Thursdays are my favorite day of the week. Before I tell you why, and before I tell you about my Thursday today I need to give you some background information.
I used to HATE Mondays… that morning brought with it more loathing and disdain than any other morning of the week. Because I hated Mondays so much Will and I renamed the days of the week: Mundane Monday, Tubular Tuesday, Wonderful Wednesday, Thankful Thursday, and Flippin’ Fantastic Friday. Thankful Thursday is my favorite day of the week because you can always be thankful. You can’t always force your day to be Tubular or Flippin Fantastic, but you can always be thankful for things. That well never runs dry.
So today was Thankful Thursday, my favorite day of the week. I spent the whole day nauseous and/or with a headache. Even as I write this my body still feels faintly as though it is moving. Reason being that today I was traveling, and I happen to be prone to motion sickness. The first leg of the trip set the pace for the rest of the day and did me in. The fam jam, Cue Cue and I all piled into the little compact car this morning.
We decided to take the mountain road and not the express way. Word of advice: don’t do that. Driving in China is crazy enough; throw in mountains and curves and you have yourself a recipe for blowing chunks.
Before you get too concerned…. I did NOT vomit… but I might have felt better if I had. On that 3 hour drive I had a squirming child in my lap, who was also motion sick. In fact I had to hold a bag in Ariel’s face for a good portion of the drive.
After a pause for lunch it was on the road again. This time I was catching a bus by myself to meet up with Kate and Alex for our excursion to Beijing this weekend. On the bus I sat by a man who is a police officer. He and I tried to talk some, but wo de zhongwen bu hao (my Chinese is bad).
Mr. Police Man and I were sitting in the front row. At one point while we were sitting there waiting to leave I looked up and there was this guy just staring at me. He proceeded to motion things to me. My reaction was to ask Mr. police man what was up. I am used to people staring at me, but not in this manner. Mr. Police man told me to ignore him, so I did.
Apparently that only spurred on crazy admirer man because he came on the bus and started talking to me. He ended up asking me out or to go get a drink with him. I answered that one with a no for sure.
Anyway I survived the bus ride that kills your tailbone, is full of violent movies, and plenty more fighting motion sicknesses. I made it and met up with Kate and Alex. Tomorrow we head out!!!
On a really encouraging note: Mr. Police Man saw me reading my Bible on the bus. So he asked me what book it was. I know the Chinese words for Christian and Jesus so that is what I told him. He seemed to understand, AND THEN HE TOOK THE BIBLE AND TRIED TO READ IT!!!! He gave it back and that was the end of that. But the ironic part is that I was reading the parable of the sower. I hope that encounter was a seed for Mr. Police Man, and that it fell on fertile soil. Too bad I didn’t have a day of Pentecost moment and break out into the tongue of Chinese on the bus…. But that would have been illegal and I was sitting next to the “long arm of the law.” I suppose Dad was looking out for me.
Today has been a day filled with prayer. I needed it to stay focused on things above and not my nauseous state or the fact that I was going to get in too late to skype my mother…. I needed to stay in communication with Dad in order to remain Thankful.
That is why Thursdays are my favorite…. Most things today were less than ideal, but in those moments I could be thankful that I wasn’t actually throwing up. I am thankful for Mr. Police Man. Thankful for my trip. Thankful that I am in China. I am thankful that I am saved.
Pray for safe travels, and that I keep my head in the present not on getting home in 3 weeks.
Well, that’s all she wrote,
Devra
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