What I've Learned...

6/5/09 This is my last post for this blog (because I've gotten hooked on this whole blog thing and plan to start a new one about my life in general). I keep finding out that more people than I was expected have been reading my blog this year--it was pretty amazing.

Thank you to those who read, to those who prayed, to those who wrote comments and e-mails, to those who sent packages, and to those who tacitly supported me all year. Of course, I accomplished what I did through God's power, but I'm quite sure that your support also played a role. Thank you very much!

I have learned a lot this year, and I have tried to distill it into a list. I just spent about an hour doing so, re-reading my old posts and thinking about the past year. I may not have gotten everything that I've learned, and not everything I learned is able to be put into words. A lot of the learning took place inside me and about me, but I wrote the list of things learned in third person (because I think it can apply to more than just me). I thought that for this last post, I needed to put a summary of the lessons learned and whatnot. There are good things about Ebeye, and there are bad things about Ebeye, but I can unequivocally state that I had a good year there, and I appreciate the fact that God sent me there for the last ten months.

Things I Learned this Past Year

1. Make do with what you have. Don't constantly pine for what you don't have.
2. Water, exercise, and healthy food really are good for a person, and are worth paying for, be that in money, time, or sore muscles.
3. Be patient when things aren't going the way they were supposed to. Build relationships instead. People matter more than punctuality.
4. It is important to stay connected to God, no matter what. He is the only Source of strength, patience, and whatever else a person needs to get through daily life. Life cannot be lived without Him, and that's on more than just one level.
5. The focus should be on where a person is and what they're doing, not where they were and did, and not where they could have been and could have been doing. A person chooses their attitude about situations.
6. It's not about being in foreign missions, but about not being foreign to missions. It's a lifestyle, not a once in a while thing. Thus, "SM-ing," or "student missionary-ing," is a verb, albeit a partially grammatically incorrect one.
7. Being inadequate is not equal to being a failure. Failure is not letting God use a person despite their inadequacies. God excels in taking raw, messy, imperfect people and using them for His work.
8. When a person trusts God, they obey Him, whether they can see the big picture or not. (Usually they can't.) Because of that trust and obedience, God gives back joy, despite difficulties that may be looming.
9. Negativity affects everyone and everything, even if it wasn't intended to do so.
10. Life is, if a person decides to live, is completely full of risks. However, life is also completely worth taking the risks. Life is an adventure worth taking.
11. A person may be completely safe from being hurt if they aren't open with other people, but they're also completely alone. People need people. That's just the truth.
12. Spiritual lessons can be found anywhere in daily life, if one is open to be told them.
13. Anything that affects great change is inconvenient. However, if that great change is a good change, inconvenience is totally worth it.

So, like I said, I don't know if that's everything I learned. It is a large chunk of it, however. I will really miss keeping this blog--one of the reasons that I plan to keep posting in a new one. :) So, I bid all my readers a fond farewell. A good number of you will probably see me soon enough, and I look forward to that. I'm very tan in this world of pale people. :P (And very cold. I've been shivering.)

~Ashlee