Social media is a powerful comparison tool. It can go from making you content with your life and situation to making you wish you had someone else's. But social media only reveals the good stuff. The stuff we're proud of. The stuff we want others to wish they had. To be jealous of us. (We might not admit to it... but we sure do like to show off...)
As I posted pictures of my summer, I was acutely aware that my life looked beautiful as I walked through cobblestoned streets, visited 800 year old churches and castles, and sipped delicious coffee with some of my best friends in Budapest. I know it looked easy. Adventurous. Exciting.
But.
Social media did not see the ugly things. The things that can ruin or mar even a beautiful place:
(let's start with the lighter things...) sweaty, muggy hot walks up the hill in 100 degrees, muttering under my breath because I missed the bus.
arguments over card games, and introvert meltdowns
stomach problems because I love coffee but my body doesn't
overhearing a rude comment about me in Hungarian because they thought I was a foreigner
being called rude almost every day due to my great Hungarian accent, but often complete failure to recognize important cultural cues. Like the time we got yelled at on the train for putting our feet up on the seat. Like the time I accidentally tipped too low, and the waiter taught me a lesson by bringing the change back in "nickels." Like the time I didn't use the correct greeting to the lady at the ticket window and she shook her head, glared at me, and loudly and over-dramatically greeted me the way she expected me to greet her.
the nervousness that overcomes me to even ask a silly question like how much something costs for fear that I will not be able to pronounce words as clearly as I hear them in my head.
how slowly my ability to express myself in English ebbs away, and my Hungarian is still weaker... when something I usually have such command over, like language, becomes a cage where I can't fully express my inner thoughts and feelings.
the constant imbalance of where I belong, what "home" means, and where I fit
an overwhelming longing for the way things used to be, for childhood, for family members who have passed, for unity, and for simpler days.
Sometimes these things seem silly, and other times they seem truly overwhelming. Especially being between cultures.
Sometimes I just want to celebrate the 4th of July like everyone else, and not feel a split allegiance when we talk about patriotism. Sometimes I wish I only spoke one language, only knew one culture, and only had one home.
Sometimes I desperately just want to be like everyone else.
It was in the midst of these feelings of discontentment that I happened to be reading the book of Joshua. I normally flip there if I need a quick reminder to "be strong and courageous," but this time, something else stuck out.
The Levites.
When Israel entered the Promised Land and started divvying up the land inheritance, everyone got some. Except the Levites. Several times the text stated, "But to the tribe of Levi, Moses gave no inheritance; the Lord God of Israel is their inheritance."
At first that sounded like the BEST inheritance ever. WOW. How do you inherit the Lord God? What a huge, beautiful, exciting inheritance. No land could possibly outdo that.
But then I took my eyes off of the Lord, and I began to wonder... did the Levites wish they could just be like everyone else? Why couldn't they have land like everyone else? Why couldn't they just be one of the 12? Why did God have to call them to this specific inheritance?
And in these wonderings, I realized that I wasn't just wondering about the Levites.
I was wondering about myself.
Why couldn't I just fit in with everyone else?
The Lord has called me, a Hungarian-American, to serve Him between cultures, fitting nowhere completely. And that's ok.
The Lord is my inheritance.
He is Enough.
