But the greatest of these.

Hey friends and family,

Life is very different day to day. I'd try to update you on what I've been doing, but it's just not that easy. For me, accomplishment and activity occur more in my mind and in my heart than in my physical body. Sure, I stay busy. You all know that about me. I'm good at doing stuff, checking off the list of things I've got to finish, trying to understand what I'm doing with my life. The other night I reread over my journals from a few months ago, the time when I was trying to figure out what I was doing after I came home from Asia. My gosh, I was stressed out. Looking at my thoughts on paper, it's a wonder I made it through that time. I made some stupid choices, I hurt people I love deeply, but I was just trying to "figure out" what to do. So much of me believed that there was this answer looming in the mist of my mind and if I just looked hard enough, squinted long enough, and stood in the dark and cold forest of confusion, the sun would come up and I'd see what the light was shining upon...and walk towards that.
Then the tsunami happened and my world was rocked. I cried for 4 days and don't remember eating much or leaving the house. I couldn't stop watching CNN. Everything inside of me responded to the need there and thank the Lord I was able to go for a week and not really do anything...but instead to use my mind and my heart to intercede for those people who had lost everything that humanity values: family, home, belongings, safety.
In many ways, that trip changed my life. Not because of what I saw or what I knew I had to do, but because of what I knew I enjoyed doing. I enjoyed being in Asia, so I came home and found a way to live there again. I enjoyed watching people question their God and respond to Christ, so I chose to return to the places of the world which God has given me a never-ending call to--in one way or another. I valued and grew from the presence of Tim in my life, so I waited for that relationship to develop as God saw fit.
But things change. My heart doesn't feel that same conviction for Asia and for living there as it did six months ago. I still WANT to go, much like I want many things in my life. I still CHOOSE to go, because I know I'll be in God's will and am, as Stephen said last night, "returning to his lap". For me, my time in Asia is not over and I'll continue to go there and be there until it is time to leave. This doesn't scare me, it just means--as it always has before--that I loose lots of things and people I love in the meantime.
"New growths insensibly bud upward to fill each vacated place. Unforeseen accidents hinder intentions, and old plans are forgotten." Hardy has said this sentence and I've repeated it I don't know how many times in my life. I seem to have many "new growths" and forgotten old plans...even the most foolproof plan possible, even the ones I went into without doubt or fear. It's amazing how off you can be, or how easily you can loose something you love.

So today finds me back where I started. Me, God, Asia. I love that. I love that God has called me to Asia and that He's real enough to me that the loss of other things that are definately important is just a part of serving such a living and real God. A God who is worth those losses, however great they are. A God who has more desire for his children to return to him than for those children to have it easy or breezy in this life.
I see God mightly at work here. So much of me aches at leaving a place like this, a place where I never thought I had a role to play...but where I now know I could stay and be in His will just as completely as I will be when I leave. Sometimes life gives you choices and you choose based on a moment, or on a series of moments which you know you can depend on, moments which God had so saturated with his presence that you know to return to an old place will provide more of the same. But believe me, I could definately see myself staying here. That's the difference from this time and the last, and I've told all of you this. That sometimes you just take something and run with it, and you trust that if it's giving God glory, if that is your intention, then he'll make up for your losses.

Last night one of my closest friends called me to say his cousin had shot himself in the heart, his wife and baby boy watching. My friend was so disturbed and also thankful that his own life hasn't ended in much the same way. In that moment of pain that I felt for him, I remembered that our stories are what we share with the world. And my story has impacted people in Nashville over the last year. It's brought me new and amazing friends, it's strengthened old bonds, and it's weakened others. But our life is most definately a gift. A gift we have the power to reject, to mistreat, to throw to the pigs, or to use for good. All I'm trying to do is use my life for good, to learn how to love people well. And we need love everywhere, not just in Asia. We need love in Nashville to comfort the wife and child who have just witnessed a murder. We need love to heal them, to fill up the gaping hole that bullet left in their own hearts, to show them that their life's purpose carries on, and that God makes up for our losses.

I encourage you, wherever you are today, to press on. Press on towards Christ in your world today. For some of you, that's an office. For others, that's a living room as a mother. For still others that's a school room or a university. And for myself and many I know who are abroad, that's a foreign country where some days fly by like a hare and others crawl like a tortise.
The world's pain is very real and we've got the power through Christ to comfort a lost and dying world and to teach them what faith, hope and love are by living them out in our own lives. So walk towards your light, out of your dark forest of confusion, and down the path that leads to peace. Share your story. Believe in the power of the good you have full access to. Don't be afraid of doubt, and don't allow it to take from you things you know you value deep down inside of your heart. Allow God to be the thief of your insecurities and the thoughts which tell you it all has to make sense and YOU must be the catalyst for clarity in your mind. Because the bottom line is that nothing really makes sense until we get to heaven and we know in full, we see a full reflection as in a mirror. And that in the meantime, 3 things will remain. Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is most definately love.