be where you are.

i'm not sure what it is about today; maybe the thought of a new month, although not technically part of the summer season, at least characteristically the first of which can be considered summer. maybe the heat has gotten to my head. or maybe the distant dreams of temperature-controlled environments are luring my thoughts to the past and future. days like today make me long for porch-front, iced pink lemonade shared on a swing in the cool of a cabin deep in the mountains of north carolina. or enjoyed with twenty-odd twenty-somethings, eating good barbeque pork sandwiches topped with cole slaw, potato salad, fudge brownies and sweet tea at the pig pickin’ after the spring game. or sipping frozen margaritas with friends al fresco at the neighborhood upscale mexican joint around sunset.

i’m not sure if it’s nostalgia, a longing for the way things once were; or is it a longing for the way my heart secretly desires them to be?

sitting in 100-degree heat, and 114 degree-humidity, dripping sweat in the outfit i wore yesterday (... and the day before) is hardly the glamourous life i thought i once desired. it’s not exactly the summer-life i imagined at 25. summers have always meant a lot to me; time home from college, trips home from nashville, fourth of july, international galavanting, a maggie valley reprieve with 14 of my closest friends. sweating in haiti, teaching for free, becoming besties with strangers from around the world-- not what i envisioned for a season of my life. but rest assured, this experience is one met somewhere along vgotsky’s zone of proximal development (take that, praxis; you thought i’d forget!). the frustration-level is just at where it needs to be so i’m being the most challenged; therefore, learning to my maximum potential and experiencing growth unimaginable.

i’ve done the pig-pickin’, i’ve had my fair share of taco’s in edgehill villa, and i’ll be headed back to maggie valley for a well-timed debrief with my closest crew all at once. but right now, i need to be here. in this moment; not living to re-experience the past, nor to rush the future. i’m living for the moment, in Haiti.

***

i was in the prayer room for the 24 hour burn in worship and prayer, laying down and half-asleep, i was singing with my eyes closed and someone touched my arm. i look up and its the leader from the denver dts, whom i have yet to even meet. he said “i feel like the Lord is trying to tell you to stop trying to please Him. instead, i get this vision of like, a coffee maker, but there’s no pot under it. he’s ready to fill you up, you just have to put your pot under Him.”

it was such a good word, and partially not even the words that were spoken. the fact that God is speaking about me. just that He loves me that much, and cares about me that much, He touched someone else, and said, “go, tell her this for Me.” that is how much God cares about us individually. i’m refreshed in knowing that He loves me so much, even when it takes everything i am to sing a simple praise song some days.

i am feeling worn and tired, but i will praise Him. I declare His goodness, His mercies, His victory. I declare His strength, His rest, His peace. I declare His healing, His comfort, His renewal.

***

a day or two later, again in the prayer room, we prayed for people that needed strength. meaning, phoebe prayed with me. as i had just been journaling thoughts and desires for the future, phoebe came and prayed over me, stating how she feels like i'm so consumed with what God has planned for me after this, that i am missing out on what is happening in the present. she couldn't have been more on point. she reminded me that the Lord was taking care of those details, and that even this adventure was part of His planning and preparation for my life. that i need not worry, because He knows the desires of my heart, and He will fulfill them. Praise God for the encouragement He gives to us through others, and the wisdom and discernment He gives to others for us.