Warning: Contains Honesty (Also, Pee)

Today is my last day in Nice for a while. I must confess that my overwhelming feeling is one of relief. The last couple of weeks have been tough... but it's not been all bad! Here are some bits worth mentioning... 

 

My wallet got stolen. I think it was probably God being kind, keeping me from wasting my last week here- as I was on the verge of buying the Lost Season 2 box set. Thankfully I managed to cancel both French and English cards, and found some things more productive to do with my time than sitting at home watching Jack and co hanging out in Random Central. 

 

A dog peed on my bedroom floor. Now, this is just the down side of my current housemate 'Stitch'- he's a chiwawa/bull terrier cross breed with a mohawk. He's super cute and very friendly. He only yaps when he's by himself- so right before you open the door he lets out an almighty YELP! I still can't work out how he can muster such volume from such a teeny weeny body. I also can't work out how he managed to release such a large volume of liquid from such a teeny weeny body. (Emphasis on the wee-ny) But he did. I forgive him though. As one friend put it, "he's kind of cute in his ugliness." 

 

I've had the privilege of meeting and hanging out with some really interesting, lovely people of late. I met a couple who spent time working with horses on the set of Prince Caspian in Czechoslovakia, (they even met Ben Barnes!) a Serbian woman living on the border when the Bosnian war broke out who became a Christian in her late teens, a man who is friends with the French voices for Monica and Chandler for French Friends, and a little girl who could speak four languages (French, Polish, English and one other I forget)... she was 4, I think. 

 

Helping out on the Bilingual kids camp was really brilliant. Tigger continued to amuse with his crazy antics. Throughout the main teaching sessions, he'd appear in the middle of the circle with an assortment of props- a miniature luminous green chair, two inflated red balloons, an uninflated blue balloon (which hung out of his mouth, as he stretched it to it’s limiy... ping! ping!... and then it broke. "Aw, man... now I have to get another one!" he said, as the rest of the kids plowed through lines 3-4 of the Lord's prayer)... where he got such props I'm not sure... it wasn't clown school! 

 

I've felt very low this week. Really angry, really negative, not really understanding God and the way he works. I listened to lots of John Piper talks on prayer and then got really discouraged about prayer. I prayed God would help me to believe in His goodness and have since really struggled to grasp it. I've been a spoilt child- angry because God won't give me what I want. I guess sometimes I just wish that God was good in the way you expected. I mean, I know sometimes goodness comes in the form of trials because that makes us let go of idols and trust him more, but I do wish, that more often- goodness would come in blatant ways- unexpected friendliness, fulfilled rather than disappointed hopes, improved character … rather than in the stolen-wallet-pee-on-floor-why-oh-why-can-I-still-not-speak-French-and-why-am-i-STILL-so--slow-to-believe kind of ways which often seem to be the manifestation of his goodness...  

 (Pic: my room) 

Even as I type this 'answers' fly through my mind. For one, I DO see the blatant goodness of God in multiple ways that I could never extensively list(but many of them I've already mentioned in this blog entry!). And then there's the less than minor issue which is I don't DESERVE any goodness from God (but I DO believe that God is more good than I am bad!). And then you can say,  of course I would be discouraged about prayer just as I begin to take a no-nonsense attitude to it. Or that perhaps the increased struggle to grasp the goodness of God is evidence of his beginning to answer my prayer that I would. I KNOW that the reason I struggle to grasp that God is good is not because he isn't, but because I'm not, but I also know I can't make myself see it. Only He can show me it. Well, this battle is more complex than a blog allows. But, I thought I'd just share something that lifted me up in my downcastedness today- the first thing for a while... 

 

It's when David tells God that he's going to build Him a house, and God says- 'oh, no.... I am going to build YOU a house...' and then he says... 

 

"When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. 14 I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.' "(1 Chronicles 17: 11-14)

 

And what I love is how God promises to be delighted in Jesus. This gave me joy. That deep joy that bubbles through the frustration and makes it hard to stay in a mood with God (although I have done a good job of it) . 

 

I love God's promise to commit himself COMPLETELY to Jesus forever, and how much God must be DELIGHTED with the perfections of Christ and the magnificence with which the Son displayed his glory, built his house! How great is it that God will never remove his favour from Christ!? The Father will whoop and sing and display the glory of Jesus forever. "Behold, my beloved Son!", he will say- "Behold how gloriously and perfectly he magnifies me! Behold his perfection!" I love to think about how much God loves Jesus. How much EXCEEDING joy He has in Him! 

 

I think I love to think about this, because my hope that God will be good to me, is my hope that He will be good to Christ. In Christ alone my hope is found.