5 things i learned in june

In honor of July, let's talk about June.

Awhile ago, someone posted a link to this article on facebook. It totally sling-shotted my brain into thinking about perfectionism ever since I read it, so I sometimes check back in with that blog to see if there are any other pearls of wisdom to glean.

Recently, the author put out a challenge for anyone else who has a blog to write about the things they learned in June. I just happen to have a blog, and I just happened to have a June, so I accepted the challenge.

Lesson 1: I need mornings. 

Kathmandu is crazy. hectic. dirty. loud. scary. different.


The mornings are peaceful. quiet. sane.

Mornings = Jesus + Me + not the rest of the Nepali world in my face.

I need mornings.

I knew that before, but this month I actually started to like hearing my alarm clock go off, so I am claiming this as knowledge from June.

Lesson 2: Rah-hey-cha.

In Nepali, there is a completely separate verb tense that is used to say that "I discovered that ___________ is________." It is called the "discovery tense" and it ends in "rah-hey-cha." If something normally is a certain way, but you just discovered that that thing that is that way is always that way, you use this tense. 

It goes like this, "In June, I discovered that the discovery tense is difficult to use.... rah-hey-cha."

Got it? 

If it sounds confusing, that's because it is.

Lesson 3: Sundesh is the King of photo-bombers.

 Of all of the photo-bombers in the history of all of the world, Sundesh is King.


For instance... In this photo I was trying to take a picture of the kids behind him and he just completely walked in front of the camera, oblivious to what he was doing.

This month, however, he has become more crafty. Remember this one? When he purposefully photo-bombed this precious moment?

Here's a new one of him jumping in front of the puppy-picture. I have deleted numberss of photos of Sundesh jumping in on someone else's memory. 

If photo-bombing were a country, he'd be the King, I tell you. 

Lesson 4: June has the best skies. 

See for yourself. 

Obviously you are still reading, which means that you did not faint, which means that this picture does not do the sky justice. Usually the sky looks two dimensional, but with June came all of these monsoon clouds. When they blow through, the sky has layers upon layers of depth. It's breathtaking.

Lesson 5: It's not about me. 

I had been mopey all month until yesterday.

I had not been heeding the good advice that I had been given to "take every thought captive to obedience to Christ." I had been dwelling in negative thinking and it was getting the best of me. I was even starting to feel sorry for myself.

But then last night God showed me that my life is really actually pretty stinkin' cool.... but even when it does not feel cool, I should be ok with that because this life is not about me. 

And that is so what I needed to hear.

The Holy God of all creation chose me to be His child. That should be enough. But then he let me move to Nepal, have amazing (really really amazing!) people back in the States who support me, kids outside of my house who love me and give me giant hugs every single day, food to eat, clothes to wear, freedom to not be working in a brothel and on and on and on...

So dude, nothing else matters. I have a God who loves me and even though some days are really hard, it is so worth the trouble because even though my life does not always feel legit, it totally is legit because this life is not about me. Anything good that happens- all of those little hugs and beautiful cloudy skies- are just a bonus.

This new "not about me" thinking has come just at the right time. And it just squeaked in right before the end of June.

*******

What about you? What did you learn in June?