I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be...

Yesterday, I was supposed to be the leader of a small prayer group that meets once a month at a church member's house. Our group rotates leadership, and earlier last week Nomura-sensei came running upstairs to ask, "Hey! Haidee, can you be the leader on Monday?" To which I replied, "Hmmm...sure!" Then he said, "Two of the other pastor's from Tokyo are coming also, so they're gonna be there too..." Cindy gave a joyful yell and I gave a "blah!..." To which Sensei and Cindy both looked at me and said something along the lines of, "No complaints! You're doing it; it's good for you."

Most people here--students, church members, and definitely the Nomura's and Cindy and Lindsey--know that I don't really like speaking or leading in any language. Sometimes--a lot of times--they bail me out of situations by speaking when I give them the tortured look of, "HELP!!" Othertimes I think they plot amongst themselves and say, "How're we gonna make her grow up?!" (that wasn't said in an angry way...we're all always being stretched and grown here...somedays it bothers me, but today it doesn't...and besides, it's mostly God's fault! :))

Anyway, so yesterday we're all in prayer meeting and afterwards Cindy commented, "You were glowing!" Suzuki-sensei, one of the pastors from Tokyo, said, "You've gotten used to Japan, haven't you?!"

I laughed at the very idea of glowing during a time of leadership and speaking in an awful mix of incorrect language, but those comments led me to thinking for the rest of the day...

(Warning: this is a report on thinking, meaning there's a high likelyhood of incoherency.)

This last week, a lot of random things have happened. I've come closer to seeing dreams become reality in the last week and a half than I think I've ever come in my life. Some of that seeing has been discussions over worship styles and music with Nomura-sensei, Ryoko-san, and Cindy...some of that has been simply the constant amount of music that I find myself doing here...some of it happened Friday night after worship, when my student started playing around with some beautiful chord progressions on the guitar, and I attempted some improvisation with Psalm 143 in Japanese...some of the seeing happened Sunday, when Cindy and I went to take the Japanese proficiency test and I was reminded again of how much I really like tests and studying and learning and even teaching, if the students are wanting to learn...

Anyway, I've been turning all of these things over and over in my mind, because I decided long ago that the end of one's term in a foreign country is not a time to make any decisions, and I wanted to go back to America and take it slow and see what God has in store... I still do want to see what God has in store, and follow His lead. But maybe...some of these dreams...aren't just things put into my head to give joys to the glumy days...but they're dreams to be followed, tried, captured.

I can't write so much more about the thinking here...it's still continuing. But yesterday, listening to music from the Disney movie "Camp Rock" (hey, at least it wasn't Hannah Montana! :)), I was struck by these words because they seemed so much like what I'm saying (without quite so much rock music in the background :)):

This is real. This is me.

I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be now...

Gonna let the light shine on me.

Now I've found who I am, there's no way to hold it in.

No more hiding who I wanna be...

This is me.

I was talking to my family yesterday for a little bit, and as per normal, they met my questioning with a lot of grace...my mother, as I told her different ideas that I'm thinking of for the future, just laughed and said something like, "We know you're not going to be normal. We've known that for a long time..." :)

Anyway, who knows what the future will look like...only God. :) But for right now, it feels at least like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be...and we'll see what God brings to light as His light shines and refines and causes general, "glowing" moments. :)