First Month in Hawaii

Wow. I've been in Hawaii for exactly one month now.

That's crazy.

I've had several "Wow I live in Hawaii" moments lately. Driving through the Pali tunnel and coming out to a breathtaking view of the cliffs and ocean and mountains. Hanging out with students at the beach all day for an outreach event. Going to a small hotel in Waikiki on Monday with my hanai family and enjoying a bunch of old local guys jamming on ukeleles and guitars and other people dancing hula, just for the fun of it. Watching the sunset over the ocean.

I'm truly blessed.

I'm still adjusting though. I'm not local yet, even though I did have some Australian tourists tell me I was beautiful and asked to take a picture with me because they "wanted to take a picture with a Hawaiian girl." Didn't have the heart to tell them I'm from Texas. But it made me feel good. I still don't speak like a local though- need to work on that.

I also need to practice my surfing. Uncle Steve has been humbling me a lot lately- I like to think of myself as a quick learner, but Uncle Steve apparently thinks I still need a lot of work. A student invited me to go surfing with them at a couple different locations, but when I asked Uncle, his exact words were, "Mmmmm I think you need to go to Waikiki." For anyone who's been surfing in Hawaii, that's not exactly a slap in the face, but it's close. Waikiki is for the beginners, the groms, the tourists. While there are locals that surf Queens or Canoes in Waikiki, the goal is to graduate from there to other breaks. So I said "Oh ok, so you think I should go there a few more times and then do you think I can try these places?" His exact words: "Mmmm I think you should go to Waikiki for awhile."

......ouch.

But I have to remember that this is good. I have this ridiculous expectation that I should be good at everything, immediately, or at least expert-status after a few times. But that is so unrealistic. No one becomes good at anything after a few times. It takes major perseverance, dedication, time, energy, effort. It takes falling off the board and getting back on. It takes getting tossed around by waves of adversity (see what I did there?) but continuing to paddle out again and again til you're able to consistently stand up and ride the waves. And sometimes that takes years. Uncle isn't telling me not to go to these more difficult surf spots to make me feel bad, he knows that I'll get cut up on the reefs and I'll get pummeled by waves and it won't be fun- it will just make me discouraged. And he wants me to love surfing. But he knows I will only learn to love it by taking baby steps. I don't like baby steps- I'm impatient. But how often do we do that with other things in life, and with God even? We think we're ready for the challenges, the difficult tasks, we think way more of our abilities than we're actually capable of, and we get frustrated and impatient when we're not given responsibilities "worthy of our talents." But God knows what we can handle and what we can't. He's not going to give us more than we can handle. And in reality, that's a comforting though. God looks at our faithfulness, not at our abilities.

And that applies to everything- to life, to our career, to ministry, to the Christian walk. If we're faithful in the small things, God will reward (and challenge) us with bigger things.

And on that note...it's time to surf.