So, an amazingly humbling reality hit me this morning; I am nothing more than a servant. Not only in the sense of hopefully having a servant's heart (which might be something I need to work on) or wanting to serve Christ, but also the physical position of a servant in a household. At times I am treated as little more than a servant (mostly by the children who are probably testing me to see how much they can get away with, as well as just playing), while at other times I am treated as an honored guest in this home. Though being a servant here may not be complete reality, it is exactly the lesson I need to learn. I realized that most of my life, though not all, I have thought a bit much of myself (sometimes this may simply be confidence in who Christ has made me and therefore maybe not all bad, but at times a bit excessive). I've had cooks, maids, & household servants as was common to India culture; but have I ever truely learned how to serve? How to humble myself to that position both in a physical and mental (heart, mind, & soul) sense. My life here in Spain is a very humbling, challenging experience for which I am very thankful. PTL!!!
Though I can hardly compare myself to Joseph of the Bible, that is what came to mind this morning as I was praying about this. Joseph had to be humbled, sold as a slave, then later even put into the dungeon before he was ready to take the position that the Lord had for him to serve in. I feel as though I'm being humbled, learning how to put pride away from me and be the servant, in attitude more than anything. It is not below me to do things, but it sure is a ow to the pride to feel as though someone is looking down upon and treating you with less than the respect you feel you deserve as an adult and a fellow human.
When I become an officer in the Coast Guard, with this background and training from the Lord, I hope that I will be able to be a better leader. Learning to serve those under my command as their leader. One can't teach others to lead, if one doesn't know how to follow/serve himself. Lead by example! Servant leadership is a term that I have heard often in my life...hopefully now I can learn the true meaning a servant. So many times, I myself have read the stories in the Bible and unti the Lord has revealed them to me, I have overlooked some of the deapth in them. We read about Joseph being a servant in the house of Potipher or in the prisons, but do we think about all that entailed? I know that I tend to notice more of the par tof Joseph being given a position of respect in the home. Anyway, just a bit of food for thought there..
I think that in part at least, what I'm learning about being a servant is more about my attitude & how I view others, than in the physical sense of servanthood, though there is much to be learned there as well. I guess for me it starts with the attitude. It occurred to me that when the girls treated me like thier personal servant, I rebelled very quickly at the thought and followed that with actions. I didn't like being treated in such a fashion. As far as they are concerned, they have had numerous Au Pairs in their short life spans and must get to know how each new person works and what she will allow. They are most likely testing to see how much they can get away with, or they are pretending.
I think I have much to learn. PTL!!! I am thankful to the Lord that He deems me important enough to teach me such lessons. I am honored, though it is also difficult. It is hard to look at one's life and think you're doing good only to have the Lord point out an area of your life that needs improving. Smile... On the other hand, it is also very encouraging!
This was rather encouraging to me this morning and has been something for me to think about. I am thankful for much time to think, pray, & spend with the Lord. It helps that I have a schedule that requires me to get up of a morning, though not terribly early. It helps me make the decision to get up and then my day is started! PTL!!!!
Well, that is one of those most exciting parts of my day today! Other than struggling a bit with a head cold, I am well. Please keep this matter in prayer as it could slow me down a bit. I'm not sure with the girls' schedule that I have time to slow down too much...especially not with 3 of them. I am slowly learning more about each girl on an individual basis... It is quite interesting...
So, a bit more about Spain. Driving, what a crazy experience! The roads are for the cars, but there are MANY crosswalks and the people have the right of way on most of these. Some crosswalks have lights and the crowd either waits for the green light to cross or crosses at their own risk (even then the cars will stop, though they may honk at you). My second experience in driving here wasn't quite so great. I didn't do horribly at first, then with a head cold and so many people I became rather nervous and started doing horribly... We'll leave it at that and not go into to much detail...but ahhhh...pray for me!! Grin...
It has been lovely the last two days!! PTL!! So nice to have sunshine again, though that has also brought with it very cold weather.. Guess there are no clouds to hold in the warmth.. smile... I had my third Spanish lesson today that went fabulously! Something I was asked to repeat today made me laugh.. It sounded so funny to my ears. Seeing that she had no idea what I would be laughing at and wouldn't easily understand, I quickly stopped laughing and tried to become serious again. *Grin* I am glad that I'm taking classes.. I have a bit of homework which motivates me to sit and study a bit each week on my own. I am also around people who are speaking Spanish to me all day. Slowly, but surely, I am understanding more and more each day, and now I'm starting to be able to hear it enough to spit it back out in rather broken sentences. I'm sure that I sound like an adult with a baby's grammar abilities.. grin... Oh well! Let them laugh at me, as long as I'm trying and we're all having fun. My motto for a long time has been, "Risk looking silly to make someone laugh." Found that on a wrapper or something somewhere..
So, this evening was spent making baked apples with a strussel in the center. I was given a recipe in German and told that we could make this later this evening with the girls while Mom was away at work (the work schedule is 9am-2pm then again from 4 or 5 - 8 or 9pm).
Thankfully I have had some German in both highschool and college and all of the girls are fairly fluent in German (Thanks to their Mom!) Most of the ingredients I was able to understand, the rest I asked their Mom before she left. We cored the apples and filled them with the filling of walnuts, ground almonds, honey, butter, raisins, vanilla, and ground lemon. Then baked the apples, and there was some vanilla sauce that was supposed to go over the top, but because we didn't have that and had no recipe for it, I simply made a brown sugar/butter sauce and poured in lightly over the top of each. Finally, we topped the whole thing off with walnut halves on the top of each apple... yummy...looking forward to eating that! Since the oven was already on, I decided to make biscuits to go with dinner (soup & scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese). Biscuits were never one of my strong cooking points at home, but I ventured to make them anyway and they were quite enjoyed! PTL!!! The name "biscuit" was a bit confusing to them, because they automatically think cookie (biscuit is the British English term for cookie). It was rather funny to me to explain it! They enjoyed our simply, light dinner! That is a blessing since there is normally at least a bit of complaining at every meal. There has never been much when I've cooked inthe evenings and Momma has not been home to eat with us... hmmm...
Well, the bed time story has been read, all tucked into bed, my tea drank (hot water, lemon, & honey), and I'm ready to crawl into bed myself. God bless you all... Ciao!
Though I can hardly compare myself to Joseph of the Bible, that is what came to mind this morning as I was praying about this. Joseph had to be humbled, sold as a slave, then later even put into the dungeon before he was ready to take the position that the Lord had for him to serve in. I feel as though I'm being humbled, learning how to put pride away from me and be the servant, in attitude more than anything. It is not below me to do things, but it sure is a ow to the pride to feel as though someone is looking down upon and treating you with less than the respect you feel you deserve as an adult and a fellow human.
When I become an officer in the Coast Guard, with this background and training from the Lord, I hope that I will be able to be a better leader. Learning to serve those under my command as their leader. One can't teach others to lead, if one doesn't know how to follow/serve himself. Lead by example! Servant leadership is a term that I have heard often in my life...hopefully now I can learn the true meaning a servant. So many times, I myself have read the stories in the Bible and unti the Lord has revealed them to me, I have overlooked some of the deapth in them. We read about Joseph being a servant in the house of Potipher or in the prisons, but do we think about all that entailed? I know that I tend to notice more of the par tof Joseph being given a position of respect in the home. Anyway, just a bit of food for thought there..
I think that in part at least, what I'm learning about being a servant is more about my attitude & how I view others, than in the physical sense of servanthood, though there is much to be learned there as well. I guess for me it starts with the attitude. It occurred to me that when the girls treated me like thier personal servant, I rebelled very quickly at the thought and followed that with actions. I didn't like being treated in such a fashion. As far as they are concerned, they have had numerous Au Pairs in their short life spans and must get to know how each new person works and what she will allow. They are most likely testing to see how much they can get away with, or they are pretending.
I think I have much to learn. PTL!!! I am thankful to the Lord that He deems me important enough to teach me such lessons. I am honored, though it is also difficult. It is hard to look at one's life and think you're doing good only to have the Lord point out an area of your life that needs improving. Smile... On the other hand, it is also very encouraging!
This was rather encouraging to me this morning and has been something for me to think about. I am thankful for much time to think, pray, & spend with the Lord. It helps that I have a schedule that requires me to get up of a morning, though not terribly early. It helps me make the decision to get up and then my day is started! PTL!!!!
Well, that is one of those most exciting parts of my day today! Other than struggling a bit with a head cold, I am well. Please keep this matter in prayer as it could slow me down a bit. I'm not sure with the girls' schedule that I have time to slow down too much...especially not with 3 of them. I am slowly learning more about each girl on an individual basis... It is quite interesting...
So, a bit more about Spain. Driving, what a crazy experience! The roads are for the cars, but there are MANY crosswalks and the people have the right of way on most of these. Some crosswalks have lights and the crowd either waits for the green light to cross or crosses at their own risk (even then the cars will stop, though they may honk at you). My second experience in driving here wasn't quite so great. I didn't do horribly at first, then with a head cold and so many people I became rather nervous and started doing horribly... We'll leave it at that and not go into to much detail...but ahhhh...pray for me!! Grin...
It has been lovely the last two days!! PTL!! So nice to have sunshine again, though that has also brought with it very cold weather.. Guess there are no clouds to hold in the warmth.. smile... I had my third Spanish lesson today that went fabulously! Something I was asked to repeat today made me laugh.. It sounded so funny to my ears. Seeing that she had no idea what I would be laughing at and wouldn't easily understand, I quickly stopped laughing and tried to become serious again. *Grin* I am glad that I'm taking classes.. I have a bit of homework which motivates me to sit and study a bit each week on my own. I am also around people who are speaking Spanish to me all day. Slowly, but surely, I am understanding more and more each day, and now I'm starting to be able to hear it enough to spit it back out in rather broken sentences. I'm sure that I sound like an adult with a baby's grammar abilities.. grin... Oh well! Let them laugh at me, as long as I'm trying and we're all having fun. My motto for a long time has been, "Risk looking silly to make someone laugh." Found that on a wrapper or something somewhere..
So, this evening was spent making baked apples with a strussel in the center. I was given a recipe in German and told that we could make this later this evening with the girls while Mom was away at work (the work schedule is 9am-2pm then again from 4 or 5 - 8 or 9pm).
Thankfully I have had some German in both highschool and college and all of the girls are fairly fluent in German (Thanks to their Mom!) Most of the ingredients I was able to understand, the rest I asked their Mom before she left. We cored the apples and filled them with the filling of walnuts, ground almonds, honey, butter, raisins, vanilla, and ground lemon. Then baked the apples, and there was some vanilla sauce that was supposed to go over the top, but because we didn't have that and had no recipe for it, I simply made a brown sugar/butter sauce and poured in lightly over the top of each. Finally, we topped the whole thing off with walnut halves on the top of each apple... yummy...looking forward to eating that! Since the oven was already on, I decided to make biscuits to go with dinner (soup & scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese). Biscuits were never one of my strong cooking points at home, but I ventured to make them anyway and they were quite enjoyed! PTL!!! The name "biscuit" was a bit confusing to them, because they automatically think cookie (biscuit is the British English term for cookie). It was rather funny to me to explain it! They enjoyed our simply, light dinner! That is a blessing since there is normally at least a bit of complaining at every meal. There has never been much when I've cooked inthe evenings and Momma has not been home to eat with us... hmmm...Well, the bed time story has been read, all tucked into bed, my tea drank (hot water, lemon, & honey), and I'm ready to crawl into bed myself. God bless you all... Ciao!
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