Life Lessons from Cyrus

Never would I have imagined that one of the greatest lessons I could learn about life would come from my friend Cyrus. Cyrus is a 13 year old with autism and he use to be able to make me cry by 8:45 am. His parents use to not provide consistent medication for him so he use to be constantly all over the place. Some mornings he would spit in my face, hit me, and even throw rocks at me if he was unhappy about something. Thankfully, this past term, his medicine has been consistent and he has been so well behaved (except when he was coming down with the chicken pox... he was going back to those old behaviors and I knew something was wrong.)

Cyrus

I do not know where Cyrus hangs out when I am at my house, but the second he hears my door click he is on my veranda! A few Sundays ago it was no different as I was bringing my breakfast dishes out to wash. I had eaten a banana and my peel was on the plate. At the school fruit is quite rare, so Cyrus really wanted to eat my nasty banana peel. I had plenty of bananas inside so I was trying to tell him to wait just a few seconds and I would go inside and get him a banana to eat. Well in the 10 seconds it took for me to get him a banana he was happily starting to chew on my banana peel.

After I gave him the banana I came back inside and started thinking about how often we do this to God. So often I get frustrated with God's timing not being the same as mine. And so often I chose to settle for what looks good right in front of me (even if it is a nasty banana peel) instead of waiting for God's plan which is something a whole lot better.

Cyrus and I today (yes it is cold and rainy here :( )

This was all recently brought up again as I am reading through the book "Follow Me" by David Platt. (I would recommend this book to everyone!) At one point he quotes C.S Lewis and writes, "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." He goes on to write, "Deep down inside, people seem to be afraid that if they let go of the stuff of this world they will miss out on satisfaction in this world. But disciples of Jesus gladly leave behind the trinkets this world offers because they have found surpassing treasure in Christ. The passionate pursuit of true, deep, and lasting satisfaction always leads to Jesus."

I thought this was such a great reminder of so many things in life where we just want the right here and right now and are not willing to wait for what God has for us. I promise if you stop and think about this thought you realize that all around you people are settling for the banana peel in front of them!

Thanks as always for your love and support! Lots of prayers for next week would be great as I have about 70 good byes to say  to 70 very special children.

 A few hard Good-Byes already...:(

Joseph, Desire, and Umar

My friends from the orthopedic workshop at Katalemwa - Akrim, Sharifah, and Victor

Lesley- Thankfully this was the easiest good bye because she will be moving to Chicago area!!! :)