Thoughts on Life and Marriage

Our 11 year anniversary. It has been a good 11 years for the most part, particularly with respect to our marriage and relationship. We have always had harder battles to fight on the outside and I think that has helped. Also, we are both passionate and dedicated to the same cause so I think that has helped too. And we both grew up in healthy households, a point that I don’t think can be overstated in importance.

Pretty soon, I will be speaking to a group of a hundred youth about the importance of reading and literacy. I don’t think I expected such an interest but it will be happening shortly anyway. I am supposed to be talking about literacy outside of Mozambique. It’s an interesting topic for sure but I need God’s words to make the information really sink in.

I have wondered for a long time why God has called me to such a place and, particularly, given me such vision and overwhelming clarity on extremely large-scale issues and projects… It seems like my every waking moment is filled with prayer and passion for changing the entire country and mindset of Mozambique, not just one or two people. It’s impossible, it’s overwhelming, but that’s what I think about, pray about, eat, breathe, and live.

I have been under a cloud of worry and doubt about our future - not the future of the organization but our own personal future. Coming back and praying through some of it, I am no longer seeing this as such an issue. In fact, I think I am seeing it for what it is - a lack of faith and trust in the God of the universe to guide and protect me and my family, and a healthy dose of worrying too much about what other people think.

God, deliver me fully from the tyranny of other people’s expectations. Deliver me from my own expectations too, which are almost completely impossible to fulfill. Amen