Eating Curry in a Salwar Kameez March 21, 2010
article by Becky Phillips/photo by Tammy Circeo
When my husband and I were first married, we went off on our honeymoon to the South Pacific, and then guess where my groom swept me off to? You guessed it- India! Two months after we were married, we took off on a 9 month adventure that truly changed me.
Now you have to understand a little bit about me to know how this trip effected me. I am a steady kind of gal- I don’t like change much; change in anything. I like to be home, I like to be near family, I like to be at home with family. So, I fly half-way around the world and landed on what felt like Mars. Everything smelled, tasted, looked, sounded, felt different. The sounds of the Hindi language and music were so foreign that it truly was like a different planet. Dogs and cows and buses and bicycles and auto rickshaws and cars and motorcycles all sharing the same roadway. One block from our third-floor flat was a wedding hall. The hall would blare the wedding music through a megaphone so everyone could join in the joyous celebration. The only problem was that sometimes the Hindu priest would decide that the correct time for the wedding was at 3 am! And then there were the dogs who prowled all night and slept all day. And did I mention the mosquitoes?
It didn’t take too long before my sweet new husband asked what was wrong, and my answer was “I miss my MOMMMM!” Of course being the sweet, strong husband that he is, he quickly put on his fix-it cap. He would clear everything up and solve all the problems. He would help me make good friends and make life fun and interesting. As we all know, that was not going to work. He couldn’t solve anything for me. He couldn’t smooth my path and give me internal balance and consistency. That job was up to God.
It was in India that I learned to trust God. Even though I was eating beef curry with my fingers while sitting on the concrete floor while wearing a salwar kameez, I was going to be ok. The Lord God was my unchanging, constant Rock. When I was walking the streets of Bangalore, missing family and friends, He walked beside me whispering his presence into my life.
I love what Psalm 142.1 says, “I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.” He heard my complaints and my cries and he was there in the midst of them. I didn’t have to pretend to be happy about it.
By the end of our 9 months in India, my sweet husband and I agreed that if God called us to a longer stint we would listen. I learned to trust him and his presence so completely that I was willing to roll with the waves of change.