Thanksgiving came and went, and if it wasn't for all the Facebook statuses expressing excitement to over-eat and watch football, I would have completely forgotten.
There are Christmas decorations in Lima now, and Katie plays Christmas music around the house, but it doesn't feel like Christmas.
I used to love watching sports on t.v., at the stadium, or in the high school gym. Now these games hardly cross my mind. I've only watched one football game this whole season, and it just wasn't the same. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat weren't there. (That's probably a good thing since the only game I saw was Nebraska losing the Big 12 Championship. It wasn't nearly as exciting or painful as last year's Big 12 loss.)
I say all these things not to complain. I didn't feel sad about not being home on Thanksgiving, and I don't really miss the hustle and bustle of December or the excitement I used to have for a football game. They just don't fit into my reality here.
As I was reflecting on all of this, it made me realize just how limited our minds are. Even if we've lived one way for over 20 years, it's so easy to forget that way of life when living another, and it's impossible to really live and feel two realities at once. I know that it's freezing cold in Nebraska and St. Louis right now, and I've lived through 28 cold winters, but below-freezing weather is easily forgotten while experiencing springtime in Peru. And when I'm stuffed full of Peruvian cuisine, the feeling of hunger pangs are far from my mind.
With the humbling realization of my limitations, I begin to grasp just how mind-bogglingly amazing God is. He not only understands the realities of heaven and earth but also created and experienced both of them. I can't even keep track of two cultures at once, and God knows what's going on throughout the whole world in every culture right now, every detail of what has happened in the past, and what will happen in every place for all of eternity.
And to imagine that this God, this all-powerful and all-knowing Alpha and Omega, would humble himself and join us in our limited human reality in order to save us so we could live with Him forever, is incomprehensible. I will spend the rest of my life with my limited mind trying to fully grasp "what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe" (Ephesians 1:18-19). God's grace is literally the gift that never stops giving. And that makes it even more amazing, because my limited, sinful self will need that grace forever. And God knew that. He planned for it--even before I was a reality.
"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21
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