that I’ve read or seen in other’s lives but have been unable to really grasp for myself.

My conclusion is that I need a miracle.  A miracle is something that only G can do and that’s what I want more than anything in my life.  Let me explain.

I’ve realized that I can do everything possible to make myself tmore attractive to a godly man, and it will never be enough.  I could be thinner, and prettier, and more submissive, and talk less, and it’s not really the issue.  I could do everything possible to choose the right kind of guy.  I can make a list of qualities I am looking for and be very selective.  Alternatively, I can let go of silly ideas that rule out perfectly nice men and focus on true priorities.  None of these things matter.  They won’t get me what I want.  Because what I want isn’t just to be married, it’s to see Him glorified.  I want the whole process to be His work.  So that means, while I should be seeking to be more like Him every day, I’m not supposed to be out searching for the right man– it’s just not His way of doing things.  And even if the perfect man for me, according to lists or my own ideas, were to come along, only G could do what I want– which is to give that man a love for me, a desire to share his life with me, a passion for seeing me grow and growing with me for His glory.  It would be a miracle.

So, I’ve cancelled my dating website subscriptions, although I do think that those things can be used of G in the lives of others.  It’s not for me right now.  I’ve stopped looking for Mr. Right.  I am just fervently, daily asking that if it will bring Him glory, that He would bring a man to me who wants me: a man that I can love because I see Chr in him.

But, there’s more.  Once I got the concept that I needed a miracle, I got greedy.  I’m also asking for another miracle.  You see, I don’t know His plan for my life.  Perhaps, even though I desire to be married and have a family, perhaps He wants me to be single.  This great Perhaps has always caused me to stumble.  But now I know I need a miracle.  I absolutely cannot work up contentment with being single.  Just as surely as I know that I can never, ever be the right kind of woman to cause the right kind of man to love me, I know that I can never, ever let go of this desire for having a husband and family.  It’s hardwired into me.  I’d have to be someone else not to want it.  But the overwhelming desire that I have, thanks to His amazing mercy, is for His glory.  So every day, I’m going to be asking for a miracle.  ”If I am to be single, then I want it to be very obvious that although I have never lost the desire to be married, You have been more than enough for me.  I want it to bring You so much glory when others see my joy and my contentment, the kind that obviously only You can give.  I want them to know that having You is better than having what I think I want.”

Yep, I know.  I’m asking for two seemingly opposite miracles.  But it’s just what I have to do.  I can no longer balance on a tightrope, trying to maneuver myself into being married on one hand and trying to be content with singleness on the other hand.  I’ve decided that I should just jump off.  Into what, I have no idea.  But the G who can understand how both free will and predestination work together, the G who made time, the G who knows all the ins and outs of evil and good, who truly does love me and chose me… I can throw myself down before Him every day and ask for a miracle.  He knows which miracle will bring Him the most glory and that’s the one that I want, too.  I just know I can no longer try to handle this area of my life my way, and I am finally finding immense peace in letting Him choose, in letting Him work, in focusing on obedience.  And I am incredibly confident as I pr for my miracle, whichever it will be, because I know He will be glorified and I will be answered.

Today I listened to a message called “Pr-ing Our Fears” by Timothy Keller.  (Thanks, Kelly.)  The timing was so providential for me.  This week, I’ve been struggling to put together some key truths or thoughts from this life-changing semester.

This afternoon, I woke after minimal sleep with a culmination of questions.  Why do I run away from Him when I should be obeying?  How can I still be wrestling with anxiety after a lifetime of seeing His provision?  Why do I continually raise up new idols and dreams to worship instead of the One who should be worshiped?  How can I still doubt that His love and forgiveness apply to me ?

I remembered that I had downloaded this message so I began to listen.  I was overwhelmed by truth: truth that was specifically timed for me.  His amazing work was so evident in my life by using my circumstances and sinfulness to cause me to be prepared to receive the Word at exactly the right time so that it had the maximum profitability to my soul.

Here, sitting on my bed in China with a crazy cat and a whole lot of tissues, I was able to repent and refocus and rejoice.  (Look, Bob,  I’ve alliterated.  :-) ) And it doesn’t matter that I still have a thousand miles to go until I am like Him or that I will still fall down again and again before this week is even over, because I am redeemed and loved and secure.  He is not finished with me.  He is my Shield and my Reward and my Glory.

Thankfully, I recovered enough to spend yesterday with some dear friends.  It was a day of  challenging conversations,  good food, shared laughter, and faster internet.  I returned home way too late last night but very thankful for His grace being displayed to me through the patience and kindness and love and growth of others.  Then I stayed up WAY too late thinking and suffering from a caffeine overdose.  For the first time in such a long time, I didn’t fall asleep until 4 a.m.    This  caused a bit of a flu (or whatever) relapse today, coupled with the fact that my cat still thinks I need to be up early no matter when I went to bed.  So, I sit here, blogging like a goofball at 9 p.m.  in my pajamas with a headache.

I’m really blessed.

My first week of vacation was characterized by meeting with a different student each day and eating and then having a fun “adventure”.  I got more creative after too much shopping.  So here are the top interesting adventures of my week.

1.  Swimming at our school’s sports complex.  The pools are new and clean and huge, the other swimmers gave my friend and me free lessons, and it was a way to exercise happily.  However, cultural flexibility was required for the Chinese ladies locker room experience.  I decided that I’d have to scrap my American ideas of modesty for a few minutes or I’d be really, really embarrassed.

2.  Visiting the museum about the Jewish heritage of our city.  Apparently, the Russian influence of the early 1900s of which our city is so proud was mainly Jewish.  The museum is interesting and provided an amazing opportunity to answer questions of the friend who went with me.

3.  Dumpling making with friends.  I was able to have friends over several times this week, once unexpectedly.  There were chances to learn things, eat good food, pr together, and reach out to others around us.

4.  Riding the bus.  I decided to find out if I could take  the 207 bus all the way to our favorite western cafe, thus saving lots of money in taxis in the future.  First, however, I accidently took the bus all the way in the other direction.  I learned pretty much everywhere this bus goes and that I don’t want to end up at the last stop ever again.  Unless, I’m looking for a restaurant specializing in donkey meat.

5.  Eating tofu.  Something I’ve come to love in China.  And now know where to buy and how to fix!  Hurray for less calories and more protein.

6.  Buying cheaper food at a better market.  Which I discovered can be reached easily on the 207 bus.  HA!  The price of ground beef is now halved.  Let the hamburgers begin!

7.  Buying more contacts.  The freedom from glasses, even though my new glasses are cool, is something I won’t take for granted after several weeks without contacts.  I can now enter a building or vehicle or wear a scarf without the steam blocking my view.

8.  Lost.  I have to admit it.  After years of resisting, I finally watched the first episode of season 1 of Lost.  I knew I’d have to watch them all.  Now in season 3, my dislike of most of the characters is cemented.  But I’m still watching, thanks to Chinese video piracy skills.

There’s a lot more I could say about this week.  Things that I’ve learned and decided and have practiced and have failed at.  But I’ll save that.  The point of having a better blog and more time is to catch you all up, right?