Grace

A song lyrics that sums up much of what I feel about life and love:

"Maybe herein lies the place where grace starts
When we're both lost and God is found"

There is something beautiful in our brokenness.

The World Is Lesser When You Leave

I usually adore the summer as I find so much joy in enjoying the outdoors, spending time at the pool, and having more time with friends, sitting on porches and talking about life, grilling out, going to amusement parks and just generally enjoying a fuller, richer kind of life surrounded by people I love a whole lot. This has been a different kind of summer for me as I feel like I've spent the vast majority of it alone. I've missed Kenny, I've missed Julie, I've missed Ashley, I've missed Cameron, I've missed Lindsey, I've missed Jen: all of the people that make Nashville really feel like home to me. It's funny how I usually enjoy solitude when I feel like I have some stolen moments away from the whole world. But I have found over the past few months that those moments lose their splendor when they are not sandwiched within the joy of community. I understand why we are not islands, why we were made to live in fellowship with one another, and why we were made to learn from and with our friends. I've had a hard week, made harder by the fact that I don't feel like there is a release from it, when I can be with people that really know and love me, with whom I can be honest when my life is less than perfect and who will love me, not in spite of, but maybe even because of my shortcomings. So hurry home, sweet friends. Know that you leave a great void and that I am eager to celebrate the joy I find in all of you.

Fulfillment

From Reflections for Ragamuffins by Phillip Yancey:

"We recognize that Jesus responds to needs and desires we've long had, perhaps without being fully aware of them. He speaks to our innermost being, supplies our needs, satisfies our desires. In Him the obscure is illuminated, the uncertain yields to certain, insecurity is replaced by a deep sense of security. In Him, we find that we have come to understand many things that baffled us. The encounter with Jesus awakens us to possibilities we have never seen, and we know that this Person is what we have been seeking."

"Delight yourself in the Lord

and He will give you the desires of your heart."
~Psalm 37:4

Perspective

Mother Theresa was quoted to say, "Let my heart be broken by that which breaks the heart of God." It was my prayer as I went to Mexico. And it has been a bittersweet one to have answered.

I thought I knew what poverty looked like until I stepped into the colonia. This cardboard village was filled with people living in such devastating conditions, tiny homes of boxes, crates, tires, scraps, with dirt floors and few contents. But the most remarkable part to me was that the people living there had such joy: true, unabashed joy. They were thankful for what they had and they were generous with it. I was amazed that any time we would give out of our plenitude, they would reciprocate out of their poverty. And they would do so without hesitation. It was a beautiful picture of priorities. In our culture, we focus so much on what we have and how we can protect it. How humbling to see a world that finds their joy in bigger things: faith, family, community.

It's funny how I went into this trip, eager to teach, to serve and to build and instead, I learned, I received, and I was broken.

I Ain't No Country Song

Toby Keith has a song with the line in it, "What happens down in Mexico, stays in Mexico..." I've spent the past week trying to figure out how to put into words the way my trip to Juarez impacted my life. It struck me this morning that I won't have one massive blog summarizing everything I learned in Mexico, but rather, my trip will be in everything I write from this point forward because it now ingrained into the fiber of who I am. Simply put, what happened in Mexico, certainly won't stay there for me....