Struck down but not destroyed...

Here are a list of reasons I have for being frustrated beyond all reason today:

• My right hand is sun burned, like burned stiff.
  
• The new cell phone is not wanting to charge (granted it was the cheapest cell phone I could possibly have purchased, however, come on people, batteries all over the world can hold a charge... but apparently not the one in this cell phone.)
• I got my watch fixed today, but the man overcharged me a bit which I don't really begrudge him save for the fact that it's still acting a little strange... I mean I'll pay you more because I'm a chigye (foreigner) but at least fix the thing!
• I bought a Chinese/English English/Chinese dictionary today, only it's basically useless (a fact that I didn't figure out until arriving home) because the English to Chinese part doesn't use Pinyin, only characters, so I have no idea how to pronounce anything, leaving me right where I was before I bought the dictionary.
• I have a massive blister on my left foot, the product of walking miles around the city
• One of the thermoses that I have here for water has some majorly funky funk growing in it... guess I need to get a new one (not necessarily the simple task one might imagine).
  

We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.

Because as defeating and mildly frustrating as all those things are, they are nothing compared to the unimaginable freedom of the grace we know. They are not even much compared to the chance to smile at people on the street knowing that my smile is a refection of His, or the leisure to wander in and out of old alleys filled with dusty children and the crumbling beauty of ancient Tibetan homes with a sure and steady knowledge that the Creator of all knows their names and addresses and loves them dearly.

Yeah a busted (cell phone/dictionary/thermos/foot/watch/hand) is a small price to pay. Struck down but not destroyed...