Spanish Again

At one of the places where I volunteer, there are sometimes people who need translators. At the end of the day, I was using my now-limited knowledge of Spanish to call people and remind them of their appointments the following week. The manager overheard me calling people and since the official Spanish translators had left, when a patient walked in (and needed to be seen that day), she asked me to help translate. Fortunately, the patient's relative was able to translate most of the doctor's questions, and by the grace of God we somehow made it through - her translating most things and me stepping in for additional clarifications.

However, all of this made me think about a few things. First of all, I thought back to the reason I quit speaking Spanish for a while. Long story short, I kind of lost confidence in my ability to pronounce things correctly. But that brought me to my second thought. Why was I so concerned about being "perfect" in the way I said things - in a foreign language, no less - to the point where I just decided that saying nothing was better than trying... and failing to some degree? In retrospect, probably not the healthiest attitude because instead of worrying about messing up, I could have been using those "mess-up" moments to learn and get better. But the third thought. I feel like so often, I want everything to look so perfect that I'm not willing to acknowledge the fact that I really don't have it all together. No one does. (This reminds me of the Charles River lesson). And now the fourth thought. I know I probably messed up the grammar horribly when I was trying to translate. I've forgotten most of the subjunctive tense. But I think this time, I'm going to try to acknowledge the fact that there are indeed gaps in my mastery of the various verb tenses - and do something about it. Like go review the different tenses and their respective rules. The fifth, and perhaps the most important thought - God can use even the weakest of our skills. It wasn't necessary to have awesome language skills to communicate that the patient was loved and cared for. And the patient knew as the doctor prayed before beginning the exam that we believe in God, we believe that He is powerful to heal, and we believe in the power of prayer. So, ever so slowly, I am learning and re-learning that God isn't limited in the least by our limitations. Where we are lacking, He is able to provide.