My Sweet.

I am so proud of you. I read the beautifully knitted words on your blog that come from your heart and I miss you that much more. Just how invested and how in love you are makes me so encouraged to feel the same way, one day. Makes me so encouraged and just solidifies the fact that he is the perfect man for you.

You are absolutely one of the most beautiful people I have ever met and I don't say that often, because I usually don't mean it until times like these. Times when i read your words and I miss our Thursdays, and times when I really wish we could be having an awkward encounter in Panera but also realizations that things won't ever change between us. That God made us sisters and that's what we'll always be.

Love you more than you know, and miss you even more than that.

Shhh.

It really does hit me in stillness. The loneliness I create from running away from my God. As I explained to my best friend who I get to wake up to every day-I'm scared. Honestly sometimes living life with God is scarier than running away. I know that's a hefty statement, because in Him all things are good...but what happens if I'm wrapped in His love? Just completely absorbed in it...and tragedy strikes; as it will. What if I'm so in love with Abba, that I crumble when things go bad because sometimes I expect the worst and sometimes I'm sensitive, and most times I blame Him. I don't know where this is going, exactly.

So Caroline and I go to Uganda. We come here heads bowed, knees sunk in the soil, to be used. Yet I run. I run and run and sprint, literally even doing lunges as I plead the opposite and deny His name when I'm hurting. And I am hurting. Dealing with things from across the world and being so out of control. And then being here and dealing with things like taking care of a malnourished child and then letting him go into his father's hands not knowing if he'll actually care for him. Trusting a man more than I trust God. Seems silly, really.

Caroline has this boyfriend, yeah? His name is Zac and he treats her like she deserves. He seems so kind and seems to really be seeking after the Lord-which she also needs. A man who will rely on the Lord and encourage her, too. But she is blinded, I mean she really is. After dating him for only two months a gift is given to him to travel across the world to visit her here in Uganda. A $1500 ticket for 8 days with his girlfriend. The green monster of course fires up inside me as I struggled to even get a the ticket...half the ticket...hell even a fourth of it. So this huge chunk of money is being spent for an 8 day adventure when kids could live off that money-literally survive for the rest of their live with it. Living here has opened my eyes to so much, and that frivilous nature makes me question him. How can you deny a gift like that you ask? You don't, really. But atleast you treat your girlfriends best friend well, yeah? Wrong. I feel used by him. Only contacted unless he needed something from me and so many attempts at being his friend-loving him as God would want and nothing in return. So he is coming. Right on his way to the orphanage with her, right now from the airport. My stomach is in knots, and I yearn for my Father.

Abba, pick me up. Just place me right back in the center of your will. Not worry about people who don't worry back but just loving everyone, anyway. That's all.

His.

It hits you in very certain moments of stillness or even movement and you know that He has never left you. You know that His grip is firm even when you tried to scramble away and do it on your own. It’s so hysterical how we do that, yeah? God has this intrically perfect plan right in front of our faces and our noses are stuck in the clouds full of meaningless dreams.

The sad part? Well it’s that I already know this. I know that He is crying out,

“DAUGHTER! Hey you, there! Just follow me. Follow my voice, I’ll make sure it’s loud enough to hear.”

…and it always is. We just crowd our minds with thoughts of our own ideas and Satan becomes powerful because we are subconsciously succeeding at silencing our FATHER! Our Dad. But He’s really always louder. It’s just where we choose to put our hope; our passion. Geez why do we do that? Why do we try and try and try even harder to silence the ONLY one who’s got it right. I’ve been realizing a lot of this, lately. Kelsey has a great idea of what she wants to do with her day, her year, her life…her heart. Kelsey has all of these ideas and Kelsey wonders why they never do work out.

Because they are hers, and everything should be His.

Abba.

Abba, I abandon myself into Your hands.

It's crazy how one whisper of "Abba" can bring me so vigorously to my knees. That one simpe word has more power over me than anything. It reminds me of everything that God is to me. He is my Father. He is my Healer. He is my friend. He is my comfortor. He is the most intimate thing in my life, my Abba.

Though calloused and reckless, He sees through it. He sees through my fake exterior of wanting to please people or putting on a show. He knows the cry of my heart saying,

Daddy I'm scared...petrified beyond belief. Help me. 

No matter how courageous my facaud may seem, through the jokes, and through the rambling-there is fear. My joy cannot be eradicated, but my fear is still wild. 

Abba, I pray for strength during the hard places. I pray to keep my mind on you, even when it's dark outside. I pray that I never forget Your son. That I never forget the sacrifice that You made for me. No matter how much I belittle it by thinking I cannot be forgiven, help me to remember that Your sacrifice was big enough; that Your love was strong enough.

And Daddy? I'm so sorry...

Overflow.

One phone call and I know that I need to be there.
With an overload of homework, and a hefty heart, I tread my way to Stillwater.

I spill coffee on my skirt and we laugh in the place where we should be quiet, but it doesn't matter much. We pick up another friend who needs us and we all eat, Japanese style, in this sketchy restaraunt, and we steal the pin and laugh our way to the car.

The friend who needed me dropped me off so she could go to class, and my other friend and I drive around a lake for hours and hours. We talked about the boy who hurt her and the one that hurt me. We laughed that I turned on my blinker with not a car in sight and we talked about God. Deeply and surely we did.

Overflow was an overflow of emotions and I met people that I felt like I already knew. My other friend who has a heart made from gold has me jump in her car and we literally talk for hours, not caring that I would get back at 3am, like I did. Grabbing hold and praying hard, I leave my friend with drooping eyes, but a heart of joy.

God uses me to love others, and loves others enough so that they have leftover love for me. Because I wonder how I am loved, but then I remember the cross. And as repetitive as John 3:16 is, it is never untrue and never seizingly amazing, really.

Remember.

Today I am grateful to the point of exhaustion.
I try and utter simple words of thanks but my voice is too shaky from receiving the grace I've been offered that I turn Shane on loud and I sing the words that come both out of the speaker, and from my voice box.

I turn the steering wheel, hesitant but glad, and I let the hot tears sweep my face because I know that I am madly loved, and undeservingly so.

I sweep all of the dirt from the floor and from the past with shadows and secrets. I don't let anything be uncovered for all this time because I don't want to admit that I was ever weak, and I especially don't want to come to terms with the fact that I still am. And with my Father at my side I will always be weak-but I know He'll be there to catch me. To sweep the dirt off the floor, and my sins out the door, and say to me that I am graciously forgiven.

I sing louder than ever but with joy, mostly. With joy that comes directly from the tears of my Heavenly Father and my earthbound one. I pray for their connection so badly that it consumes me to the point of forgetting about traffic and sitting alone in the middle of the road. But I give this to Him. I really do. I give all of this to my Saviour and my Healer because He is good. He is so damn good.

The funny things is I know that tomorrow I will forget. So Lord fill me up, place my hands in yours, and be my reminder. I can write 70x7 and Zacchaeus and Isaiah on my hand but it's nothing if I forget. Help me to remember, Lord. Remember even when it's hard and even when it hurts. Your joy overcomes; Your grace is the best; and Your love beats it all. I'll try not to forget. Ever again.

Unconditional Love.

Today I learned.

I learned that sometimes grown men cry when they rear-end you.
I learned that sometimes they also drive off.

Today I learned that its good to be put in your place.

It's important to be honest.

And that transparency does nothing but just grow relationships.

Today I learned that people's hearts can be the most forgiving home.

I learned that the joy of the Lord can quiet any doubt; any fear.

Today I learned that Yahweh shows up in even the friendships who don't know Him.

I learned that sometimes He calls us to love people who have hurt us tremendously.

Thanks for sparing me some of that unconditional love you've mastered. You show me more of Christ every day.

Wish you could read this.

(old and edited)