Grace and the bad days

Yesterday was not a good day. It was a bad day. Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (please tell me you caught my children’s book reference). Like, I went to the bathroom during break and cried for a bit, bad. I was tired, I had a headache and I kept making stupid mistakes in class, bad day.

Some days are great. I can follow conversations with not as much struggle. I can even contribute a few thoughts and sentences. It feels good. I feel good. Confident, almost. I can do this.

Other days, I am exhausted. My head hurts from concentrating so hard on the funny sounding words that keep flowing effortlessly from these people’s mouths. Why do they make it seem so easy? Why is it such a struggle for me to make sense of these sentences? Why is it even harder for me to put together coherent sentences in this language?

Before we came to Spain, almost 2 months ago now, everyone kept saying “Oh it will be so easy!” “You’ll be speaking Spanish in no time!” or the worst, “You already speak Spanish, right?!”

Lies. LIES I TELL YOU!

This is hard. Some days it’s down-right exhausting.

But, each day God teaches me a little more about grace. The grace He has towards me. The grace He has towards others. And the grace I need to show myself.

I have realized exactly why I quit just about every sport, instrument and extracurricular activity I started. I have come to accept my perfectionist tendencies. I hate, hate to be corrected. It’s awful, I cringe inside every time our (wonderful, kind and patient) teacher corrects me. Even over simple things.

But everyday God reminds me that I am learning this language just like everyone else has learned a language. Success and utter failure. Stupid, silly mistake after stupid, silly mistake.  And as much as it pains me to struggle along, it will get better. The words will come more easily with time, practice and grace. Lots and lots of grace.

His grace is sufficient for you. His grace is sufficient for me.

Thoughts on routine, adjustments and language.

After two and a half weeks in Spain, we are beginning to feel slightly more normal. We have adjusted to the time change, are learning our way around town and into Madrid and found an apartment to rent. We still have a few daunting tasks ahead; residency, buying a car, getting a Spanish drivers license and actually speaking Spanish.

We have settled into a daily routine for now. We are up and ready in time to catch the 7:28am train into Madrid. The ride in is really quite scenic. Out one side you can see the sunrise over the four skyscrapers of Madrid and the other; trees, dry fields and a river as you approach each town. The train part of our commute is about 45 minutes. We get off at Principe Pio and quickly make our way down to catch the metro. I really don't like to miss the first one, not because of the time but mostly because this station is not enclosed so it is REALLY cold in the mornings. I often consider that we may have accidentally taken a train to Alaska.

We push our way in with dozens of others and ride silently three stops, each time making our way across the car to get out on the other side. We have made a routine of stopping for coffee around the block from the school. This gives us time to breath and review work before class.

This morning we skipped class to collect a document for our residency card and figure out what is happening with the electricity at our apartment. The paper we need will be ready tomorrow and our electricity should be on in three or four days. Last night we found a car and plan to pick it up on Friday.

It feels strange that it has been less than a month since we arrived in Spain. The days have gone quickly but it seems like a lot has been accomplished. Each day I feel more and more at home in El Escorial and blessed to be surrounded by a team that desires for us to be involved in the ministry.

We know that in order to be effective in ministry, we must be proficient in the language. For the next couple of months we plan to focus our efforts on language learning. Please pray with us that our minds are receptive to the material we are learning and our mouths will speak well as we begin to speak more. Pray also for humility as we know mistakes will come.

We very much want to communicate with this community around us.