Faith and the Senses: A Great Marriage.
By Ruth Alumbaugh
During our family's recent world travels, I was struck by so many things in my thoughts. As I have continued to consider and process what it means to be away from my home for 42 days, I have thoughts like these:
- How did God decide where I should be born? Why was it in Cudahy, WI. and not somewhere in another country where I would work in a field, bare-footed, fully clothed, and in the hot eqatorial sun picking tea leaves for a possible $2 a day?
- How does God know the millions of people (by name, mind you!) who flood the great wall in Badaling, China? Or even the millions at Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City? All these people are celebrating 90 years since the Communist Party of China was formed. They are making pilgrimages to these places. How does He know people by name?
- How does God breathe His breath on our souls? Is His breath hot, humid, and hazy like it was in Shanghai? Is it tropical like it is in Kande, Sri Lanka? Is it frigid like it is during the indoor ice festival in Harbin? Is it cool, damp, and rainy like London? Is it a warm breeze, like the one I felt blowing off of the Indian Ocean? How does He make Himself known in so many places? And in so many ways?
- How amazing is it that God knows all the details of what concerns me? I am truly a foreigner. I don't know the language or customs of my hosts. I am not the driver. I am the receiver of much!
- How much faith does it take to pray when I or a loved one are sick and far away from all things familiar? How can and do I live when I am in a zone so foreign to me? How can I eat what is so generously placed before me and be grateful even though I feel everything opposite?
