Desperate for heaven.

I am debating whether or not to post this because I don't want to be a downer, but I want to be honest in hopes that you will be motivated to pray for us and long for heaven with me.  I am having a tough time here in the middle of this dry and dusty city of Ulan Bator.  Just when I think I'm getting the hang of things (I don't get winded until floor 6 of the climb to our apartment, I know basically how to get around town, I figured out a way to give Caroline a bath so she doesn't drink the germ-y bath water)...life gets really frustrating. 

Last night was one of those moments where you feel like you're hitting a stride during a run, you're feet are picking up the pace, the air fills your lungs and it feels great... only to trip over a log, get the wind knocked out of you and your knees end up scraped up and bloody.

It all started with cooking dinner last night.  I found a decent, sort of western-style grocery store which is a 15 minute walk from our apartment.  Caroline was in good spirits, full from lunch and ready to pass out in the baby carrier (or as John and I affectionately refer to it as her leash or "the sweat sack").  Sunscreen is applied and I'm ready to head out on this hot and sunny day for a shopping adventure.  After getting over there, I can't find any boneless meat, of any sort, so I pick up two bone-in chicken thighs to go with the left over potatoes in our pantry.  I'm so proud of myself, I'm thinking "Michelle, you are SO Proverbs 31, look at you!  You're going to have dinner finished when John comes home and he is going to swoon!"

I make it home by 4:30, get up to floor 5 wearing a puddle of sweat between me and Caroline, only to realize that I let someone borrow my keys earlier to do laundry at our house and I have no way to get inside our home.  I give my team-mate a call, arrange to meet him back down at the main road to get the keys, and praise God, he is really close by, so that's only a 10 minute, 10 flights of stairs detour.  Ok, it's a quarter till 5, no big deal, I can do this!  I'm a P-31 woman, after all!

Once I get inside, I lay Caroline down in her crib carefully to trying not to wake her up.  I'm not successful, but I let her whine for a while so I can change my sweaty clothes so I can start washing and peeling the potatoes.  Oh wait! I need to figure out this chicken situation too, so I trying getting online to Google "bone-in chicken recipes" but the internet isn't working, again.  So I restart the modem, and try again.  No luck, so I try, try again while I am washing the potatoes.  Potatoes are peeled and in boiling water, and after praying for healing over our internet, I can get online!  Thank you, Jesus!

Ok, so I am no cooking expert, so according to the sources on Google, unless I have a grill or an oven (nope, not here) I need to de-bone the chicken in order to cook it over the stove.  Hmm, how hard can that be, I will just pull it apart and throw it in some spices and olive oil and it will be delish, right?!  Wrong.  After wrestling those chicken thighs with a pair of scissors for a good hour, I get about 1 breast size portion of meat in small, gristly chunks.  

Caroline is now in a full-out wailing cry, so I wash my hands twice and give her a balloon to play with on the floor of the kitchen so I can pull the greasy chicken bits off of the stove.  It's now a little after 7:00 and John walks in the door.  He is wearing his suit (such a sight for sore eyes!) and two new huge blisters from walking miles in his dress shoes.  He spent all day going business to business inviting people to come to our church-sponsored business leadership seminar.  We both look at each other with a look of exhaustion, mixed with frustration and yet gratefulness to be together and at home.

At least I got one thing right, dinner is ready right away!  We sit down and pray over our meal that God would bless it and make it taste good even if I screwed it up.  Well, I'm pretty sure that God decided not to answer "yes" to that prayer because the chicken was horrible.  It tasted like chewing slimy grass (I thought it was supposed to be Rosemary?!) with chunks of fat.  I slaved over a raw chicken and a hot stove for 2 hours and came up with one of the worst meals I have ever eaten.  So, we chose to thank God for the potatoes and ate those instead.

By this point I am just in a plain old bad mood.  Pissed off is probably a more accurate description.  Am I allowed to say that?  I mean no offense, I just have no better way to describe it.  I want to throw a tantrum.  We are hot and sweaty, tired and still hungry. 

We get Caroline washed and in bed and we decide to rent a movie on iTunes to just unwind.  The internet doesn't work on our laptop, but we are able to catch a signal with the ipad.  We find a decent, PG-13 movie from the 90's and rent it on itunes, but it won't load on our ipad.  So we go back to diagnosing our laptop and get it to work, so we try pulling up our purchase on our laptop.  It doesn't recognize the purchase, so we buy it again.  Yes!  It's downloading!  and...only...7 more hours until it finishes.  GHAAAAA!!!!!  I drown my anger in my emergency stash of peanut M&M's I brought from Dallas.  I am determined to make this work.  And then I have a fleeting thought... maybe God wants us to find our rest in Him?  Nope.  Not after all of this, I DO NOT WANT TO PRAY ANYMORE!!  I have been praying all day and look at where it got me?  I'm a flesh-can of anger and on the brink of letting go of all self-control and throw a full-out hissy fit.

I decide to answer some emails while I cool down and hope that the movie miraculously downloads, but then I look at the time... it's 10:00.  With my tail between my legs, I decide to wave my white flag and get ready for bed.  I let the faucet run... no hot water.  heh. Whatever. I'm crawling into bed with a dirty face.  I. Give. Up.

I laid in bed, angry at God, angry at myself for my lack of self-control.  Then I heard Him whisper "Michelle, it's time to thank Me."  With tears streaming down my cheeks, I thank God for keeping us healthy, for protecting us from pick-pockets, for a hard and uncomfortable bed to call my own, and for potatoes and M&M's. 

I'm still not sure what the exact point of yesterday's struggles were, but I am beginning to understand what His Word means when He says in Romans 8:23-24 & 28

"And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

If life is so great and dandy here on earth, then why would I eagerly anticipate Christ's return?  So many times I have said in my heart when life's circumstances are good "wait Lord, can I just finish this next really fun thing here on earth and then you can come back?"  But when the "es" hits the fan, I am SO READY TO LEAVE THIS JOINT!  And that is a holy and good thing to plead for Jesus to come back, because we weren't made to live in this broken world.  Even better would it be to have pure, sinless, new bodies in perfect fellowship with Jesus and one another.  So, that is the hope I am choosing to live for.  I am terribly poor in spirit here, so bless me because I eagerly await God's Kingdom of heaven.