Everybody wants a home, a place to be that is theirs, and theirs to share. When we live and work outside our own culture, home becomes even more important to us. We seem to lose so much of our identity as we strive to acculturate our lives. We want our homes to have a familiar feel that comforts our family members, yet we want our homes to reflect our host culture as well. How much should your home reflect your heritage, and how much should it reflect your adopted culture? Do you worry that your new friends may be offended by your home or your style of hospitality? These are common questions for PWs.
Archives for 2011
Total Commitment
2011, a new year is here! Last year’s triumphs and trials are history. We have a chance to start with a clean slate. It is a new year with new challenges and new blessings just beyond our reach.
I started off this new year in the Methodist Church my son and his family attend. We read aloud Wesley’s Covenant Prayer.
“I am no longer my own, but Yours. Put me to what You will. Put me doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed for You or laid aside for You, exalted for You or brought low for You. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You are mine, and I am Yours. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in Heaven. Amen.”
What a prayer of dedication! What a declaration of total surrender to God! As PWs, we’ve made that kind of surrender in the past. We said it with glowing faces, perhaps streaming with tears. Deep in our hearts we know this kind of surrender is what we should do, even if we don’t feel like it. But the realities of that commitment sometimes hit us with crushing force.