back, again

i am back. not home, but back, yes. i am here in my house with my couch and my bed and my bathroom and my nice American things, my school and my job are close, and today i went to the grocery store and bought milk. it is painful. my feet are warm in slippers and i am wearing a comfortable sweatshirt but my soul hurts. i miss Nicaragua. when we touched ground in the US i could already feel my heart and mind becoming numb to the peace of The Lord as my mind began to race over the things i had to do and the people i had to see and the endless list of why i did not want to go back to my normal life. i cried almost the entire time we were in the seattle airport, watching the rain pour down and feeling the chill, right into my bones.
i'm currently reading a book called Kisses From Katie about a girl named Katie Davis who lives in Uganda and has 14 daughters. I won't go into details about her amazing life but you definitely should read about her here. Her book has caused me to learn how to trust God. not with the kind of trust that i give to my friends, family, peers. not even with the kind of trust that i trust my closest friends with. a new trust, believing that HE WILL and that HE DOES. He will fulfill the promises He makes in His word. He does know the desires of my heart and want joy for me. He is love. and i so often forget that love and joy go hand in hand. blessings don't always come in the way i want them to, and in my humanness, that makes me upset. but i forget that God's blessings for my life are endlessly better for me and will bring me endlessly more joy. I have learned to trust that this is true, the Lord has used Katie Davis in my life in that way.
so even here in the states, where i spend my time wishing to be back in Nicaragua, God is teaching me, blessing me, and bringing me joy. and as i learn to trust Him more and more, i see Him working, everywhere. 
 Before i know it, i will be back in Nicaragua, blown away by the faithfulness of God in knowing the desires of my heart. 

and i trust that to be true.  

sweet love

click here if you are a sap like me

"When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you..."

Isaiah 43:1-7



The Message (MSG)


Isaiah 43


1-4 But now, God's Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob,


the One who got you started, Israel:


"Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you.


I've called your name. You're mine.


When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you.


When you're in rough waters, you will not go down.


When you're between a rock and a hard place,


it won't be a dead end—


Because I am God, your personal God,


The Holy of Israel, your Savior.


I paid a huge price for you:


all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!


That's how much you mean to me!


That's how much I love you!


I'd sell off the whole world to get you back,


trade the creation just for you.


5-7"So don't be afraid: I'm with you.


I'll round up all your scattered children,


pull them in from east and west.


I'll send orders north and south:


'Send them back.


Return my sons from distant lands,


my daughters from faraway places.


I want them back, every last one who bears my name,


every man, woman, and child


Whom I created for my glory,


yes, personally formed and made each one.'"

people

recently, i have been thinking a lot about people. all the people in my life with their different make-ups, ambitions, purposes, loves, passions, needs, wants, desires, relationships, views on life. i feel like i am made up of all of these people, all that they are in my life, all that they do to my heart. i have such a hard time wrapping my mind around who God is, and i know the more days that i walk with Him, the closer i am to knowing exactly who He is. But i forget that we are made in His image. people are literally a small glimpse into the beauty of the Lord. people are beautiful. when i take a moment to actually look at the hearts of people, all of them, i am astounded. even the people i could never see myself being friends with or even liking at all, i find that if i give them the time of day, there is so much beauty to be found.
this is really a reminder to myself, i mean, how often do we as human beings pass by our fellow humans without even thinking anything more than the oh-so-common thought about ourselves? or the even more common judgmental thought, assuming that we know exactly who people are. i walk by the same people everyday in the hallways of my school, and i bet that if i gave one or two of them some time, found out about who they are, i would see beauty.
when i stop judging and start loving, i see beauty.
God has called us to love. God has called us to see the beauty in His people.

change

its amazing how God can change a person in just 2 short weeks. i swear to you that i'm not the same person as when i left the states. i love that God has molded me into more of the girl of God i want to be. i can't wait to see what God reveals to me over the course of this trip. i love being far away from the distractions of the US.

update

guess what? i love nicaragua. i love God. i love the feeling of being close to Him, its so much easier down here where theres nothing but heat and mosquitos to distract you. just thought i should let ya'll know that i God is continuing to work like crazy in my life...its AMAZING to me how much He can do in such a short amount of time. my word of the day: encouragement. God sure knows how to encourage His creations, and recently i have been getting encouragement like crazy.
thanks for reading!
more later : )

places only God can take us

so im here (please excuse the lack of punctuation, keyboards that are spanish and english and really hard to use..). sometimes words just dont describe adequately what im trying to say...this is one of those times. you know what im talking about? im just lost for words at the places God has taken me within these 5 short days. im different than i was when i got here, im new and fresh and can take a deep breath and say thank you to the Lord for knowing what i needed. and i get to spend 3 more weeks here!! AH! thank you for your prayers and for reading. more later when i can figure out how to express myself.

more than a trip

i realized that i should probably share about the amazing opportunity i get to take. on sunday i am flying down to nicaragua to be a photography intern for my uncle's nonprofit organization  Amigos For Christ. this will be my fourth time down, so i am familiar with the place and the process and the people, but this will be my first time going down by myself and being an intern. I'll be down by myself for a week, then my family will fly down for three weeks. so in total, i'll be there a month. what i would ask is that if you are reading this that you would pray for my safety and that i would be seeking God hardcore and serving others like it was the last day i could do so. Right now i need so much filling up in so many different way that i feel like i am going on this trip for myself. but i want to do this for others and for Christ. please pray that my heart would be in a place where God can work with it exactly how He wants and that i would open to whatever He speaks to me. thank you so much for reading and supporting!
i'm leaving sunday night, and i'll try and blog as much as possible while i'm down there, as well as put pictures up from the trip once i'm back to the states.

just some really good tunes to calm the soul

beautiful music here

i just don't think i'll ever get over you- colin hay

from last night

i don't know if you've ever heard the song how he loves us by david crowder*band. I have been listening to it for the last few minutes over and over. when it first came up on shuffle, I didn't really think much of it, and I skipped to the next song. I didn't want to listen to the one after so I skipped again, and a different version of how he loves came up, so I thought maybe I should go back and listen to the original. I hadn't ever really listened to the begining of that song (the church music version) but it starts with only the sound of people talking. Tons of conversations going on. it leaves you wondering what will come next after all the chatting. and then the piano enters and he sings "he is jealous for me". I had never taken into account what all the talking meant. we live our lives everyday without even thinkin for one second about Gods CRAZY love for us. And yet if we were to simply stop listening to the constant noise of this world and tune into the Lord, we would be able to hear Him saying "i'm jealous for you". Go look up the lyrics to that song. It is mind boggling. It doesn't just say "how he loves the nice people" or "how he loves the christians" its says "how he loves us ALL". We're all being loved by God unconditionaly, despite our constant conversation and how much we ignore Him.