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| I have been thinking lately, more like doubting. Am I really supposed to be a missionary? The call that was so clear on my life a year ago is now being called into question. But one thing hasn't changed, one thing that every time I think about it, clears up any doubts I may have. I have never been content (nay even drawn to) a future here, a nice happy life with a family and a white picket fence. The only sort of life that has ever appealed to me is that of a missionary. It's a wonder I never realized that call before. It's not that I want to be a missionary because I think it will be fun, or easy or just to get out of here. On the contrary. I fully expect that it will be hard, often anything but fun, and will require plenty of time and work here to make happen. But all my passions, my dreams, lie outside what I have here, outside even this country. To be honest that is both scary and comforting. Scary becasue I find myself inexorably drawn to places that I can't control or predict, and I don't like to be outside of my own control. But it is comforting becasue knowing that so much of myself is drawn to those places it gives me confidence that I won't need to be in control. In Mexico, in a way, I felt more free to LIVE than I ever have, and that was in a structured exchange program. I can't imagine what it will be like to be in a place just to live and love and share Jesus' message of hope. I bet it is gonna be an awesome ride.
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| Empathy and fear. Those are my problems right now. So many of my close friends are struggling through some nasty crap and I am very empathic, therefore I feel like I am struggling through their crap too. I don't resent that at all. I love that I feel so closely connected with them. The other is fear, but of what I am not entirely sure. Many things, sometimes nothing, just a lot of fear. And no end in sight, just a deepening hole.
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| This was something I wrote in my journal a few weeks ago that I re-read today and wanted to post here. I know only a few people read this, which is actually why I think I can post it. Here goes....
"As I walked across campus I felt as if something was pulling me. The cool winter afternoon, comforting breeze and warming sun seemed, at first, to be driving me to solitude. It was a bit confusing, as if things that were normally so good and positive were twisted and dark ( I would realize later that thought came from nothing more than my own pessimism and fear). As I neared the swings I knew the pull was not external but rather deep in my heart. I took my usual place in the left swing and felt a nagging doubt whispering that this would never work. The pull came from a desire to be with God, to reconnect with my Father, but I had already seen three such attempts fail since I got back. It had been as if that desire wasn't enough to overcome whatever spiritual ocean I had been drowning in for months. I had little faith that this would be any different, but the pull persisted.
As I began to swing, lean forward, lean back, forward, back, the wind singing in my ears, the sun painting a picture on my closed eyelids, I felt Him pushing me. "My Father, I missed you so much." He just kept pushing and I kept talking, threw all my cares, fears, doubts, all of it to Him on the wind, though only three words were spoken "kadosh, set apart."
If there were such a thing as a power word, kadosh would be mine. Something that, not so much gives power, but reminds me where to look for it: up.
I swung like I hadn't since the night in May when God first spoke kadosh over me. I felt a peace begin to overcome me, pervasive, beautiful. Daddy just kept right on pushing, the wind kept singing, the sun continued to paint.... The words to describe how beautiful that moment was for me, sadly, so not exist. I fell into my Father and He just held me.
I got off the swing and we moved to the lawn. I collapsed on a hill, face to the sky, my hand in His, and we just lay there, just to be together. We shared a lot but no words were spoken, not even a kadosh. We didn't need it. I opened my eyes a few minutes later and sat up, hugging my knees. I realized my Father was no longer there beside me as He had been, but instead was in everything I saw around me. In the sharp edges of the buildings, the smiles or forlorn expressions on faces that passed by, in the ever vigilant trees, the ones that I had always though just looked sad and dead in the winter without thier leaves. Now, in place of death I saw an expectation, a hope and a patience that I can learn from. They wait for Spring the way I should wait for God. They aren't plagued with doubts as to whether it will come or not. The just wait for it to arrive.
I stood up and began walking to my dorm and something else struck me as different. I could feel it in each step, more than the one before. I hadn't felt peace like that since the same day in May I spoke of before, the day God gave me my purpose, my call. This time was different however. The first time with that call also came a burden. I had peace about it all but a weight had been added to me. A burden that said I had a lot fo work to do, a lot of change ahead, and a lot of fear. A burden crafted by my own hands. But not this time, no. This time I felt that peace and purpose but without the burden I had fashioned to go with it. Totally free to live in the plan God has for me without tying my own hands behind my back.
Realistically I know that won't stay so perfect for long. I know myself. My fears. My patterns. My hopes. My sins. I rarely belive as I did then that God has a plan, that He is working things for my good. I am so like Israel, weak and prone to turning away at the first sign of trouble. "
And indeed, I have already lost and found that peace many times over since that day. I have turned away when trouble has come and God has faithfully drawn me back to Him everytime. He reminded me tonight that I can't hold onto that peace and joy, but it holds onto me. Good to know.
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| I have felt a nagging.... pressure within me since I got back from abroad concerning certain very important friendships but could never quite figure out what it was. Until tonight. There are four people I am friends with, four of my closest friends, that have been a part of this. I have spent a lot of time with two of them and not very much at all with the other two but for some reason had the same sense or feeling about them all. The difference in time spent with them confused me. I couldn't see a connection. Now I get it. I had a much deeper level of intimacy in each of these friendships before I went to Mexico, and now I feel like something important has been lost in all of them. I am no less happy to be with them, to see them, touch them, but I feel like our relationships are shallow, foreign. It is as if my being gone dried up all of them. Exactly what I feared would happen and that explains a lot of random things I have been feeling. I realize I have been straining, reaching for those friendships, each in different ways, since I got back, and that is the source of the afore mentioned pressure. I feel like I am grasping at air and I don't know what to do to reclaim those friendships the way they were before.
I also feel like each of them have other relationships now that draw them away from ours, and since I have been absent, I am afraid they don't feel a real need to jump back into what we had before.
I truly pray that God will help me figure that out. All four of these people are incredibly important to me and I don't want to lose them. I ask that the few of you who read this also pray for that. It is weighing heavily on me.
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| Ten days until I go back home....home. Such a relative term. In the past 2 years I have called 4 different places home, each one of them still holding that place in my heart even though I may not live there anymore. I have learned something about myself in that: I am easily at home in new places. That is a good thing to know, seeing as I am going to be a missionary, I will need to be at home somewhere other than NC. The thing I realize connected all those places for me was people. It doesn't really matter to me where I sleep, but rather where the people I am close to are. That is how all four of those places can still BE home. I am totally comfortable in all of them and I miss all of them (and get to go back to one, I-House baby!).
I kinda want to break into a rather emo moment here that this thought brings up, but I'll spare the two of you who reads this the drama. Instead I'll mention how utterly excited I am that Becca, Danny, and Katie are coming to Honduras tomorrow. I can not even begin to go to sleep right now (I hope that changes or this is gonna be a loooong wait) because I am so excited to see the three of them. This IS my Christmas present, albeit a few days late. The one reunion that doesn't scare me even remotely. Maybe that's becasue it isn't in the US. They are coming to me, a new context for us. I can't be afraid of things having changed if the context of the whole things is totally different to begin with. Maybe I am just over anaytical.... yes, I totally am. Pssh, who cares?
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