Feelin Good

I have been more at peace ever since I wrote that letter to Ana. I have been sick for a while, but after I wrote that letter, my stomach started to feel a lot better. I think I was stressed out, and my stress was causing a lot of my sickness.

It is so much more peaceful at the farm alone.

Juan is in San Jose visiting his grandfather who has a broken hip, cancer, and some other ailments that I cannot remember. His grandfather said that he did not want to see anyone except for Juan. Juan is a strong spiritual influence within his family, and I am praying that his grandfather will come to know Christ during this visit, and also for his health.

Joshua left for San Juan twice yesterday. He forgot his passport on his first attempt and had to return to the farm and then find someone to carry him back to the Nicaraguan guard post where he can catch the public boat.

Since they have been gone, I have accomplished a lot. I have scrubbed the soot from all of our pots, cleaned the kitchen, bought a new cylinder of gas, washed my sheets, played soccer, started building a new set of stairs for the dock, ate dinner with the neighbors, went spear fishing for Sabalo in the river with no success, and had some very good spiritual conversations with one of the neighbors named Joel. Joel is very smart, and knows a lot of theology, but does not consider himself to be a Christian.


I have been rereading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller for the last couple of days. I love to reread books. I have read The Lord of the Rings three times, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn five times, and The Hobbit 17 times. Of all of Donald Miller’s books, I think that this one ties with Blue Like Jazz as his best. It is impossible for me to read this without wanting to change my life and make it more meaningful.

I was thinking about some of the different themes that he talks about in his quest to make his life into a better story. One of the things that he talks about is a failed relationship. He talks about his one most serious attempt at a relationship, and how it fell apart even as they were considering marriage. I started thinking about the things that make a relationship good and the things that make a relationship fail. I thought about what Donald Miller learned from his failed relationship.

He had always placed romantic love on a pedestal, secretly believing that it was a magic key to fulfillment and a good life. He believed that a wife could take away your loneliness and replace it with contentment. He believed that a wife equaled a good life story.

Donald Miller no longer believes this, and neither do I. As I sat here on the porch, thinking about what makes a relationship good, and what a marriage should be, I began to think that what I want in a marriage is like Miller says in his book, “Neither needed the other to make everything okay. They were simply content to have good company through life’s conflicts.” I don’t want my wife to complete me, because she is just a person and cannot possibly complete me. What I want is someone who wants to share a life story with me. I want someone who appreciates the things that I care about, and who cares about things that I appreciate. I want someone who feels a compatible desire in their life to Love and serve G-d in the way that he is calling us. I want someone who is peaceful, not quarrelsome, and who is content with any station in life.