your right hand will hold me fast

I have been in Thailand for one week.  It has gone by quickly, but it also feels like I have been here for a long time.  I have made friends with the American exchange students and even with a few Thai students.  On Thursday evening I went to an open-air market with my new friend Jub (pronounced joop) where they sell a large assortment of freshly cooked Thai food and many other goods such as clothes and jewelry.  I got chicken-on-a-stick and sticky rice.  I think I am going to like Thai food. ;)  Afterward, me and Jub and some other students went to go see Harry Potter at a movie theater in a mall.  It was a good evening and I look forward to spending many more in the same way.

Me and Jub eating dinner before the movie.  You can tell how hot it is by the sweat dripping off my face.

This week has been full of many different thoughts and emotions.  Before I actually got here, I always thought of this year in Thailand as an opportunity to serve in the Kingdom where there is a need.  It is not like God dropped a map of Thailand out of the sky and I felt an overwhelming calling to come here.  It just felt like a choice that I made-- an attempt, rather, to take a risk and allow the Lord to use my weakness.  Of course, God's plan and purpose is in every choice I make, but it has been hard this week to see his purpose in sending me to a place that does not feel like home and that is so far away from the relationships I hold most dear to me.  I have struggled this week with trusting God to take care of my heart in this season of challenge.

Today, I was brave enough to venture out on my own.  I didn't go very far... just to the Thammasat University campus nearby where most of the students who come to Grapevine go to college.  On my walk to campus, I found myself asking "God, what am I doing here?..."  I went to the post office then sat down at some tables nearby to journal and pray, asking God the same question and waiting for an answer.  I am a fidgeter, so naturally, I chewed on my pen and took off my rings while I looked around me, taking in my surroundings.  I looked down at the ring in my hand and was surprised by what I saw-- something I had never noticed.  It is a ring that my mom gave me for my sixteenth birthday and that I do not normally wear.  I just so happened to pick it out of my jewelry box as I was packing for Thailand to replace a blue plastic ring I had that broke.

Engraved on the inside of the ring:  "Thailand."

Wow.  Immediately, Psalm 139 came to my mind:

You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways. 
Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

It was as if the Lord were saying to me "Grace, I knew about this.  I planned this.  You are exactly where I want you to be.  I have a purpose for you here and I promise that I am with you.  I hold you by my right hand and I will never let you go.  Trust me."

It is such a good feeling to know that God is in control, even when I have no idea why or how or what he is doing.  All that matters is that he is with me.  It was a wonderful moment. :)  I want to thank you for your prayers.  Please continue to pray with me that I would be confident of the Lord's purpose for me here in the Land of Smiles.

Pray that I would be awake.