Daring to Dream

As many of you may know from facebook and instagram, I decided to take up guitar this week. As a result, typing this is very painful. For those of you who haven't played guitar, the first week or two is very painful for your fingers because you must form callouses in order to play painlessly in the future.

Lately Papa has been giving me the ability, the passion and the drive to dream again. Losing weight and taking up swimming as a new sport was such a big achievement that it gave me new perspective on my desire to have children. It helped me to see that I could still start and become good at new things. It reminded me to not take this time for granted. Because if children do come, things will change a lot. Through this journey I have shed 20lbs and I'm going for another 5lbs by our 6 year anniversary, November 17th, and a total of 10 more pounds by Christmas :)

Learning Russian was another such achievement. It seemed so big, unthinkable even, to be speaking Russian as fluently as I am now; translating for team meetings, as painful and embarrassing as that is at times; and just being able to be me in Russian is such a relief and a big stress off of my life here in general.

It's really good for me at this point in my life to have goals other than becoming a mother someday, because I am not sure if that is even a realistic goal. I don't want to let go of the hope that it could someday happen, but as a goal, it stinks, because I have absolutely no control over it. Even if there are certain steps I can take to possibly achieve that someday, if it is my entire focus and it never happens, it will ruin me.

I guess I have always known that, but I kept thinking it would happen soon and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I must stress again, I'm not giving up here. I am just evaluating where my focus is. Of course it must be on HIM, but he gives us permission to dream within his will. Right now his will is not what I dreamed before. But He is giving me new inspiration to dream.

One of the biggest surprises was recently, when He made one of those dreams learning another language. Why do I need to learn another language you ask? Well, there are actually two main languages where I live. One is Russian, and about 99% of the people here know Russian. But about 75% of the people's heart language is Kazakh. 

I have absolutely fallen in love with the Russian language and on top of that Russian culture and Russian people. But that leaves out about 75% of the population in the city I live in. There is definitely a very special place in my heart for Kazakh people, but I have not fallen in love with them as I have with Russians. I had been giving this to Papa and asking Him to help change it. He spoke very clearly to me, He asked me one thing "How did you originally fall in love with Russians?" and I knew the answer was language.

I immediately understood that this meant that He wanted me to learn Kazakh in order to have a deeper love for that 75% of the population. It seems to be a common theme among the foreigners who stay here long enough. You fall in love with one culture and one language and Papa shows you that you need space in your heart for the other language and culture as well.

It's not an easy goal. Studying language is not my favorite. I do know quite a bit of Kazakh just from being around it, but I'm not excited about the word order. I do know one thing though, in the wise words of Tom Hanks (aka Jimmy Dugan) "It's the hard that makes it great."  

So I will continue to dream about doing hard things and glorifying His name through it all. It would just be too easy for me to give up on life and say that I dreamed and didn't get what I dreamed of, a family. But that is just a lie from the pit of hell. Seriously. He made me to dream, even when things don't go as planned, so I guess the message is, never give up and keep on dreaming. I sure am.

Who are we hiding from anyway?

Today while sitting on the bus, I saw the “Free-Spirited Runner.” That’s the best way to describe him at least. I don’t know his name. I know nothing other than he is not ashamed to frolick about in public doing hand motions and bouncing off of walls and posts and the many different items lining the sidewalk. Many people turn their heads to stare at him as he does his wild dance, but this never distracts him from just keeping on. 

He got me thinking. 

What am I ashamed of? Why am I always hiding? Why do we hide parts of ourselves away for others not to see? 

We build up giant walls around ourselves to protect us from others. When, I am not sure if that is what it really does. We need to give people a chance. 

I found out something so beautiful from what I shared yesterday. I found that people are not the awful beasts that I make them out to be in my mind. They are filled with love and understanding. 

Let’s be real. They DO let us down. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t the most amazing creatures of all! We are HIS best creation. So why don’t we remember that when it comes to trusting each other? When it comes to bearing all and sharing who we are with those around us. 

I am not saying sharing every deep dark secret. I’m just saying that as we grow older, as we “mature,” we begin to hide more and more of ourselves from the world, for fear of being judged, ridiculed, criticized etc. But really, people might just think that you are amazing. Because you are YOU! 

No more hiding

I'm going through a hard time right now. Actually that is an understatement. It's the most difficult thing I have ever experienced in my life. It's so hard that I walked out of a group of people lifting their voices to the King the other day. I just couldn't bear to do anything but weep. Drown myself in my sorrows. I couldn't lift my voice to him, except in anguish. I have asked 'why?' way too many times to count at this point.

It sounds pretty dramatic. But to me it is. It's something that all women want in their life. Something natural that you just think when we're ready, we'll try and we'll get one. Three years later, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't work that way for everyone.

I'm not sure what to even make of it sometimes. I didn't want people to know we were trying until we got to make one of those ever so popular baby announcements on Facebook, with a photo of an ultrasound or a positive pregnancy test or just something really catchy, cute or clever. Nowadays those kinds of posts just make me upset. I am sure if that day ever comes I will write something about it on Facebook, but I'm sure it will be different because of the journey.

So I'm not here to just complain about this or to open up about this three year journey that I feel like I have been hiding from the world. I really just wanted to write about how amazing the people I work with are, but I felt like I couldn't just tell everyone I am going through this terrible time and not be open about it what it actually was. But as I began to write,  I felt that the weight of this burden was falling off. The hiding is over, it has been killing me to hide this pain.

I don't want people to take pity on me or anything. I just need people to stand with me as I go through this. I think it's good to be open at this point. It's been a really long time and things may not change. We may NEVER have children and I have to be at PEACE with that and I have to stop feeling SHAME. I am not going to say it's okay or deny my feelings and I am NOT going to stop FIGHTING for it! But I cannot keep pretending, hiding all this pain from everyone and also just thinking 'people will know about it when it's over.' I really don't know WHEN it will be over. But that's OKAY. At least most of the time...

So I guess I am just saying please stand with us as we ask Papa to give us children. We have been asking for three long years and we are getting weary. I have very little hope that things will change soon. But I am trying to continue to trust my G*d because HE IS GOOD!

Now about the people I work with. Papa has placed me in the midst of such loving and understanding people. I walked out of the meeting close to tears and I have never done anything like that before, so many who saw knew that something was up. Some of them know what we are going through and others don't. All the same, they weren't inquisitive about what was wrong, they just hugged me and told me that it was all going to be okay, And it is. It really is.

Papa has blessed me with such a full life. I really couldn't imagine it any other way as I walk through this journey with all these amazing people beside me. Don't even get me started on what an amazing encouragement my husband is through this. We are standing together and fighting to keep our eyes focused on the one who loves us and gives his kids good gifts.

Let's Get Personal

It’s time to get really personal and talk about something I’ve never really talked about on my blog, but thought about countless times. Actually I didn’t even know if I would post this at first, but I went ahead and wrote it to see how I felt about it. 

Like all women, I am always battling the desire to be thinner, but also to do it with a good balance of exercise, healthy eating and knowing when it’s really okay to go ahead and treat myself. Since I came overseas, this balance has been really hard for me to keep. In the States it was much easier. But this new lifestyle threw me into a tailspin and I just haven’t been able to get my head above water since I got here. But interestingly enough, that very thing, water, helped me to get out of that tailspin and bring balance back to the health part of my life. 

Before              and                After
-12lbs

This spring I was at an all-time low, or you could say high, since I arrived here. I had injured my leg, and I’m not even sure how it happened or when it will go away, but I am sure of one thing, swimming is the only thing that helps. Back to the injury, a few months into it I had packed on about 8 pounds on top of the 15 pounds I had packed on in the past three and a half years since we had been here! I was so ashamed of the way my body had become. I felt so lazy because every time I tried to exercise my leg would get worse and I just could not get myself disciplined with food unless I was exercising. 

My physical therapist told me that swimming could help my leg, so I started to gradually go swimming. At first it was 2-3 times a week and eventually five times a week through which it grew into a passion! I really fell in love with it, and still it is the only thing that helps my leg! 

Swimming wasn’t enough at first, but it helped me in disciplining my eating, I started to count my calories after seeing a photo of myself taken by a guy on our team who said it looked normal, while I was thinking “Is that really me?” Anyhow, somehow it always starts with a photo right? I had been finding most photos just downright depressing at that time.

One of the said photos

I wish I had that photo, but I don’t, he deleted it quickly after he saw how disturbed I was by it. I only had a photo that I had taken the summer before when I was actually a little bit thinner than I was earlier this year. I was just too ashamed to take a before photo, and to be honest, I didn’t know if there would be an after. Until a few weeks into it when I realized I was super determined, but it was already too late, I had lost five pounds within just a few weeks. 

It’s taken me a bit longer as I continue to lose the rest. So far it’s a total of 16 pounds, but I know that my body is changing so much because of the swimming. I took this after photo when I had lost 12 pounds. It’s been a while and I’ve only lost four more pounds since then, which means I am ten pounds from my goal. I am not as concerned about the numbers as I was to begin with because I realize that my body is changing, and as they say muscle weighs more than fat.

Before            and              After
-16lbs

I know that this may seem irrelevant to life overseas, but it’s been a big part of MY journey, and finding swimming as a form of exercise and even a way to get out and be a part of the community has transformed the way I look at life here. Also, being able to sustain a healthy lifestyle in this country is very important to me. That takes a lot of discipline and work when you develop a love for baking and work in a cafe with lots of sweets around all the time and part of your job is to taste those things. I found that counting calories worked best for me because I can’t always avoid sweets, but I can make changes elsewhere. So that really transformed the way that I looked at food. 

I am just so grateful because I know that this is something that Papa is doing in my life. It’s not just me. I felt it at the beginning and I know it because I feel like I was made to be a swimmer. Not a pro or anything. But I think He just knew that I would love being in the water and that it would just be an all around great and healthy thing for me. 

I do hope that this mystery injury goes away soon, but I am so grateful that it drew me toward swimming and ultimately to gaining and hopefully sustaining a healthy lifestyle in the country that I am in. 

Movie Review: 180 Degrees South

We have been watching a lot of documentaries lately and I have really been enjoying them. But this one probably impacted me the most.

It starts out simple: a young guy who is an adventure addict, hears about something that these two crazy old guys did when they were young, and maybe even crazier, and he wants to do the same. But in the process of this journey the young man learns so much more than he bargained for and we learn right along with him.

The scenery in the film is breathtaking. I usually tend to think that photos and videos just can't capture the real beauty of a place, but this one gets so close. I really felt like I was on this journey right along with him at times, minus all the hardships.

The thing that really struck me about the film was the message to consumers. Do we realize what a large impact our consumption has on other societies? In this film they uncover just one story, but I am sure there are many more. It literally makes me sick to think of some of the beauty that is being destroyed because of my selfishness.

This film really made me take a step back to think about the footprint I'm leaving behind. I know it's not the most important thing in the world, but it impacts more lives than we often think about.

I would encourage anyone with a sense for adventure and a love for nature to watch this film. But to be honest, I think this film would appeal to most people just because of the sheer beauty of it all. Enjoy!