I found myself in China

Somewhere in the middle of being a stay-at-home mom, caring for my husband and children, and life happening, I lost a few pieces of myself. I thought maybe I was maturing, but what I found is that I had pushed down those pieces in order to focus on the life stage at hand.

Then I went to China.

And somewhere in Zi Gong, I found Melissa. She loves to laugh and hang out. She loves to work hard at relationships with students, believers and not. I found a person who doesn't worry as much about what people think---she sings songs to God aloud randomly at dinosaur museums, and she holds hands with a dear girlfriend without considering how that might get taken. She dances the macarena without wondering if she looks foolish because she doesn't care. She was going to have fun, and she could still care for people the way she always seems to...

And she's still broken with wrong motives and wrong attitudes sometimes. She desperately needs her Savior even more than she used to think. She is flexible, and even when she complains she jumps in to get it done. She gets jealous and worries still a little...but it was good to see her.

So the question becomes--what parts of her can translate from Mandarin to English? How can those parts be woven back into the life of mom and wife and homemaker? That's my question for God right now. What do I do now to be all of who He made me to be?