a raw honest post..... an edited post I wrote right before I moved to Denver. Probably even more true today.

My heart is churning, growing, learning. My mind is getting ready to jump. God is teaching me about me.

I don’t do cross cultural experiences like most people do. My culture shock is different, my rate of change is different. Other people well they seem to change the second they get there. I get home 4 months go by and then all the sudden I go wait a minute, who exactly was I six months ago?
Uganda changed the way I saw the world. England, well England changed the way I view my self. I have come to realize awful things about how I was operating preLondon. I had a huge pride problem that stemmed from anxiety. And I’m pretty sure I hurt a lot of people around me, possibly even myself.  I’m sorry, I am so sorry. I forgot that I was a daughter of the King of Kings, that was a worse sinner than I thought but who served a God greater than I could imagine. I couldn’t see my own sin and because of that my heart was hard.  When I finally realized I truly needed to lay everything at his feet and that it would be okay. But when I did that, When I said God you can even have MY aspirations for overseas ministry, well things slowly started to change.
 Slowly, the gospel began to permeate my heart. Slowly, I started to realize that I could use this heart God’s given me for his people WHEREVER I AM. That I have to learn how to use this heart here too. So my focus changed. Even though the plans aren’t different the focus changed from me asking God, where can I serve you, to asking him God let me LOVE, let me love your people, refined my motives, cleanse my heart. Let me reach people for their good and your glory and not for my own good.
 Slowly God re lit a flame in my heart. A flame for the people who have ran away or have been discarded by Christianity.  A flame for the people who don’t believe they fit in God’s heart, because they don’t fit in the christian culture/ bubble we have created. A flame that was birthed because I didn’t fit, because I have been forgotten and unloved.
I’m the odd ball that can’t talk right and talks too much. I’m the girl who was friendless at a christian high school.  PreLondon’s strive for worldly acceptance caused my to cast this aside.  It caused me to forget how uniquely me, God made me. And because I was living in this cistern of acceptance so deep I couldn’t even see my way to the top to realize what was going on, and my anxiety that caused me to put on the I’m great I have everything figured out face.
I don’t have everything figured out.
I I’m still afraid to trust. I’m still afraid to be truly and completely open. But I’m tired of hiding, I’m tired of boasting, I’m ready for living. I’m ready to jump feet first into Denver with my guards down and without a plan. I’m ready to get out of my bubble and to learn to love. But will you please pray for me, because I’m shaking in my boots.

A glimpse into my heart

I think part of the reason I feel so called to overseas, is it is cultures and God's creation where I see God.  It's where God reveals himself to me. Just think about it God created culture. There is a reason he made people to not be alike. There is a reason Nigerians eat Fufu and Ugandans eat Matoke. And it's beautiful it's absolutely beautiful.We all say that God made each of us to be individuals to be unique. Well God also made community's to be unique too and this uniqueness is what we call culture.  Yet, we live in cultural Ghettos, hanging out with people who think, dress, and act like us. St. Augustine address this he says “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” Reading only a page of a book, well that's just plumb awful. And think about this more. How much more awful would it be to read a book and only like the pages that are like your page. Well it would be like saying I only like 1 John, I don't like the rest of the bible. But all of scripture proclaims the glory of God, and so does his creation. It is beautiful because God created it in his image.  In heaven it will be so beautiful when all the cultures are joined together praising God, just like it will be that all God's people are joined together. Why isn't though that we refuse to participate in this glimpse of heaven here. Why do we segregate? Why do we hang out with people just like us?
Because we are fallen, and part of our fallen nature is wanting safety, easiness. Nothing to be hard. Crossing Cultures is hard, partly because it requires us to be selfless and admit that everything we think and do is not right, That there isn't a right or wrong way to do some things. But friend disappointment, sadness, struggle those aren't sins. God is sinless yet we break his heart when we sin. So Why do we make life so easy, and ignore the fullness that God has given us right here on the earth?

Faith

I often fear that I don't have things right. That I might be missing God or following the wrong things. This comes from my own personal church history background, which I won't go into. But I want to make sure that I am following God with all my heart and all of my mind.* Whatever it might look like. Starting this summer God has lead me on a path of realizing how sinful I am, but how great he is. He is so very great friends, and he is so powerful, ALL powerful.
But it has lead me to this place. This place of knowing I can't have all the answers it's not possible. We are too fallen to have all the answers,  but friends don't lose hope! For GOD IS MORE POWERFUL AND LOVING AND FAITHFUL THAN WE CAN IMAGINE. I don't need all the answers, I just need to wake up everyday picking up my cross and carrying it daily, laying myself and my plans at his feet. One thing i know for sure, God has called all of us to love EVERYONE. And not economical love which is conditional, but AGAPE unconditional love. Love with out expecting anything in return, agendaless love. Love like he first showed us.

*friends after the fall I had it is a very big thing I just said that, God is faithful in our weakness!

A modern day Moses
waking the streets
With shouts of glory and blistered feet
He's met the maker he's met the reason he's alive
And he's on fire inside
A modern day mother, living in the slums
Feeding the hungry, making sure the race gets run
Always asking if we fought with steady feet
She fights on her knees
Let my people go
A modern day Martin in a world of civil words exchanged
But dreaming bigger thinks maybe he can make the change
He's heard the stories, he wants some of his own
And he's not alone
The time is now the moment's here, walk in faith or stand in fear
Change the course of History, did you ever think?
No one ever thought-who would have believed?
A modern day me what have I become what can I be?
If there is greatness out there to be achieved
I want to be more than someone who just passes through this life
I want to stand up for what is right

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tanyachen/instagrams-of-everyday-africa-that-prove-theyre-so-much-m

This speaks volumes about journalism priorities to me

We must stop. If this was Europe or America it would be headline news EVERYWHERE (good job CNN). We must stop seeing people as others, and seek to see everyone in a similar light.

The Future

Okay so as anyone who has been at UrbanPromise or has hung out with me in the past 6 months knows, I've been struggling with the future BIG time.  There is so much that I want to do and well what seems like little guidance on what I should do.
Which is scary for a girl that feels like God has very clearly lead her to different places the past 5 year. USP, CCU, UP God showed up and clearly pushed me to go the places he sent me.
 But I'm doing better now
Thanks to a wonderful intern from my study abroad program I started reading this book called Just Do something. and well it made me look at the whole thing differently. I've started to look at how God has made me, what are the desires he has placed in my heart. In a nutshell what makes sense for me to do next, here is a list of things I have come up with:

1. International, I LOVED studying in college and God has given me this huge heart for the world, I feel like I am not being faithful if I am not using it. The best way I can describe it is it's like having a gift and love of singing, and never worshiping God with song. 
2. Relationships, Wherever I am I must be able to grow in relationship and have a true Christlike community.
3. Location, Preferably Denver, near Birmingham, or international, but I'll go ANYWHERE for the right opportunity
4. I want to join people together, I want to seek reconciliation 
5. I want to learn, I want to live a lifestyle of learning, always finding out new things, always seeking to understand the world around me further

So there it is,  now here is finding out what this looks like ... let the adventure begin