Today I joined with friends to continue celebrating a dear friend’s birthday. Toto is known as a cute, boutique ice cream shop but it is now expanding. We had an interesting lunch as the restaurant bustled with family friends and guests of the owner and at times the staff struggled to keep up with all that happens on its opening day. There is a great number of stories to tell from the lunch experience alone, including the gifting of a birthday cake by the manager just as the birthday girl was about to share our groups critic of the restaurant….umm awkward – haha. Just a reminder that there is never a dull moment in Cambodia.
Anyway as we were getting ready to leave the wind picked up and the air was thick with the expectation of an impending downfall. I didn’t have my own mode of transport so I decided to pop back inside the restaurant and wait out the rain for a bit, while reading a book on my phone and enjoying a scope of ice cream.
After about an hour of waiting I felt that I couldn’t put off going home any longer and that I would need to accept defeat and get a tuk tuk rather than going the cheaper route and moto dtueking it home.
Toto’s just happens to be in a more exclusive part of the city and on one of the main streets where tuk tuks are not frequent in travelling down. I knew I would probably need to walk a bit in the rain, but that’s part of Cambodia – getting wet and getting dirty.
However that’s not how foreigners and important people get treated in this area. I felt a bit like a rich socialite as a guard rushed to my side with an umbrella to walk me to my non-existent car. I then explained to him that I needed a tuk tuk as I prepared to leave the shelter of his umbrella and venture to a side street. He then urged me back to the shop front while he went and found a tuk tuk for me. There was I standing rather uncomfortably with my thoughts of not deserving such privileged treatment. I am just an insignificant teacher who daily looks after myself with the independence required for living in a place like Cambodia. Words flooded my mind saying things like “Who am I? Why are they helping me? I don’t deserve this sort of celebrity treatment. I’m just so lowly.”
Once a tuk tuk was hailed for me the guard was back to my side as I was escorted to my tuk tuk (perhaps not the chariot of choice of all socialites) as I quietly slipped him a small tip while I stepped inside. He then asked me where I was going and we both exchanged with the driver about the price. The driver had an umbrella that he was using to cover his handlebars as he drove the already flooding streets of Phnom Penh. My driver then also covered my head with his umbrella as I walked from the tuk tuk to my front gate and waiting until I had the door unlocked before continuing on his way.
Being treated in such a favourable way is rather overwhelming for me. I don’t feel that I am the type of person that deserves such treatment because of my lowly state. It is uncomfortable to be viewed higher than I am and humbling to step back and let people serve me and accept this service rather than feeling that I should go without. I am quick to settle for less, to go without and to struggle alone. When friends offer to bless me I often feel that I am putting them out or that the offer is shared given apatheticly, rather than with a true heart longing to serve. This belief can even interfere with my acceptance of blessings from God, talking myself out of receiving good things because I need to be content with a smaller portion of His grace.
I believe I am not alone in my confessions. Too often we settle for less then God’s best and turn down glorious blessings that are offered to us. We can be so caught up in our shame and all that we don’t deserve than we miss out on the privileged treatment and honour that is bestowed on us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We are now royalty in the eyes of our Father, maybe it is time to start receiving the blessings bestowed on children of the Most High King.
Acting the part of the precious princess of my Father does not come naturally, as life has told me I am not deserving of such treatment, and well the reality is I am not, but I can receive it anyway because of my new identity in Him. Maybe it is time for me to sweep aside my pride and stubborn determination to do life independently with pointless sacrifice and struggling and actually begin to accept what He has for His princess. He came so we “may have life to the full” so why should I, or any of us that are called His own, settle for anything less.
