On The Other Side

I'm no stranger to participating in mission trip projects, nor am I a stranger at leading them, but today marks a new facet of the mission trip experience, being the recipient.

A little over a week ago, three of my best friends from Columbus and I moved from our precious, white suburb in Bexley to a home in a lower income neighborhood in Columbus. Why? Because all of us have a strong desire to be in the trenches with those we believe are the ones who are going to be the answer to the issues in their city. Isaiah 61 says that those who have seen the good and the bad times of a city are the ones who know what it needs to be restored, not those on the outside. Our desire and goal in living in our neighborhood is to empower and to capitalize on what the Lord is already doing here.

We are not their saviors, Jesus has already accomplished that.

So this brings us to this morning:

A small team of sweet, high school students from the Rosedale International Center swung by our house today to help clean up our yard. Nothing terribly taxing, but with a new house there is a continually growing list of things to do, fix, and unpack and there is just not time in all of our busy schedules to worry about something like weeding and hedge trimming.

I remember having a hard time "selling the mission" to students on LeaderTreks trips when it was "just yard work" or painting or cleaning up. But being on the other side of it I don't feel that I can adequately express how much it means for them to be here and to become a part of the story the Lord is writing about our neighborhood. A clean yard means less work and more time to get to know our new community of people. It means we value the land and people we live around. It means we're here to stay.

I'm learning French?

I am a baker, I bake things, but in the last few months it's been so much more than flour and frosting. This story starts back around early February when my church started a sermon series on Joshua that blew my mind.

First of all, I finally made the realization that Veggie Tales got it wrong when it came to Jericho. The people of Jericho were TERRIFIED of the nation of Israel because they had heard how God parted the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan for them. There was none of this jeering "keep walking but you won't knock down our walls" nonsense. This same Israel nation, with their extremely powerful God, was on their door step, just strolling around their city.... in silence... for seven days... The anticipation must have been murder on their nerves. Oye!

Anyway, back to the story. Joshua was a conquer, he and his army conquered the land in the name of the Lord... I'm not going to even touch on this hot topic (because I'm still wrestling with it myself), so (for now) I'm simply going to pose it as a fact; this is what happened. They conquered and did it quite successfully.

Our preacher posed a question to us: Where is the land the Lord has provided for YOU to conquer in His name?

I thought about this for a little while and came to the conclusion my land was my workplace and my school. All of this would have been MUCH more exciting if I wasn't a big chicken when it came to sharing my faith. I have this fear that non-Christians will label me ignorant for believing in God and for putting my hope and faith in a man that supposedly was raised from the dead, because it all sounds like crazy talk, a well spun story to get people to not swear, have sex, or drink. In my heart, though, it all makes perfect sense. I have been redeemed from my former self and know freedom and hope because of this "crazy talk." Then, I had a thought: God made parting a river at flood stage and bringing down the walls of mighty Jericho look like child's play, so why is it hard for me to believe that He can soften the hearts of the people I see everyday? So I began to pray, not only for the opportunities, but for the eyes to see the opportunities and (like Joshua) the courage to act in those moments.

I chickened out and stuck my foot in my mouth several times in this process... or so it seemed. Praise be to God that he is not limited to using only our successes, but makes much of even our most meager, stumbling steps of obedience.

I am constantly amazed at how simple God makes things when we finally make the decision to trust Him. Since the beginning of this process: one of my coworkers now comes to church with me (and God in turn is using this person to redeem my hurts from The Church), I've made time with a girl to get coffee and talk more, one of our regular customers asked me today about miracles which lead to a heart felt conversation about his life, and I'm attempting to learn French so I can communicate with the Cameroon couple who comes in to clean at night. I stand amazed at the transformation of my own heart, going from fear to a deep longing for all people to be brought into a relationship with the Lord.

Now, in my heart, as I converse with people, I feel like God is a little child poised at my right side tugging on my shirt saying "I want that one! Can I have that one in my kingdom too?!" His love for the wandering and the lost- myself included- is overwhelmingly beautiful and I am blessed to get to be an active participant in His redemption story.

Home

The first few moments of wakefulness I experience in the morning is often the most confusing part of my day. For a few, brief minutes my whole life (past, present, future, reality, and dream) exists at once. Due to the amount that I have traveled (and continue to move around), I have issues remembering what country, state, and city I'm waking up in. Some days I'm delighted to find I'm not in the place I thought I was, but more often than not I wake up to wish I were some place else.

I've been thinking a lot about "homesickness" these days. Why am I homesick for certain places I've been and not for others? Why am I homesick for places I've never been? Will this feeling ever go away? Am I, deep down, really just homesick for heaven and if so, will spend my entire life on Earth restlessly searching among secondary options?

Let's start at the root, shall we? I started thinking about all the places I felt homesick for. Places like Montana and Arizona, Colorado and Kentucky, Costa Rica and Honduras, Chicago and the Wyoming wilderness, the Apostle Islands and the Gila in New Mexico. I accredited this longing to my deep desire for adventure and nature, but a conversation with a friend has had me thinking that this might not be the whole story. I asked him if he ever got homesick for places he's been. He responded with something like a "Oh my goodness, YES!" and began to rattle off all the places he's lived and longs to be. Then he said something flippantly that hit me hard: "I long most for the places that I've been and have known the Lord there." 

That is what has got me thinking. 

Maybe it's not the actual places I miss after all. I learn best by experiences and thus crave experiences with my creator. I long to be pushed to the end of who I am so I can experience the way the He fills in that gap. I miss knowing that I can't rely on myself and must daily ask for strength. I miss the uncertainty of every day, waking up to a thousand unknowns to watch how they play out through the day. THIS! This is living.

I wake up to this life every morning, but have lacked the eyes to see it. Things in my life have slowed down considerably, but it's still the same God. I may wake up in the same house every day for three months, but I still have that same need to experience Him. There may not be an under resourced,  unreached, non-English speaking group of people before me waiting to hear about Jesus, but there is still that same list of opportunities to be at the end of myself. There may not be a mountain to climb or a sea to cross, but there's still that same need to ask for strength. There may be less variables to my day, but there is still that same uncertainty of every moment.

And for me, this is home.

On a need to know basis.

I believe lies. I believe that if I'm seeking after what the Lord has for me then I should be able to see how everything fits together. There is none of that and so I believe that the Lord is displeased with me, possibly even frustrated. I'm failing and I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong and fix it.
Now.
I see disappointment in his face because I can't seem to pull it together.

There's only one thing wrong with this picture. This is not who the Lord is. When I look at him and see disappointment, I'm not really looking at Him.

I often have this image of the Lord in my mind of Him holding my face in his hands and there is nothing but love and gentleness in His eyes as he pushes my hair back out of my face. My eyes, however, are shut tight. "How can you love me? I can't hold on to your truth, I habitually make the same mistakes, I don't trust you, and, oh yea, I'm really good at trying to do everything myself..."

And He waits. He listens to me make my case against myself as to why he shouldn't love me. It's a good one too: I'm stubborn, I'm impatient, I swear, I choose to be angry, I harden my heart when I don't want to deal with something, I refuse to cry, I cower away from divine appointments, and on goes the list.

Patiently, he waits for me to stop talking and open my eyes. He waits for me to see that there is no judgement in his face, no condemnation, no you-should-have-everything-together expectation. There is only love.

When I finally tire of my list he simply says to me, "I know... and I still died for you, because I love you. There's nothing that you can do that's ever going to change that fact." And then I'm a hot mess because I've opened my eyes to see grace staring back at me. He continues, "Stop fighting me, stop with this need to know what comes next, and know that I don't do things by the book. You are going to be alright."

The Art of Deep End Jumping

My life seems to be in a constant state of transitioning from one adventure to another. From high school to college, quitting college to work for LeaderTreks in Chicago, to- what felt like- traversing the world a few times over, to now being back in school in Columbus, OH. In all of this I have never been good at keeping people informed or in the loop about my habitual-deep-end-jumping life. So I'm about to take a stab at summing up the last two months. In August I completed my time working with LeaderTreks.

Two years of my life was devoted to running trips, mentoring countless amazing students, and learning more about myself. I had left college to join LT because I had no idea where I was going. 

No vision. No dream. No hope.

To think of the future was to mentally drown myself in the immensity of directionless decision making. So I joined on with the only hope I had, an organization that wanted to equip me and help me discover myself as I helped and discovered others. Somewhere in the last two years I learned to dream. I learned that I was not a victim of my circumstances, but I had the ability to lead change. I learned that Jesus died and conquered death and because of that fact, I am free to live without the fear of what man thinks or does, because He cannot be stopped. I dreamed of inviting other people into this freedom, but how?

Two things I have always loved: art and people. Never had I entertained the idea of doing art as a professions and thus searched for more "practical" professions. Little did I know that through my two years the Lord would show me that my love of art could in fact be a means to invite people (whom I love) into freedom.

I am currently studying Art Therapy at Capital University in Columbus, OH where I am on the verge of something so much larger than myself. I, once again, find myself to be in the Deep End of life learning how to swim. I've leaped before I've looked, but had I looked I don't know if I would have leaped. I have moments where I can't believe where I am and what I'm doing, but I also remember the sweet assurance the Lord gives me that, as long as I am pursuing Him, I can't fail in the grand scheme of eternity. I will most definitely fall on my face a time or two and learn from it, but I will never be outside of His love for me.

Thank you to all of you who held me up in prayer and supported me these last few years. I would not have made it through this time if it was not for you all. I thank the Lord for you always and pray that you will reap generously because you have sewn generously.

Leaning in.

When I created this blog I thought that I was oh-so clever and witty to have come up with such a fun name. Now I laugh because it was such a fitting name and continues to be the story of my life. Jumping in with both feet and not looking back. I currently find myself surrounded by new things and new people. Many of these new people have been asking me about my story, where I've come from, what I've been doing, etc. Most everyone has responded with jaws dropped or simply a 'wow' when I describe the rapid turn around from one life to the next. I literally packed my stuff up from my home in Heyworth, drove to Columbus, and started my first class that same day. Then I came home to unpack and settle in. As I sat in my first class, on my first day my mind hit overload and I struggled to comprehend the transition I had just made. There was also a panic moment where I wondered if I had made the wrong decision, if I was going to be able to hack it, if it was too late to make another decision. These are the leaning moments in my life. Leaning moments? Yes, these are the moments when I have the option to either lean away and try to hold back out of uncertainty or to drop my shoulder and lean into it. Of course, I chose to lean in. I have no reason to think for a moment that this is not exactly where I need to be. Hard times are going to crop up, that's inevitable, but Lord may I remember your faithfulness that has brought me this far. And that I have no reason to believe that you won't continue to be faithful to the one who seeks you.

So, this is joy.

For those of you that haven't heard yet, my time at LeaderTreks ends August 15th at 11:50pm when I step off my flight at O'Hare. I've had a lot of time in the last couple of weeks to think about what this really means to be leaving the company that has facilitated a ton of growth in my life. There are a lot of mixed emotions. On the one hand I'm really sad to be leaving my work family that's been with me this last year, rejoicing and mourning together through a myriad of life events. On the other hand I'm incredibly excited to be starting the next chapter of my life at Capital University studying Art Therapy. Who doesn't love finally having a little direction, right? Anyway, I'm writing this entry on the back patio of the Ehorn's house (the absolute blessing of host parents that God so graciously put in my life that have been both supportive and encouraging the last two years). It's the perfect weather: sunny, with a light breeze and I thought to myself. Will I ever be as happy as I am in this moment right now? Everything seems perfect and I'm about to leave for the new "deep end" of Columbus, back into less than comfortable circumstances I'm sure. That thought was so fleeting I almost completely dismissed it completely. I can't do anything about securing my happiness in the future, but I have chosen to be joyful in all situations of my life. So here's to the things that are out of my control and to the things in the future that I can't see. May you worry about yourself and leave me to the profound happiness I have in this moment, remembering how good God is.