Healing.

It's hard to not have the words.
Not have the wisdom or courage to really know what to say.
Usually you can bring up the Lord and He'll do His thing of weaving in and out and making things known. But sometimes when darkness looms, we lose sight.

We forget why were here. Just here in this moment, maybe. Just not knowing why we're in this heat and humidity and stuck in anything but what we want. But what do we want? Do we want that fresh ressurection of life and trees and the feeling that healing is everywhere in you can pour out your soul, knowing you'll get filled back up by the community you're in. By the nature you're around. By the God who makes it enough. Who makes it, worth it.

Just that. Just this. Just the insence I just bought, and bad converstions you have to have inorder for the good to come again. In order for clarity and in order for healing, I guess.

Miracles and Realizations.

I look at their little black faces and my heart is burning and I can't sit still. I can't move but just wanna move, all at the same time. So many emotions, but only the most important holds it's own.

My sister went into the ER a few days ago with just something a little more severe than the flu. They put her on an IV and then sent her on her merry way. None of us too worried, because her health isn't exaclty ideal. Never has been. Then two days ago she goes back to the ER only to be admitted into the hospital because she had a hole in her esophagus and was throwing up blood. So my whole family, besides me, headed up to Tulsa to be with her...sit with her...and tell her it's gunna be okay. Which it was. Which it is. Then she stopped breathing. Right then and there she couldn't catch her breath. So they put her on the heart level and she's on oxygen and being watched like a hawk. She has this disease that I can't even pronounce much less spell out. 10 in 40,000,000 people get it, so you can imagine our hysteria. Her throat had been closing up, and she almost suffocated to death. As my mother is telling me all of this, over the phone, I just couldn't even speak. I couldn't breathe myself, as I thought about not having her. About how I never see her, I never talk to her, but she means the world to me. I thought about our relationship...how tattered and broken it is. I thought about how much she has hurt me to the point where I never thought I'd heal again. And then I thought about the cross. I thought about how nothing about Jesus's life and death was really all that fair because this perfect man died the worst death. But I thought about how that fact and that grace should make my heart the most forgiving home. And so I forgive my sister, I apologize for not being a good little sister, and I pray.

Late last night my sister's throat closed up and she almost suffocated...and died.
This morning she spoke...this afternoon she swallowed.
And now? She's home. Lord I'm falling on my knees, right now.

Kisses from Katie.

"Do not forget in the darkness what you have been promised in the light.

It happens all too easily. A rough day (or several in a row this week...) and I forget. We all do. It becomes to easy to look around and think. "Why? Why do I do this?" "Why take one more child, why live with less so we can give to others more, why leave family and friends to go to a land of strangers, WHAT am I doing here?" I do not usually forget the answer, "For Jesus. Because He called me to this." But far to often I repeat that over and over to myself and forget what it MEANS. It means that it has been granted to me, it is my PRIVILEDGE, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him. (Philippians 1:29) That suffering is not alone, but is with Him, and oh what a priviledge it is just to be able to be in His presence, to share that with my sweet Savior. That I do it for JESUS, "who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself NOTHING taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!" (Liking Philippians today 2:5-11)

It is so simple, and yet this weekend it seemed hard to remember.

The anger of Friday melted into grief, into crying out to the Lord and asking Him how I could more effectively serve His people. As God would have it, the day after Friday is Saturday, and there really is no better affirmation than 350 children flooding through my gate to worship the Lord and eat chicken together. As satan would have it, later that night I found that several people who I have grwon to love and trust have cheated and lied to and stolen from me. The details are not important, but needless to say, I ended the day feeling betrayed and alone, again questioning, "What is it all for." I woke up (did I ever sleep?) Sunday morning to diahreah all over EVERYTHING in Grace and Jane's bed. (I know that is kind of a gross thing to share, but I am trying to paint a picture of my destparation for you here ;) ). The girls had decided to make the best of the situation and proceed to pain everything in the room with poop. Great. After deciding that church was more important than poop, I threw all the sheets in the bathtub and rounded up the gang, but only after packing up all Michael's clothes, lots of long-life milk and multivitamins for him. He was going home.

I cried through the service at the thought of having to take him back. This precious child that I had so fallen in love with going back to a place where there was no garuntee that his mother would not simply sell the milk we sent with Him. And God spoke so plainly. He did not appologize for my heartache, even better, He shared it. He KNEW. Because the pain in my heart at having to give up a little boy that I have loved for a month did not even come close to the pain it cause Him to give up His only Son. And He did that for me. The pain in my hear that felt so unbearable was just a fraction of what he felt when He sent His ONE AND ONLY CHILD to save us, to allow us to spend eternity with Him. Wow.

That is what it means that I do this for Jesus. HE loved me first. I love Him back. And sometimes it hurts. But even then it is pure joy to even be considered worthy to share in His suffering. That is the promise. Not that He is sorry that it hurts. But that He sees. That He knows. That He is here with us."

One of the most incredible people I've ever gotten to know through just her words. Hope I can meet her someday.

Worth it.

Though I was once fretting the down-time I have between my classes on Tuesdays and Thursday...I now see the blessing. I'm reading Katie's blog. Just letting it soak in and remembering how I'm alive and why I'm alive and as I walk through the hallways once feeling the lonliness that this school brings-I remember the fact that I have an education when many do not.

I remember when I used to just crave drugs and alcohol. Seemingly thinking about it every other minute of the day and going to class high because the world seemed emptier when I was sober.

I remember when I used to not want to believe in God. How it pained me to think of Him and when I did I would just cry. Not because I missed Him, but more-so because I was just so angry at Him and couldn't imagine my heavenly father bringing me so much pain, when my earthly father did enough, already.

Then I read these words in this blog and I want to cry for ever doing those things and thinking those feelings. I submerge myself in the same pain and wonder why God let me live. Why I was the blessed one when I have messed up and hated the only One who will ever love me enough.

But then there's this freedom. This knowing that with every day God brings me to my knees and with every day He reminds me why I'm here. Even just for this moment, Africa makes my struggles worth it. Africa defeats my inadequacy for the fact that God put this desire in my heart, and doesn't do that with everyone. That I am blessed with this passion, and even more blessed to expirience the freedom that comes with it. That when I feel anxious or nervous about this calling...I just think about how God provides.

And then I think more and remember more about the deaf boy from Africa who was healed. I think about how Caitlyn was released from her abusive home and I think about how Hunter's sister doesn't have to have brain surgery. I think about all that I've been blessed with and as I walk through the halls again, today, I just pray. That's pretty much all that I do as I walk between the busy people with cluttered thoughts. I just free my mind and let Jesus come in and remind me why I'm alive. And it makes today worth it, and tomorrow worth it, and it makes January all the more...worth it.