China of the South

We went to church this morning for the first time in a while. I felt a few layers of my heart slowly peeling back as I listened to the sermon, surrounded by the fellowship of love within those church walls. I succumbed to the worry and stress of late, leading down a road of uncertainty. I shut myself off from my lifeline of eternal hope. For whatever reason, some of you may already know this, I am stubborn. Sometimes the red hair and German roots collide and anger creeps its way into the crevices of my heart. As a side note, anger is one letter away from danger, which is where it leads most of the time left untreated. Wouldn't you agree? Nonetheless, the sermon this morning spoke about truth and what defines it, opening the shunt of my heart to allow the anger to dissipate. The pastor proceeded to talk about the secular truths that often present themselves, and the importance of adhering to Godly truths with faith that your life will manifest itself in His hands. Those words were much needed for me this morning. This coming week, several agenda items have me stressed to the point of blinders, which inhibited me from seeking His help. Tomorrow I have to take a certification test and pass it in order to keep my job. Sometime this week I am scheduled to have my big observation in my classroom, Wednesday we are hauling a load of kids to the aquarium in Corpus (which is enough in itself to induce heartburn), and next Wednesday is the ever endearing TAKS test. With all this coming up, I need to lean ever heavier on the Lord for guidance and grace, however, I found myself steering the boat closer and closer to a deserted island, trying to manage it all on my own. Simply stated, trust goes hand in hand with truth. We must trust and follow even in times of doubt that feel like the brink of a mental cataclysm, and His truth will set us free of the debris that cloud the judgment of our souls.

On a lighter note, after church today, we hit up the China Buffet in Falfurrias. I realize that China Buffet and Falfurrias are like rain on an oil slick, but our options aren't exactly limitless here. We eased on in to scope out the spread. Right off the bat we felt wildly transported smack down in the middle of a clandestine off-the-beaten path eatery in Chinatown. For some reason, their choice of music bordered Chinese punk/ rave. I felt that while getting my food in the buffet line, I needed to jump up and down with one hand in the air. Along with the punk flare, just a hint of disco infiltrated its way into the beat. Once we sat down, I envisioned at any moment disco balls slowly dropping from the ceiling and hidden fog machines creeping up from the floor, completing the fascinating ambiance. Once I snapped out of the need to reenact the moves I once painstakingly stayed up all night learning while watching Saturday Night Fever, Wade and I braved the buffet. I can't be certain that the employees speak clear English, but possibly have enough phonetic recognition to ascertain the difference between the words 'hunan' and 'human'. There right above the heating lamp in plain black lettering- 'human chicken'. What I hope was a mere mistake in spelling, turned out to be the only meat I liked! As I slowly surveyed dish by dish what other interesting mysteries awaited, oysters came into view. I hate oysters, but Wade on the other hand could sit on the dock of the bay and subsist on them quite certainly. Our eyes met and the look on my face said a thousand words- if you put that on your plate, you will feel an overwhelming tinge of regret in your stomach in an all too timely fashion. Luckily, he thought better of it and left them to rest in their slimy plate of ice on the increasingly less appealing buffet line. Before I turned my head to go sit in our rave booth, there above the oysters lay a tiny sign with a Chinese warning label of some kind affixed to it. It read, "This no cooked! If allergy, no eat!" There you have it folks. If ever you feel the need to hem-haw and gripe about the lack of acceptable eating establishments in the vicinity of where you call home, think again. It could always be worse...