I've been back in the States for two and a half months now. Two and a half months, and I am still being changed by what I experienced last semester. Two and a half months, and the adventure is nowhere near being over. Two and a half months, and I am just beginning to understand the God I came face to face with on the other side of the world.
He challenged me. He confronted me. He pushed me. He annihilated my comfort zone. He swept me off my feet. He changed everything about me.
How?
He wounded me deeply.
And I thank him for it every day.
God brought me face to face with the suffering of his people. With the needs, hopes, desires and dreams of his most beloved children. He broke my heart for what breaks his. And I am just beginning to understand what that really means.
Coming home was crazy. It was Christmas, I was working, and I had a bunch of friends to try and catch up with before I headed back to Nashville. Nashville came, and I had a new roommate to get used to living with. School came, and I had severe reverse culture shock to face. And throughout all of that, God deemed it a good time to make me wild and panic-inducing promises.
And now, all of that has quieted down. Two months into school, and this is the first week that my head has actually been quiet. No more crazy bouts of spiritual warfare (they were ridiculously intense for a while, in response to God's wild promises) a new level of understanding with my roommate, and I have adjusted to living life as a different person.
What lay beneath all that noise, waiting for my life to settle enough for my stubborn self to pay attention? That deeply wounded, deeply pained, deeply distraught heart that God fostered in me for his people. It lay dormant for a while, hovering just beneath the surface, waiting for the quiet moment it needed to re-emerge.
Re-emerge it did. With fervor. With fire.
"For I have come to set the world on fire." Luke 12:49
I feel called. But I do not know to what, exactly. I feel driven by this wonderfully wounded heart of mine, but I have been wondering to what. I'm not sure. But sitting around waiting for divine inspiration is a surefire way to suffocate the stirring of the Spirit in me. No, lack of concrete direction is no excuse for lack of action.
God has laid a project on my heart to figure it out: find out what other people around Nashville are doing. What moved them? What need did they see that God drove them to meet? Every time, I hear God tell me the same thing: talk to the people around me. Talk to the people who give of themselves every day. I'm assuming that the more I talk to people and find out how they put their wounded hearts to action, it will become clear how God plans to put mine into action. Or it'll be something completely different.
Either way, here we go.
He challenged me. He confronted me. He pushed me. He annihilated my comfort zone. He swept me off my feet. He changed everything about me.
How?
He wounded me deeply.
And I thank him for it every day.
God brought me face to face with the suffering of his people. With the needs, hopes, desires and dreams of his most beloved children. He broke my heart for what breaks his. And I am just beginning to understand what that really means.
Coming home was crazy. It was Christmas, I was working, and I had a bunch of friends to try and catch up with before I headed back to Nashville. Nashville came, and I had a new roommate to get used to living with. School came, and I had severe reverse culture shock to face. And throughout all of that, God deemed it a good time to make me wild and panic-inducing promises.
And now, all of that has quieted down. Two months into school, and this is the first week that my head has actually been quiet. No more crazy bouts of spiritual warfare (they were ridiculously intense for a while, in response to God's wild promises) a new level of understanding with my roommate, and I have adjusted to living life as a different person.
What lay beneath all that noise, waiting for my life to settle enough for my stubborn self to pay attention? That deeply wounded, deeply pained, deeply distraught heart that God fostered in me for his people. It lay dormant for a while, hovering just beneath the surface, waiting for the quiet moment it needed to re-emerge.
Re-emerge it did. With fervor. With fire.
"For I have come to set the world on fire." Luke 12:49
I feel called. But I do not know to what, exactly. I feel driven by this wonderfully wounded heart of mine, but I have been wondering to what. I'm not sure. But sitting around waiting for divine inspiration is a surefire way to suffocate the stirring of the Spirit in me. No, lack of concrete direction is no excuse for lack of action.
God has laid a project on my heart to figure it out: find out what other people around Nashville are doing. What moved them? What need did they see that God drove them to meet? Every time, I hear God tell me the same thing: talk to the people around me. Talk to the people who give of themselves every day. I'm assuming that the more I talk to people and find out how they put their wounded hearts to action, it will become clear how God plans to put mine into action. Or it'll be something completely different.
Either way, here we go.
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