It's a Beautiful Day

Yay for going to church!

I've been feeling so humongously stressed lately (see recent posts... almost every single one involves a ginormous venting session.) Sometimes I feel a little better when I focus on tiny details and shut out everything else, like lab stuff, language, or my writing style... but that's a temporary fix, at best. And when the details don't go exactly right, I've got nowhere to turn.

So it hit me yesterday that my approach has been all wrong. Being self-centered and anal only breeds discontent. Even if it's not the most comfortable thing in the world when everything around me feels foreign and "other," I have to make an effort to see the bigger picture.

Today's gospel reading was Jesus' elucidation of the most important rules: devote yourself entirely to God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Simple, yet infinitely challenging. The first is at the heart of every believer's personal struggle, and is always worthy of consideration. The second, though, was the one that struck me today. I've never felt that I was a particularly closed-minded person, but constantly feeling like an outsider in a new place has me on my guard. But why am I afraid? Nothing seriously bad has happened to me here, and even things that could go horribly wrong have turned out okay.

I need to re-learn how to put my trust in the right place... and let it rest there. Being detail-oriented may be a huge benefit in the lab, but in real life it's only a distraction. So what if I don't know all the answers? So what if culture and language are a little different and life feels unfamiliar? I'm at home, because I have my God.

I still have to struggle with Heimweh, especially for the people I care about. But this is something I've dealt with before, both in St. Louis and in Ohio. Plus I have Christmas to look forward to...

So I'll carry on. And hopefully, I won't lose sight of the big picture.