complaining about wedgies...

i don't know how to spell wedgies...hopefully that's ok with all of you.

i have been doing a significant amount of complaining lately. to everyone. i feel really bad for the people who are with me here and for the people i email consistently at home. it's so easy to dwell on the crappy stuff when i'm away from home/friends/family blah blah blah. i'm just sick of being discontent and honestly, grumpy.

so i decided to try and change it...goooood luck with that. i listened to john piper's 'sustainable grace' sermon last night while cooking my favorite meal of pasta, oil, spices, and aunt nancy's bacon bits. don't knock it til you try it.

anyway...it was a great sermon, i knew it would be. but it wasn't what i expected. i expected a long talk about GOD'S unbelievable mercy and grace, you know...the cheesy things about receiving gifts we don't deserve. but it wasn't like that. it was more about the reasons why GOD lets the crappy stuff happen in the first place and when He doesn't use the grace he obvi has as His disposal. that sentence kinda sounded like a middle-schooler from the valley wrote it - that's ok.

his poem was deeeeep. he repeated it a bunch of times and i had to write it down and re read it another 10 times before i got it:
not grace to bar what is not bliss
nor flight from all distress, but this,
the grace that orders our trouble and pain
and then in the darkness is there to sustain

good luck with interpreting that - took me a whiiiiiile. point is - grace doesn't exist to make our lives perfect. if that were so, there would be no refining fire, no trials to gain the ability to persevere, no 'iron sharpening iron.' the grace is what creates the perseverance, it's what motivates growth, it's what sustains faith.

so i complain a lot - but there is something (a gift, if you will) that i am able to take with no strings attached to counteract all this negativity. sometimes i expect it to be wrapped and sitting on my bed when i get home - i think i'm learning that even though it's free, ya gotta find it.

so where do the wedgies fit in? i'm so glad you asked. i knew this post would be a little deep and definitely unappealing to some of my younger followers (um, face and jon brother...haha, just kidding), so i needed a good story to cap it off with.

yesterday, i went to a place called lugogo to meet a friend for lunch. her name is hannah...she is british which means she is funnier than me and has a much better accent than i do. i was in tears half the time complaining about things that probably don't really matter in life and she just sat there taking it like a champ. anyway - we went to the grocery store (for the sole reason of buying apple donuts...the ONLY dessert i have had in uganda that will ever be worth mentioning) and for some reason, i was determined to eat a hot dog. WHY?! maybe the worst decision i have made eating in uganda thus far. it was naaaasty...but i was starving so i ate the whole thing. don't judge me, money is tight and i wasn't about to go buy something else. sorry, this is a lot of details and build up for a story that may not be that funny at the end...don't say i didn't warn you.

so after eating a lunch of a hot dog and a donut (don't forget the french fries, excuse me, 'chips') - i decided to walk the mile or so back to the office. half way through, i had a fairly serious wedgie problem and was determined not to do anything about it til i got back to the office. men already were asking me to marry them and telling me they loved me...'mzungu, i love you SO much. please, sista, please - how ARE you?!' i wasn't about to attract more attention by touching my butt.

and then i looked to my right. right off the street (a huuuuuuge, super busy street...six, maybe eight lanes total), there was a woman just poppin a squat. with no inhibition. she was just doing her business with her skirt hiked up right there. and she wasn't a beggar or homeless. she was dressed in nice clothing and looked like an average ugandan. before i could stop, i said to myself, but very out loud, 'that JUST happened...'

and then i picked my wedgie and walked back to work laughing.