Well...I've been in the US for a week now!
All at once it seems like I just got here...and like I've been here for a lot longer than a week.
Last summer was my first visit back to the US after living in Tanzania... I arrived here knowing the date I would return to Tanzania and what I would be doing when I returned there.
This summer... I don't know. I don't have a date for when I will return. That is sort of up to God. I'm pretty certain of what I will be doing when I return...but even that is not 100% sure. I don't know where I will be living... or even where I will stay while I find my own home.
There are a lot of unknowns, but I won't get into all that right now. What I'm thinking of with this post is the strange feeling of having two places that feel like home.
I have lived in Tanzania for the past two years and from the moment I arrived there it has felt quite like home to me. When I leave there...I feel I am leaving my home. I miss my friends and family and remind myself I will see them soon.
I have spent most of my life living in Louisiana...considerably longer than the amount of time I have spent in Tanzania...and coming here, well... it feels like coming home. I am excited to see the friends and family I have been missing for so long! It's sort of an odd place to be in...I am leaving home...to come home.
The thing that makes Tanzania home...is the people. The wonderful friends and family that I have there that make me feel loved and welcome and let me know they are happy for me to be there.
The thing that makes Louisiana home...is the people. :) For the same... exact... reason!
You know what that tells me? It tells me that it's possible to have a lot more than two places that feel like home :) I think that's pretty awesome!
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Here it is...
Here it is again...the end.
The end of a set period of time. Teaching has measured out my life in a way that I never experienced when I was working in an office. The end of school is sort of like the end of the year...it leaves me in a state of reflection before the beginning of something new.
There are all these thoughts running through my mind about where I was at the beginning of the school year compared to where I am now. Thinking of all the changes that have taken place in my life, my heart, and my mind over the past 10 months along with the memories and experiences that I have gained in that time. .
Sometimes it can begin to seem like I'm just living life and nothing much is happening...days run together into weeks and then months...and then almost an entire year has passed. As the days run together into a lifetime, some moments stand out. You know those moments that feel life-changing? Sometimes you see it as it's happening, sometimes you see it when you look back...but they are always there.
Those moments can feel sudden, like something just clicked into place all at once...but in reality there have been all these smaller moments, going unnoticed, that have led, step-by-step to that very noticeable life-altering moment.
It can seem as if something comes from nothing...all in that moment. But that's not really what's going on. Right now, I feel as if several things are falling into place in my life in areas where I have had quite a bit of uncertainty, and as those things "fall into place" - with what seems like effortless grace - it can feel as if I have struggled through all this uncertainty and now suddenly it's just clicking.
But during the uncertainty and the shifting, during the transformation that was happening so slowly that I didn't even see it... there were moments where I made choices. I made a choice to go one direction instead of another, I made a choice to follow where I believed God was leading me instead of where I may have wanted to go, I made a choice to leave behind things that were comfortable and known in favor of following the path that I believe God is leading me on.
It's in those moments that the shift begins...it's in those moments of decision and choice that the life-altering moments (those ones that happen so suddenly, ya know?) are born. Those life-changing moments really begin in the middle of the days where it seems as if life is just slowly passing by and maybe I'm not doing much. Because really I'm doing a lot, even though it seems that I'm not doing much...I'm listening for God and I'm following His lead - and that's just about the biggest thing I can do.
So...here's to life-changing moments and a future that has been totally planned out by my loving Father!!!
The end of a set period of time. Teaching has measured out my life in a way that I never experienced when I was working in an office. The end of school is sort of like the end of the year...it leaves me in a state of reflection before the beginning of something new.
There are all these thoughts running through my mind about where I was at the beginning of the school year compared to where I am now. Thinking of all the changes that have taken place in my life, my heart, and my mind over the past 10 months along with the memories and experiences that I have gained in that time. .
Sometimes it can begin to seem like I'm just living life and nothing much is happening...days run together into weeks and then months...and then almost an entire year has passed. As the days run together into a lifetime, some moments stand out. You know those moments that feel life-changing? Sometimes you see it as it's happening, sometimes you see it when you look back...but they are always there.
Those moments can feel sudden, like something just clicked into place all at once...but in reality there have been all these smaller moments, going unnoticed, that have led, step-by-step to that very noticeable life-altering moment.
It can seem as if something comes from nothing...all in that moment. But that's not really what's going on. Right now, I feel as if several things are falling into place in my life in areas where I have had quite a bit of uncertainty, and as those things "fall into place" - with what seems like effortless grace - it can feel as if I have struggled through all this uncertainty and now suddenly it's just clicking.
But during the uncertainty and the shifting, during the transformation that was happening so slowly that I didn't even see it... there were moments where I made choices. I made a choice to go one direction instead of another, I made a choice to follow where I believed God was leading me instead of where I may have wanted to go, I made a choice to leave behind things that were comfortable and known in favor of following the path that I believe God is leading me on.
It's in those moments that the shift begins...it's in those moments of decision and choice that the life-altering moments (those ones that happen so suddenly, ya know?) are born. Those life-changing moments really begin in the middle of the days where it seems as if life is just slowly passing by and maybe I'm not doing much. Because really I'm doing a lot, even though it seems that I'm not doing much...I'm listening for God and I'm following His lead - and that's just about the biggest thing I can do.
So...here's to life-changing moments and a future that has been totally planned out by my loving Father!!!
Friday, June 10, 2016
God is good...
I was sitting here tonight thinking...God is good... and
after that thought passed through my mind it was followed with the
thought "God is good, even when life isn't". Those two thoughts are
what prompted all that follows ;)
Sometimes things happen that just aren't fair. I know, I know "life isn't fair" and we can't expect it to be... the word fair doesn't even really apply I guess, but... that's just the best way I know to describe some of the sad things that happen in life.
There are so many things in life that are just "not fair" - someone you love dies and you are left with a gaping hole in your life... you're faced with a devastating illness... a relationship falls apart... your family isn't there for you... this list could go on and on.
I'm not facing any "unfair" things at the moment, but I know some people who are and it makes my heart sad for them. I've faced plenty of unfair things in my life and I know it can be so hard to focus on anything other than the difficulty you are facing.
God *is* good. Every single day, He is good and He is loving. But when you are wading through the hard stuff...it's easy to become so focused on the pain of whatever quicksand is dragging you down, that you lose sight of the fact that God is still good and He has a wonderful plan for your life.
I've been there...I've been in a place where my circumstances sort of got on top of me and overwhelmed me (it wasn't just once either...it's happened a few times), we've all been there. God created us to experience emotions, and when sad things happen...we will experience grief and all the other emotions that accompany those unfair things of life.
And here is the real point of this post - a verse that has been a great source of comfort to me at times when I was walking through some of those unfair life experiences...
Isaiah 43:2
When you go through deep waters,
I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.
There have been times when I just read these verses and cried because that felt like all I could do in that moment. I believe that in those moments where we can do nothing but cry...our tears are filled with all the words we are unable to speak...and God hears them. I think that these verses perfectly describe those times that the unfairness of life has left me feeling overwhelmed. I've had times when I literally felt I was drowning, so oppressed by sorrow and hurt that I wasn't sure I could continue breathing... If you've felt that way...do you see the description of that feeling here in these verses?
God is good...even when life isn't. And when life isn't good...God is right there with us. Walking alongside us. He holds our head above the ocean of sorrow that threatens to drown us. He protects us from the flames that would destroy us. He is there with us no matter what is going on in our lives. That doesn't mean the painful stuff doesn't hurt...it just means we have a good baba (Swahili for father) who holds us in His arms and comforts us when the hurt comes.
Sometimes things happen that just aren't fair. I know, I know "life isn't fair" and we can't expect it to be... the word fair doesn't even really apply I guess, but... that's just the best way I know to describe some of the sad things that happen in life.
There are so many things in life that are just "not fair" - someone you love dies and you are left with a gaping hole in your life... you're faced with a devastating illness... a relationship falls apart... your family isn't there for you... this list could go on and on.
I'm not facing any "unfair" things at the moment, but I know some people who are and it makes my heart sad for them. I've faced plenty of unfair things in my life and I know it can be so hard to focus on anything other than the difficulty you are facing.
God *is* good. Every single day, He is good and He is loving. But when you are wading through the hard stuff...it's easy to become so focused on the pain of whatever quicksand is dragging you down, that you lose sight of the fact that God is still good and He has a wonderful plan for your life.
I've been there...I've been in a place where my circumstances sort of got on top of me and overwhelmed me (it wasn't just once either...it's happened a few times), we've all been there. God created us to experience emotions, and when sad things happen...we will experience grief and all the other emotions that accompany those unfair things of life.
And here is the real point of this post - a verse that has been a great source of comfort to me at times when I was walking through some of those unfair life experiences...
Isaiah 43:2
When you go through deep waters,
I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.
There have been times when I just read these verses and cried because that felt like all I could do in that moment. I believe that in those moments where we can do nothing but cry...our tears are filled with all the words we are unable to speak...and God hears them. I think that these verses perfectly describe those times that the unfairness of life has left me feeling overwhelmed. I've had times when I literally felt I was drowning, so oppressed by sorrow and hurt that I wasn't sure I could continue breathing... If you've felt that way...do you see the description of that feeling here in these verses?
God is good...even when life isn't. And when life isn't good...God is right there with us. Walking alongside us. He holds our head above the ocean of sorrow that threatens to drown us. He protects us from the flames that would destroy us. He is there with us no matter what is going on in our lives. That doesn't mean the painful stuff doesn't hurt...it just means we have a good baba (Swahili for father) who holds us in His arms and comforts us when the hurt comes.
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