Friday the 6th of June:
Some strong winds blew in some rainy weather yesterday. The rain continues through today.
Yesterday, I ran from the filth floor to the twenty-ninth floor of my apartment building, looking for some good exercise. I almost left my lunch up on top of the building. I think it was a bit much after not being very active over the past few weeks. I have yet to learn how to ease into things.
I was reminded of my first day at Kelvin’s boot camp (not real boot camp, just an exercise program run by a friend of mine). My brother and I literally hit the ground running. We gleefully ran circles around the other participants. It was our first time and we were out-doing them all, even the ones that had done the training multiple times before.
It became evident that indeed it was our first time when an hour later we were the only ones leaning over a trash can, delivering the contents of our mostly empty stomachs. As we moaned and groaned our way home in the truck, we were wishing we had listened to our little sister who had told us to slow down and take it easy. She had also learned the hard way her first time. She worked out so hard she lost her vision for a while. What is it with Cransons and overdoing it? Is it that we think we have to prove something to ourselves or to the world? Is that what has got me living alone in a foreign country, learning an incredibly difficult language?My desire for challenge was certainly one of the things that influenced my decision to come to China.
I can remember growing up and looking at Chinese characters and thinking to my self: Well, one thing is for sure, I never want to learn that language. It gave me a certain sense of resolve. I still wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do in life but at least I had narrowed it down by crossing the Chinese language off the list. Haha!
To be totally honest, I never really had a pressing desire to visit the country of China, either. Sharing city smog with over a billion people, never had a great appeal to me. So when the opportunity came up to live in China for a year and learn Chinese I was surprised that it had an unexpected appeal to me. It was something so far from anything I had ever planned or imagined. It was so far out of my comfort zone that it intrigued me and seemed to beckon me to step out in faith; to live outside of the limited world that my desires confine me to. I knew that for me to live here and learn a language that I have never wanted to learn, would be for me live by faith and not by feeling. “Here I am Lord, send me,” not to where I want to go, not to do what I want to do, but to be where You want me to be and to do what You want me to do. That is true obedience. That is real freedom.
If I am successful in learning this language it will not be because I willed it but because I was willing.