Konichiwa amigos!
I told the story of a conversation with a stranger that yet again showed me the value of walking where there is no path. As a Christian, you never know when you will be called to be a good Samaritan. But there is more to this trip like the fact that I have bruises and scratches on the left side of my face from training in the sand that make me look like a B movie super villain and being stopped again by bribe-seeking police officers(17 times now, but the main problem with my licence plate has been resolved with some shoe string ingenuity). Nevertheless, after waking up, sparring in front of the beach crowd for an hour or so, and boxing with the burrito guy, I decided to take a shower to get rid of the sand and sweat. I let my friends go first.
While I waited for them to finish, my friend who let us stay out there approached me and started up a conversation. Usually we talk about God, MMA, being a gringo in Latin America, or business stuff, but this time he started to talk about himself. He told me about how he ended up in Nicaragua and the cause of his divorce in the States. He also talked about his son whose drug addiction tore his family and marriage apart after over thirty years together. He was not bitter about his pain though.
"That's life," he said. "You have to be tougher than your problems. God will see you through it."
"Things don't always get better, but God is there with you to give you strength as you endure them," I said in a questioning tone.
"That's right!" he said with a huge grin. "Do you read poetry?"
The question surprised me, especially coming from a tough old Italian New Yorker who used to be a brawler. You can never read too far into a person. I told him that I love it.
"Have you ever read Rudyard Kippling's ''If'' ?" he inquired.
I told him I hadn't.
"That poem taught me how to be a man. You should check it out sometime," he suggested.
I looked the poem up online, and you can read it at this link:
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm
Sometimes it is not about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes it is about wandering through the dark caverns feeling out each step you take, trusting with courageous faith and firmly rooted character that God is with you in the moments of difficulty. Sometimes we only see darkness because we forget to uncover our eyes.
I have left my home to start a new life following God's calling. I have been robbed twice(my passport from my truck and car battery), contracted a lung infection, struggled to discern who sees me as a friend and who sees me as an opportunity, injured my knee, and dealt with a profoundly aching loneliness that I have never experienced before. However, God is with me. Each experience teaches me and draws me closer to Him. He demonstrates this wherever I go in small and big ways. That gives me peace. My focus in this life is to make it to the next and to show others that there is hope for a new life. As a wise Guatemalan mother once told me in a moment of adversity, "No existen tiempos malos, sólo difícles.(Bad times don't exist, just difficult ones.)". My old boss and mentor from East St. Louis also gave me this advice, "Don't let the facts you see blind you to the reality God is shaping.
"The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail." -Isaiah 58:11
"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become darkness around me,' even the darkness will be light you; the night will shine like day, for darkness is as light to you." -Psalm 139:11-12
Que Dieu te donne la paix dans l'oscurité,
Seth
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