esperar

I'm a logophile, a.k.a. lover of words, though some might argue that "lover of talking" is closer to the truth.

Even before I could talk, I had a lot to say. Mostly unintelligible, toddler talk. By the time I was 5, not much had changed. I still had the lung power, will power, and trouble pronouncing my R's. One day, my mom set me up with with a tape recorder and let me loose. The result, a 30-minute soundtrack recorded for "Gwandmontha" and "Gwandy." Definitely a keepsake. (Listen to the highlights)

With the exception of middle school (severe shyness=mute), the trend has continued as I've gotten older. I find myself often warning others that, "I tend to ramble." Sometimes I have trouble answering a question before the asker loses interest (beware of the wandering gaze). And when it comes to telling stories, well, I figured out long ago I better give an abridged version for my male listeners (whom I may have lost already...hang in there...esperélo)

I love talking so much that one language isn't enough. Poor Spanish speakers. Around them, my desire to converse quadruples. My vocabulary, not so much. Sometimes, believe it or not, I run out of words.

Or worse, things get lost in translation, i.e., I have yet to find the Spanish equivalent for the adjective, sketch. Example: This place is pretty sketch (a good description for any metro station across Europe including the entire city of Pisa, Italy). Much to my disappointment, saying es-ketch, does not resonate.

And then there's the "Aloha complex" (I made this up)-- when several different words in English translate to the exact same word in Spanish.

Verb, case and point: esperar

Means: To wait. To hope. To expect.

At first, I felt cheated. How can the same word be used to express, "Wait a minute," and "I hope you feel better." (Esperé un momento; Espero que te sientas mejor)

Expect too? The same word? Really?

What if I want to say, "I hope you don't expect me to wait much longer!" (Espero que no me esperes esperar mucho mas....?) Yuck.

Then, I started thinking about the last few months of my life. In many ways, a waiting period. Waiting to hear back from people, waiting to raise enough money to serve with MTW in Chile, waiting to see how God's going to provide.

But it didn't start out as waiting. Hope started it. The hope I have in Christ risen. The desire to be a vessel of that hope to people in Chile. A hope against hope that all this was possible.

I never would have had the courage to live in that hope had I not expected God to come through. Had I not banked on his perfect will and guidance.

It's all over scripture.

"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." Romans 8:24-25

Esperar.

"He (God) delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope, that he will deliver us again." 2 Corinthians 1:10

Esperar.

"Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Philippians 1:19-21

The last few months, I've felt joy and fear, peace that surpasses understanding and discouragement that weasels it's way into my life. I fight it. I set my sights on Christ (though sometimes it feels like I have a lazy eye).

I hope. I wait. I expect.

They are a package deal.

One word says it all:

Esperar.

"Commit your way to the Lord; trust him and he will act...Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him." Psalm 37:5,7

take heart

Leave it to me to go to the wrong hospital when my Dad is getting heart surgery.

Mom: Are you looking at the emergency room?
Me: Yes.
Mom: Go left and you’ll see a tower that says, “The Heart Center,” in large red letters. It’s at the North end of the building.
Me: Umm.. Okay…
Mom: I don’t see you.
Me: Hmm. I’m at the south end of the building now.
Mom: Why did you go there? I said it’s at the north end.
Me: You said to go left.
Mom: I know
Me: Left is south

Mom: No, left is north.

A few more miscommunications and one front desk later, we concluded that both of us were right (or, if you share my mom’s point of view, I was utterly wrong). Needless to say, I missed the surgery.

My dad was in and out in about an hour, though it would be another 37 hours before they actually let him leave- just long enough to spend Thanksgiving in a hospital gown feasting on a cafeteria turkey sandwich and a plastic dish of pumpkin pie.

Not ideal timing.

Or perhaps, it was just perfect.

Had my dad not been scheduled for his quarterly stress test this past Monday, who knows when (or how) he would have discovered the blocked arteries. My dad certainly hadn’t noticed. He went on a 35-mile bike ride the Saturday before and felt great, albeit winded. He just has a “bad” heart, though he doesn’t always feel it and he definitely doesn’t live like it.

Oddly enough, I’m reading a book right now that suggests Christians act the opposite. According to author John Eldredge, president of Ransomed Heart ministries, Christians are hypochondriacs of the heart--we’re constantly crying out for a spiritual bypass, when really, we’re quite heart healthy.

In his book, Waking the Dead, Eldredge suggests that Christians often mistake the daily battle against the sin of our flesh as an inward struggle for the heart. The whole: We do not do what we ought to do or want to do in fact many times we catch ourselves doing the very opposite thing we should do and before you know it we feel a lot like Paul exclaiming, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me!” and we go ahead and suffer a heart attack before we even let Paul finish his sentence.

Well, hear Paul out.

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” (Romans 7:18)

Flesh. Not heart. Sure, we’re at war against daily temptations, the lure of popularity or lust or selfish ambition or business or complacency or just downright laziness—but it’s not our heart that’s at stake. That battle is won.

“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from you flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekial 36:26)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Now. Not later. Christ endured the wrath of God for the sins of the world and rose again to conquer death once and for all, to give us a chance at really living, at knowing God. Our hearts are good. They’d have to be—He makes our hearts his home. (Ephesians 3:17)

We ought to live in light of that.

For many of us, myself the foremost, that means we need to stop living in condemnation and calling it humility.

Starts out innocent enough:

“Lord, teach me to be a servant.”
“Lord, I kind of got busy and forgot. Help me.”
“Lord, I was selfish today. Sorry”
“I should have unloaded the dishwasher without having to be asked.”
“I can’t even go to the right hospital when my Dad is in surgery.”

Conclusion: I’m an idiot. (maybe true, but that’s not the right attitude!)

The difference between shame and humility? Eldredge says, "Shame says, 'I am nothing to look at. I'm not capable of goodness.' Humility says, "I bear a glory for sure, but it is a reflected glory. a grace given to me.'"

So let's beam with the confidence of a people who are greatly loved though greatly flawed. Let's boast in Christ and leave the pity party for another day.

Sure, we don't have it all together, but in Christ, our hearts are in the right place. We are not without hope.

"In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)