Learning process

It’s been 10 months since we first arrived in Regina, and I have been learning a lot in those 300+ days so far..

I have learned that to get it all together sometimes you can’t just wing it. you can’t just skim over things either, or give it a rain check. Otherwise, you might be skating on the edge, getting ticked off for not getting the situation wrestled down. On the other hand, when things are not falling out the cracks and you don’t rock the boat to hard, then you get things worked out and looks like you are moving in a good direction. Things will not come back to bite you and you will be able even to go with the flow. You can tuck anxiety away and put support behind everything good that is going on. You start to feel less antsy and more comfy as the days pass by and then you now that you can nail things down as opposed to up in the air. You are golden.

In this previous paragraph, I have used many of the expressions I have learned since I landed in Regina. They were all new to me, and I tried to repeat them as I learned them, trying to get hold of their meaning. Now I know what they all mean. At the same time, they are not new to you at all. Perhaps you had never even thought that they were colloquial expressions. Because I just mentioned them today, you started to think about them and why we even say things like “rain check” or “jump out of your skin.”

It’s Christmas again, and here we are, celebrating and reflecting on the date with all the traditional words, songs, decorations, and everything else that comes with it. Well… are we? Since we have Christmas every year, and since we’ve had lots and lots of previous Christmases, sometimes Christmas songs, messages, and reflections may become something we just breeze over and don’t even pay attention to anymore. They become daily expressions whose meaning we don’t tap into as often as we could.

Christmas is a time to remember again the coming of the Baby King. Not only to remember, but to believe, to study His word, to be close to Him. It’s a time to shake the dust of daily routine off, to get immersed in the Good News from Bethlehem that has come to our neck of the woods. The Savior, the Messiah King, who brings not generic hope or peace or best wishes, but the solution to our main problem: sin. He bridges the gap. He reconnects us by faith to God and to our neighbor so that we may live the message of Christmas as a daily conviction, a daily assurance, a daily message that we are prompted to witness not only with words, but especially with acts.

There is still an important detail to mention about my learning process: I needed to be here, immersed in the culture and the language, to listen to them, learn them, and be able to use them in my daily conversations. I would probably never have learned them back in Brazil.

We don’t need to wait for Christmas to come to learn, get immersed in the Word of God, and be fortified in our faith. This can be a daily habit of drilling down deep into the Holy Scriptures, having them as the norm and guide of our life, and as the fountain of forgiveness and blessings in our lives. From God’s Word, we receive the hope and peace that do not vanish in the morning of Box Day. It is a daily presence, a daily gift, a daily assurance of His love in Christ.

In Him, we know that no matter what happens, no matter what comes, there is no phony baloney that will put us spiritually under the weather. We have in Him a place to be comfortable. More than that, a place to be forgiven, cared for, and loved.

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