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| remember this guy? why was he so angry? |
we are a married couple in our late 20's (he's from alabama; she's from tennessee) who as of september 2012 are returning to the states (memphis, tn) from 2 years of "mission" work in florence italy. i, laura/the wife/the girl, will be doing the blogging.
we went to florence with the intention of making some italian friends and telling them about jesus by offering the services of free english lessons using the bible. sounds pretty fun and uncomplicated, right?
[laughter]
what we got was a roundhouse kick to the face/comfort zone/soul/marriage/heart/priorities/vision. we needed god to survive a lot of days. that was his point, duh.
i could tell stories for days about the things we have learned and experienced but i'm not going to, especially not here.
hear me now: i don't think i'm better than anyone because i went. i know that i am "the worst of sinners" and that god had to yank us away from everything we knew to reverse the downward spiral toward visionless lives, a weak and selfish marriage and a materialistic obsession that we were comfortably drifting into.
i now know what it is to thirst for his word. i'm utterly in love with his son. i want to live by nothing more than his life-giving spirit. for the first time in my life. this is his doing. this came from suffering. i can't go back.
he could have done that in memphis or timbuktu but he chose to do it in italy.
i have no doubt that our decision to move back to memphis will just be the next chapter of changing and growing as we learn what it looks like to be our new selves in a familiar setting.
at the same time, just because the city is familiar we are looking at it through fresh eyes and with a vision. and that has the potential to make all the difference.
praying for guidance, wisdom, humility and boldness.
i'll share the happenings here as we strive to live a better story.
ps. i don't pretend to be good or knowledgeable at grammar (this sentence itself is probably validation of that). all i can promise is that it comes from the heart. judge if you will.
pss. before we moved to italy i blogged here for some time about nothing really outstanding or interesting. a lot of it is materialistic crap actually but there were a few moments of clarity when i managed to write about my wonderful family or husband or something worthwhile we did. if you do scroll back in time, read those and ignore the others. hopefully it will be more interesting and meaningful this time around. just sayin'.
