I Am the Smallest One...and Yet He Cares for Me

My life's ambition...

How many of you can answer that question or can name people who think in that way? I wonder in this world...this world filled with people who are obsessed with being entertained and with themselves--and I fall into this category lately more often than I had hoped.

I guess as this year comes to a close...I feel disappointed. I know I shouldn't, and even as I write it down I feel as though it is a lie from the enemy--but it's still there. And I should deal with it, not just push it away. Why am I disappointed?

Because this year has been a big one for me. I graduated, got a new (temporary) job, moved into an apartment...that's a lot of change and many things to celebrate. But I feel alone...I feel alone so much of the time and maybe that's it. Maybe I wish...a lot of things, ordinary things. This is going to be a strange sort of wish list, but I wish I didn't seem so strong and confident. I wish...well, I could say a lot of things, but just to be "wanted", "appreciated", "looked out for"...

And...I wish I didn't want that.

I wish that I was enough and then I wish I knew how to live out my life as an adult...how do you create friendships when your friends no longer live down the hall? How do you...? I just suck at being a good friend!! Haha...

Anyways, I have been, in a way, "cut down to size" this year. I'm not known on every hallway I walk down, I can go a whole day without having a meaningful conversation, and my life is small. So small...if I failed or moved forward...not that many people would notice. That's a good thing to realize...difficult too.

Haha...God is humbling me. And how I needed it! I hope it never ends...

There are many things in front of me. I write that with great difficulty, because the truth is, as sure as I am of my future, I have no idea how it will come to pass. Sure, there are things in front of me, but I don't see how any of them will lead me to where He says I'm going. How does getting a teaching credential prepare you to change the nation of Haiti?

Two things I am seeing this Christmas break:
1. I have forgotten to trust the Lord and put my hope in Him.
2. I have forgotten how to delight in the Lord.

My only plea: "Restore to me the joy of my salvation!"

My life's ambition used to be to get to the nation of Haiti and do some good...then it changed: I just wanted others to know Him. Now...now...I don't know. It feels bleak...but things can turn around. Things will turn around: God is on my side.

"I have set the LORD always before me;
because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken." Psalm 16:8

Valley of Achor...Teach me Your Songs

It's vacation...thus...I throw my sleep schedule entirely off :)

I also realize a lot of things...haha. Like that my life doesn't matter as much...but it's my life and so it means something. And my faith isn't what I thought it was...because I'm not who I thought I was--but that doesn't change who my God is--and He is constantly reaching for me, even on the days when I feel furthest from Him.

This time last year I was freaking out because I realized I liked a boy--and I liked him a lot more than I even cared to admit to myself! I can remember being so frightened by that realization...I had been moving so fast before that time that I could just ignore the feelings brewing. But then Christmas break came and I had so much time to sit and think--and it was so...exhausting! I cried a lot, mainly because I also realized at that time that I had no idea what the future held and no plans.

A year later...I can see a future of some sort materializing in front of me. Sometimes it seems rather bleak and other days everything seems possible. Today was an in-between sort of day, more blah than anything. A day when your mistakes float up toward you in the silence and you miss certain people. I especially missed that boy I liked today--like a regret and a sadness--but I know that it was not for me...and Jesus has me right where He wants me.

I need to believe that--some days more than others.

Today was sad songs--but then I called upon the Lord and praised Him and the timbre of my voice changed: sadness which had kept it from being all it should be was lifted and the joy that used to be a mainstay of my being floated out of me.

I want to live out of that place--my life can't just fade into nothingness--please Jesus, move me forward.

I've learned a lot about love in a year--I guess you wouldn't think that, seeing as I haven't met the one I'm supposed to love. But any assumptions you have about me may be, and should be, wrong. Just because no one is falling in love with you doesn't mean you're not learning the ropes of the obstacle course...

Love takes everything...and I know this, though I was just a beginner with no stakes placed in the game. You think your emotions, your way of thinking, your way of life is something dictated completely by you--but love twists all that up. Everything is suddenly pulling you toward this person who only months before was just another guy. You spend hours trying to get him out of your head--but then 15 minutes spent with him ruins all your efforts. You care--SO MUCH!--about the slightest conversations you have and hope for more...in other words, you're crazy.

I hated realizing how much I liked the guy I liked for one huge reason: it was something I had no control over. I tried (and was successful in some ways) in keeping him out of my head...but you can't stop the way your heart reacts when you see him...you can't stop loving his company so much and feeling like that is the most comfortable place in the world for you...some things become out of your control, because it is bigger than you and you can't stop it. If I had heard anyone say this about love before my experience I would have laughed at them. I thought I could dictate those kinds of things (which, sometimes, you can. You are in control of your actions), but sometimes...everything spins away from you. I know what they mean when they say those things about love being like a disease/madness...it's so strange...

As I was putting this guy behind me (as you must when he acquires a girlfriend) God let me in on a little, slightly embarrassing, bit of information:

"You did not love him well."

Haha...imagine that thought coming into your head as you try to move past what has felt like a de-railing of your life the past few months. But, as God always is, He was right. I had not loved him well. In fact, from the outside looking in, it probably looked as though I wanted to avoid him at all costs. I was so overwhelmed by all that was going on in me whenever I was around him that I became like a robot--afraid to do or say anything wrong. I actually went completely still in one class, for the whole class, because I was sitting next to him. I couldn't treat him in the casual, open way that I treated everyone else who was my friend; I would just go completely stiff. Poor guy, he probably was so confused by me...

But all of this...it shows just how far I was from love--and yet how close. Love is vulnerability, which I was not willing to share, and so I did my best to be constantly on my guard. The one thing in life which I always saw myself farthest from was marriage...now I'm not so sure...

God is showing me my flaws and insignificances...it's a time of loneliness and set apartness. I'm not quite sure whether the Robin I always was will pop out on the other side (sometimes joy seems to be in a unforeseen short supply) but this time is good. I am tired and sad and heavy, but this is not the end.

God knows my bitterness, the things I am being cleansed of, and the ways that He is preparing me for the future He is pulling me into. I may be alone for many years to come, but I will have all that I need for whatever lays ahead. He gave me that promise, both in His word and His words to me from others. I will walk through this ache with Him and learn a love that goes beyond the norm from Him.

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

Hosea 2:14-15

this is my favorite ever right now...

http://vimeo.com/33507366

I'm glad I can watch videos like this and be happy for people...there was a point this year when all I would've felt was bitterness--now I feel joy.

Jesus is working in me.

Let Your Eyes Be Open

Okay, I fixed it...it was translating every letter I typed into Hindi...so now that random post says, in Hindi, "Today was a weird day. It's even weird right now as it is changing everything I type into Arhmaic (I think)." I don't know how to spell Aramaic...

Anyways...my friends are having a party today...we went shopping...at WinCo...with lots of people around...

I realized something.

First--I don't go out into my community much, not really. For several years, my version of Redding was, "People there are so joyful, it's my favorite place in the world to be." Last year my version was, "It's the place where I am known, there's isn't a space like it in all the world." A few months ago: "There are some broken, hurting people living in this city. I see it in their kids everyday." Today: "We aren't who we should be."

I'm learning more and more that we were created for a different world. That thought, even writing that sentence, brings a smile of genuine joy to my face.

But we're not there.

My blog is called "Here in the Waiting" from the title of a Laura Hackett song. (She's amazing, check her out). I am in the waiting in a lot of areas in my life: my dreams, especially for Haiti; love and all that comes with it; my career; family members...I don't have answers. But I do have hope! Jesus...

So many people don't.

I noticed them today...they look tired, pale...you look at these faces and some of them are half alive. So many people at WinCo in Redding today were not living...not enjoying...not as they should be....

I couldn't stop looking at these faces. I was thinking of the Eric and Leslie Ludy book called "Meet Mr. Smith" where he details his experience meeting "Mr. Marvelous". Mr Marvelous is the personification of all that we should be growing into: stately without being pompous, quiet strength, deep compassion, love...when Eric meets this man, he realizes all he must grow into (the full stature of the measure of Christ). I was trying to see if anyone fit this description in any way, shape, or form in WinCo--and maybe its not the best place to look--but it was scary to me just how far all of us were. There's a lot you can tell by looking at a person--how healthy they are, whether they are happy, where they put their thoughts. You watch their interactions, within their families and with others, and you see either a person who holds himself with dignity and treats others with gentleness or you see...people just getting what they need without interacting, shifty eyes, tired...I don't know...

There is a glory meant to shine on our faces...freedom meant to be shining out of our eyes...grace flowing in every movement...but when the fall came, we all lost it. I can almost see the moment: the people who were up, walking, talking, fully alive...suddenly all fall to the ground in an instant as a filmy curtain envelops the scene. Some, because of Christ's sacrifice, break free and live in light. I see it in people at Bethel and at the Stirring, some of my friends...but so many...

I guess I saw what it means to be lost today.

Cry alone, die alone
pray alone, stay alone
-lyrics from the Glen Hansard song I am listening to

And don't these lyrics perfectly describe what we are without Jesus?

I feel sad right now...I love seeing the world, actually looking past what I am doing and seeing people around me...but sometimes it...you can fill in the blank...

I pray that wherever you are and whatever you do, you would see the world today in all its blessing and all its beauty. Notice the people around you in a grocery store. Take time to say "hi" to a neighbor...let love mark your footsteps. The world so desperately needs it.

टुडे हस बीन वेइर्द...अल्सो वेइर्द...एवेर्य्थिंग इ'म टाइपिंग इस तुर्निंग इन्तो अरहमिक (इ थिंक) हा हा

True Love

I was inspired by a friend of a friend to write again on this blog...her name is Kallie and she's going through a hard time right about now. The best way to describe it is a heart torn in two...

I don't know Kallie, but she did something for me. She showed me, just through her blog posts, that I am not alone. I am not the only one who wonders at her brokenness and is searching for a way to move forward. I have truly been healed beyond my capacity to tell in the last few months since school started...but there is far to go.

I feel far from God...or maybe its just that our relationship has changed. I feel sometimes that my life is too full--I don't know where He fits. And I want to know that. But then I realize that it is in every moment that I find Him alive and living in me. I don't spend an hour a day alone to read His word in the midst of nature (my favorite!) but I spend four hours with Him at kindergarten, nine a week at school, four at tutoring (I don't have a tutor, I tutor other kids--that was a joke) and He makes Himself known in all the other bits and pieces of my life: chilling with roommates, worshipping, doing homework.....

And though this season feels different than the others did, I find it is enough. It isn't what I do that pleases God...its my heart. I make mistakes and I sometimes feel like I waste my time or do the wrong thing or am useless, but all that falls away when He bends close. Its those moments, just me and Him, where I see the world fall away and all that matters is the look in His eye. And though I would tell you that I'm not worth much...not even loved by anyone special...that look in His eye tells me different.

See, we weren't made for just earthly love, oh no! There's so much more, so much precious treasure! Earthly love can and does grow cold...only an eternal heart flame stays bright forever. I thought I'd missed out--but I think I've just fallen into the midst of a bigger, brighter love than all that I had hoped for. Isn't it funny? My Jesus loves me...

Christ Heals All Wounds

It's that quiet time of night again...

Just reflecting on life--lately, I think I'm headed uphill. For a long time this summer, I was content with being "under the weather" I guess you'd say. I didn't mind not being close to God...or maybe its not that I didn't mind but I'd resigned myself to it. Every time I came home for summer I got cut off from community and isolated to my own little world where depression just waited for me and the only way out was to be constantly distracted. Summer was a lonely time, a time where I gained weight and wished...wished I could have fellowship.

I didn't want to come home this summer. I tried every which way to get out of it...but the Lord lead me home. The week before I finished school He spoke to me while I was in church, just letting me know that I should go home and that He was going to bring freedom to my family in a way they had never known.

So I went...

But then...resignation. My family has pulled together while I've been here and I have had so much come together in these last few months: I finally got my driver's license; I got a job, the job I wanted and my parents even bought me a car (which I have yet to learn how to drive! Stick shift, you make me cry!) Good things were and are happening...but there was still that sticking point in me, this...thing which I didn't move past. Part of it was shame, a shame which I will no longer claim and which tormented me and then added to that was this lie: "You've made it so that God can't use you. Do you realize what you've done, how far off track you are? You'll never be more than this." Oh, those lies...even writing them out makes me realize how potent they were and how I had feed myself just a little bit more of them each day. How I needed (still need) truth and yet I denied myself because I felt I was not worthy...

We have a God who never gives up on us, amen? A God who bends time and moves in miracles to make all that He wants to come to pass a reality. A God on our side, with no reservations about His love and how He lavishes it upon us. I didn't think I was worthy, I felt sure I had fallen to far and boy was I right! For all fall short of the glory of God...but how does that verse end?

Romans 3:24-25 "Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood."

Hallelujah! I can live with that! Christ is the One who has done the work, I rely fully upon Him for my cleansing and renewal.

You know, we sang a song at my new church this Sunday that really got to me. It's just this one part about those who have ridden the river of heartache...I just wept at those words. I need Jesus so bad, in ways that I can't put into words, because I have been cut deeper than I know--but he can heal. He's already at work in my life, repairing and restoring and preparing me for a new day. I sincerely believe that. And I don't care what that new day holds, husband or no, because I know Christ will always be at my side and that is truly enough. I can say that again with utmost confidence, confidence I haven't had for a while--possibly months.

I will be reminded of this last season I was in constantly...but the pain is easing. It is. Time doesn't heal all wounds--but Christ does, if we let Him. If we allow Him in, He can truly do all things. He really can make everything new.

Looking forward to my new day and holding onto the promises I've already been given,
His daughter, Robin

P.S. I'm praying with expectancy again! God, we're looking for the answers to our prayers! Maranatha!

Haha...I usually don't watch Glee...but I did tonight. And boy was I glad...

The song they sang for "Nationals" was amazing. I watched it three times. And the choice Rachel was trying to make--seems like its been a reoccuring theme, something I see or read continually: your dreams or the boy?

In "Man and Boy" a British book I read last week, the women who married the main character gave up her dream of going to Japan to stay with him. In the end, they had a son and a divorce. She did get back to Japan, but all she found there after all those years was an American man who she became engaged to. And Rachel in Glee tonight...she has the voice to go to Broadway, but there's also this boy who she has loved for a long time. He wants her back--but she wants to go to New York...

The choice...

I see the end and the beginning and the bits that would have come unraveled, try as we may. So I bid adieu...

College can feel like such a crucial time. Especially at a Christian college, it can feel like its now or never!!! If you can't find a decent guy here, you probably won't find one anywhere else! At least...that can be the impression that my Christian college left...luckily, God knows better. And sure, my school had cute guys...but I have to marry a guy who has guts, brains, is sweet and has a good laugh. No ifs, ands, or buts!!! And that's a tall order to fill--possibly an impossible one...

But I know my dreams...even when they hurt me. And God knows my dreams even better. Where I see frustration and feel rage, He is already setting a plan in motion. O give me the will and ability to stay in step with You!

Because only You are the maker and tamer of dreams, the Ruler of all. I see impossibilities and weaknesses...You see strength and goodness. Where I despair and grow faint of heart, You step in with all You are. I had forgotten...O how You remind me.

I am in awe of my Creator...in Him my dreams lie complete.

A Beginning...

An update!!! I have a friend who will be joining me, her name is Bre :) I am blessed to be able to call her my friend. We're separated for the summer, so I thought writing to each other via this blog would be an awesome way to stay in touch. Welcome Bre!!!

I had my first day of work today...I'm a hostess in the morning (have to be there at 6 am, with a 45 minute commute)...it was good, but so busy! And today was a moderately calm day--yikes! I feel tired, but I'll get used to it. It's funny--my first time having an ordinary, real summer job...it would happen that I'd be graduated from college before I had the typical summer job. God always makes my life so opposite of what is normal for everyone else--but in a good way :)

Anyway, encouragement is greatly needed at this point in my life...I found it in this youtube video this morning. May you be blessed and encouraged by it as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mohyR5xowFw&feature=related

Blessings, Robin

Summer Has Come...

It's one of those nights...one where you just kind of are in this mood where you want to be alone and kind of think thoughts that are a little melancholy...you just want to reflect and be quiet.

I'm gonna write it all down...

My heart is racing...for no reason...its just what I'm thinking about and might share :) haha...I've grown a lot this year, so much. At times I thought it was because something was going to happen...and things did happen, but not the things I thought would happen...

The pastor at my parent's church just came back from Haiti. He saw sixty orphans living in chicken coops and we're going to build an orphanage for them. he started his sermon by asking who would trade their present circumstances for the biggest tent in Port-au-Prince. No one raised their hand (of course) but my mom whispered to me, "You would."

She knows me better than I let on...

She might even know me better than I know myself.

Oh I wonder...that boy...

And I let myself dream lately...of a man who has kind eyes and a steadiness that will keep me when all the rest is falling apart. I'm energetic and people loving enough for two people...I need someone with strength and endurance for the days I fall apart.

But its hard, you know? I'm twenty-two...most people have boyfriends about now, or the inklings of one (insert sad, sweet smile). Why am I different?

I had someone say, about a month before school ended, "You know, I was thinking, 'why doesn't Robin have a boyfriend? She's funny and smart and...and then I realized, there's no one cool enough for you."

That was heartening, in its own way. It's good to think back on. And I kind of know why I haven't had a boyfriend, etc. There's always been a set apartness about me...something that people can kind of sense, something that intimidates a lot of guys...and I'm glad for it. I've been protected by a Loving Father (you all know who I'm talking about).

I have to trust Him in this time. I have to let Him be in control and move my steps and help me wait...not easy...but good, so good I can almost taste it and it should make me sing for joy and exult in all you are, My Lord.

Not easy...but worth it.

And all those years I spent reading Elisabeth Elliot's book and praying that I wouldn't have it easy...well, living it out is something different altogether. I never knew my weaknesses before. But He can be strength...I just have to let Him.

I let Him be strength last night. I was driving home from a friends house and it was pouring rain. I'm a new driver and it was a 45 minute drive home and the storm did not relent. I was worried at times that I'd do something stupid and end up dead...but I held onto the wheel and kept praying.

"Jesus, help me get home safe. Jesus, be my strength. Jesus, let me stay on the road. Jesus, be my eyes, help me see..."

And shouldn't that always be how we pray? Shouldn't I always realize that I don't have what it takes, I need help and direction from a God is more than able to supply my needs and knows the path before me? Shouldn't I?

I was glad to go to that friends house. She and I have only known each other through this year--she was totally put into my life by God--and we have helped each other walk through very similar situations this year. Even last night, as we talked, I was amazed at how she had grown. We both had these massive crushes on guys we thought were cute--the kind of crush that leaves your head feeling funny all day and makes you want to stay away from the guy and yet always be near him at the same time--at least, that's how it was for me. I did my best to avoid my crush and treated him different form every other person I knew--but it was all because I couldn't handle being near him!!! (So lame! Question: Is putting the facebook status, "If I'm careful with you does that mean I love you?" seem an appropriate status to put up? I didn't post it, but that's what I wanted to write today...thinking of him).

Anyway, I'm getting away from it all :)

The guys we had crushes on did not reciprocate completely. The guy I liked I think had feelings for me, but in the end I saw clearly how much our lives were going to diverge. I love the country of Haiti with all my heart (there's really nothing I can do about it!) and he loves another country and will end up there someday. He is a sweetheart, with a lot going for him...but I'm not an add-on, God has very specific things for me...I have to let go. I had to see--I'm not even sure what yet--but he asked another girl to the dance and I stayed home and scrapbooked about the year with friends (it made a wonderful mess in my lobby) and life goes on...I hope we stay friends, but my heart is not out there for the taking. This hurt too much and as much as it is in my power I am handing my love life over to my Creator and allowing Him to have His way. That's the only way that's going to work for me.

My friends had talked with the guy she liked all year and hung out with him too. They were friends...but she wondered if there was more. Yesterday was kind of a deciding day...she talked with him about a comment he'd amde on facebook (and this was an ackward conversation!!) and ascertained that if he really cared for her, he'd been given the chance to express it--with no dice! Life goes on...she was actually telling me last night that she felt content being single, which is huge for her! At the beginning of the year, I can remember sharing with her that I woudln't mind being single my whole life--and she told me that she really wanted a boyfriend, she just wanted to be a wife and mother. How the tables turned!!! We both went through these situations with bys and I popped out the other side really wanting a boyfriend, while she is learning to be content being single...what do you do with that? God is funny that way.

I have a page ripped from the beginning of the year which expresses perfectly what I had started to learn at the beginning of the school year (in the fall) and must now learn again. It's about contentment and having Christ as your only source, all you need (there's real strength in that):

"Getting used to loneliness.

Help me to accept this.

Change me, teach me how to cope, to use
my time wisely and glorify you in
the midst of this.

To learn to wait on God
to really wait for His leading
to trust

Go deep

it won't make sense to you, but it doesn't
have to"

Nothing deep, but Jesus, I need you now like I never have before. Help me not to be embarassed by m weakness, but reach out to you all the more and you will be all I need in these coming days and months. Like Liz, my good friend kept telling me, "You have been filled to overflowing with all the strength you need to endure."

I trust You, God, even when it doesn't make sense to me. Even when it hurts. Help me turn to You. I want to blossom again, a flower under your care. May better days be ahead...bright ones, filled with sunshine. It is summer after all! Help me leave behind my old habits of the heart, constantly searching in the shadows and living in secret hopes which did me no good. I want to be filled, bright, let the world with all its cobwebs fall away from me. Living in you, healed, clean...this is my desire.

No Ordinary Love

Tonight is a blogging night!!! It's past eleven, no one will interrupt me and I don't want to go to bed ;) Perfect circumstances...

I've had a good month/bad month...I was unpacking, moving furniture around, FINALLY took my driving test, have my first day of training at work tomorrow...everything timed out perfectly...isn't it funny how it does? There were a few points when I was not trusting and just felt so worried and overwhelmed...here I was, with a college degree and I couldn't find a job! Life is not easy, have you heard?

But then things worked out and I'll be a hostess soon!!! Working five days a week eight hours a day...and getting paid for it! Every day walking out that door with a smile on my face. It's going to be great...hard, but great.

I'm lucky I look sixteen...I'll be doing a sixteen year olds job! haha

I just want to reflect on the goodness of God...I don't do that enough. I keep reading this one excerpt from a C.S. Lewis book on this topic. He talks about how He used to think that God was selfish, always asking us to praise Him. Then he realized how beneficial it is to priase anything, period, let alone praise God. If something is worthy of adoration, please adore it, don't be shy! (just a second, I'll find the book...) We delight in praising, all the happiest people do it! C. S. Lewis speaks of praise as the something which not only expresses but completes your enjoyment of something, it is the "appointed consummation".

A quote from the passage: "...if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection--utterly 'get out' in poetry, or music, or paint the upsurge of appreciation which almost burst you? Then indeed the object would be fully appreciated and our delight would have attained perfect development. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be. If it were possible for a created soul fully (I mean, up to the full measure conceivable in a finite being) to 'appreciate,' that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude. It is along these lines that I find it easiest to understand the Christian doctrine that 'Heaven' is a state in which angels now, and men hereafter, are perpetually employed in praising God....To see what the doctrine means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God--drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man's chief is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever'. But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him."

Really good stuff....Hmmm....

There's a beauty in me put there by God. I get to share it with everyone I meet. Sometimes I'm too stingy with it. Oh Lord, let your beauty be a part of me as I work. Let me not be afraid of what it might cost me. Yours cost You everything. I walk in Your footsteps.

I'm not enough. Do you every have those moments of realization? Especially in this job search, I realized that I really had nothing to offer...people could pick and chose me as it suited their fancy. That's a strange, hard thing to know. My parents are going through it right now. Both of them are out of work (mom: nurse, dad: contractor). We're not really sure what we're going to do right now. Cry and praise. Pray. My parents are praising God together in the mornings. May they be blessed in that, and hear from Him. He comforts those who seek Him out.

Sometimes I feel to needy to seek Him out. That's usually when I need to go to Him the most. My heart...still feels a little shredded. I had no idea you could like someone like that (the way I liked him...) I can't imagine love--it must be so strong...when kept pure. I prayed that God would just block me off in that area...I can't be so in like with someone anymore--not if its not returned. I have to have God guard my heart completely in that area and ask Him everyday to watch my mind and where it goes...because this is precious, and though I have no idea whether I'll get married or not, I'm not going to mess around with anything or anyone in that arena of my life until its the right time. I can't handle casual dating, my heart cannot handle it, and so until...whatever!!! haha, i'm clueless...I will be on guard...

...but still let me love and be sweet and not harbor bitterness and rejoice in my friends relationships when they are going well. They deserve the best and my support--teach me how to be there for them.

It's funny, the hurt. I kind of dealt with it right at the outset, when I just let it all go...all that I'd been feeling and hoping and wishing...but there's still parts of me wounded from it. I feel so petty, because hardly anything happened, so I should just move on quickly...but it lingers...makes me cry...so silly.

It's funny that Jesus deals with each of us so individually. This hurt would be nothing in some people's lives--they've gone through so much--but He's not comparing my circumstances with anyone else's. He sees what hurt me--and part of it was me allowing it to--and He deals with me. He wants to know how I'm doing and speak words of peace and comfort and love--like any daddy. I look at it and say, it's such a petty thing! Let's leave it alone and keep going, it'll drift away. But He says, You need to face this, look it square in the eye before we move forward. Don't be ashamed, just be in it with me and see what its done and deal with it. This is not to be brushed aside. It's important to you and to your life, so its important to me.

Why would He care so much?

I kept listening to a song called "No Ordinary Love" by the Civil Wars tonight. Now I know why. Here are the lyrics...I gave you all the love I got
Gave you more than I could give
Gave you love

I gave you all that I had inside and you took my love
Took my love

Keep crying
(Keep crying)
Keep trying for you
I keep trying
(I keep trying)
I keep crying for you

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love

Oh
When you came around you'd brighten
Oh
You'd brighten every day with your sweet smile

Oh
And didn't I tell you all I've got to give baby
Oh

I keep crying
Keep trying for you
I keep crying
Keep trying for you

'Cause this is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Oh

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Oh

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Whoa
Oh

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Oh

I gave you all the love I got
Gave you more than I could give
Gave you love

Both Jesus and I have sang this song this year...I'm so glad His love can endure and shine bright where mine has tarnished and failed. He is at work restoring me...a precious work that began at the cross. And He won't give up, no matter how I may push away. That's the beauty of knowing Jesus. I am so thankful to Him.

This is no ordinary love...no ordinary love...ooh-ooohh...

didn't think about it...and then it was here

It's funny when life stops...

You're never prepared for it. And it really shouldn't happen, because life does go on...babies being born, people laughing, going to work, loving...

It shouldn't happen...

...but sometimes it does.

Life stops.

I guess that's what happened to me two Saturdays ago--and I wasn't prepared. I wasn't even thinking of it, trying to concieve of it...my life had been going so fast that I couldn't think of it ending.

And then it did.

I graduated.

...and that life that I had known...stopped.

I remember looking around during my graduation and really taking it in and realizing, "I never thought about this. I never tried to imagine what it would be like. Never dreamed of this moment." It caught me by surprise.

I mean, I knew I would leave school--never eat in the caf again, never go to chapel--but...my life was so full and lovely (the kind of good place you get into that makes you look around and wonder, "Is this really my life?" That's how I felt, every day...) and then it was over.

I have dreams, plans, ambitions...only, now that I think about it, none of them are mine. I have absolutely no clue what to do in the coming days and months. I'm flying solo (with God...so not so solo :) and I have no next steps...

No next steps...

The last few days have been a dismal affair. Ever tried to get a real job? Or even the real job that most kids have in high school? It's not easy. It leaves you with a sad, tired sort of feeling...because you are at the mercy of these people and they can take you or leave you--YAY!!!

I hope I'm not left...

Money, oh money! is necessary for these next few years. And I currently have $500. (Myuncle gave me $500 as a graduation present, oh and I also received two quilts, one from each Grandma...I still need to write thank you cards). Money...

But God keeps reminding me, even now as I type this (and even if He is just some strange voice in my head, He's the most calm and rational one that is always right that I've ever heard), that if He has put something in front of me, He will provide me with the means....

GAH!!!! But what if I mess up, what if I'm not enough, what if....?

THIS is not about ME.

Loving God, in charge of the world, will be taking care of me.

I hope I marry someone who reminds me of that EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

Or God could keep telling me. Ha.

In any case, I wrote this because I was reading about this guy Patrick Moynihan, who runs an awesome school in Port-au-Prince. He's Catholic and the article I just read was written after the earthquake. He's trying to change Haiti--good luck! Haha...it would take a miracle.

But Jesus does those...

Trusting in Him.

(here's the article:http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,673845,00.html) and I'm just going to paste it in...in a few years, the link might not exist anymore, you know?

The American said he thought the masks were silly -- they would only spread fear among the people and intimidate the children. Now, though, as he looks at the twisted body of a white-haired woman in a checkered dress lying side of the road, the stench is so overpowering that he can hardly breathe. He chokes and coughs.

But the smell remains. It is the smell of Haiti today, difficult to describe, and it permeates everything. Patrick, the American, hates it. By evening he is convinced that his own hands have started to take on the sickly sweet smell, the smell of the new Port-au-Prince, which has already saturated his clothes.

"The dead are already here," says Patrick Moynihan whenever he steps out of the car. Then he sees them, the row of bodies laid out on the ground next to a hospital, the children naked and thin, the twisted bodies, the broken limbs. Who undressed the children, one wonders?

"We were at the summit, but then we flew too close to the sun," says Moynihan. By "we" he means both himself and Haiti, a society that was finally making progress, until that Tuesday afternoon at 4:53 p.m.

The Two Haitis

It is now midnight, eight days after that Tuesday, and Moynihan looks exhausted. The 45-year-old, unshaven and wearing shorts and a T-shirt, is uncharacteristically silent. He rubs his eyes. "I've seen a lot of dead people here before, when the shooting was going on. I even saw someone crucified once. But children 10 meters from a hospital?" Then he leaves the room, hoping to get a few hours of sleep.

Two Haitis emerged after the earthquake. One is the Haiti of the living, of the people trying to find food and a place to sleep, who drag themselves to the Red Cross field hospitals and sit in the gutter scooping up brown water. This is no longer the Haiti of progress for which Moynihan has been fighting. Instead, it is a country of the needy and dependent, a Haiti occupied by foreign aid workers, people with good intentions who are unlikely to leave anytime soon.

And then there is the Haiti of the dead. Some are buried, sometimes wrapped in plastic sheets but usually not, the countless, unnamed, unidentified bodies that disappeared into mass graves on the city's outskirts, in numbers that must reach into the thousands by now. They were buried without dignity, but at least they were buried.

The sheer force of this quake, and the notion that there was no escaping it, becomes clear to anyone who looks at the buildings, now pushed together into clumps of concrete panels and steel beams, house after flattened house, interspersed with the occasional building that survived the quake. Trapped underneath it all are the dead, probably tens of thousands more, and no one can reach them.

The living are left with only one option: to keep living only meters away from the dead. The dead are everywhere, maybe up to 200,000. "But there's nothing you can do about that. The dead are dead, and it's time to focus on the living," says Moynihan.

Moynihan was once a North American capitalist, a "trader" who worked for Louis Dreyfus and traded in everything that could be bought and sold, from cotton to elevators. His older brother is Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America. One day, during a business trip to Memphis, Patrick Moynihan said to his boss: "I just don't care about winning and losing anymore." We do, his boss said.

Moynihan quit his job, became a teacher and a deacon in the Catholic Church, he married, had four children and became a missionary. He has been working in Haiti for 13 years, initially only for weeks at a time, but now, as he says, he's become a "lifer." He runs an organization known as "The Haitian Project," bringing a North American pace and discipline to the country. He insists that he doesn't want to make Haitians reliant on foreign aid, but to teach them to think independently instead. He also insists that he is the one who learns the most.

The graduates of his school can speak English, French, Spanish and Creole and often find jobs with the United Nations or in government ministries. "We are educating the future elite of Haiti," says Moynihan. There is no question that he is right.

At least he was right.

But is he still?

'We're Starting Over'

There were 316 students enrolled in his school on the morning before the quake. Now there are 160.

"We're starting over," says Moynihan. "I suppose you have to treat what happened here as a test. And, by all means, as an opportunity."

He wears dirty glasses, a short-sleeved Ralph Lauren shirt, beige trousers and dusty brown shoes. His gray hair is combed back and he has a sharp chin. As a child he was often sick, and the first time he saw dead people was in a hospital in Marietta, Ohio. He was later allowed to play rugby and even football. His parents spoiled him, he says. He was the youngest of eight children, and the only one to attend a private school. He went riding in the afternoons.

Moynihan, like his students, speaks English, French, Spanish and Creole. He is one of those men you can imagine working in any position or job in the world, because they are so agile and so passionate, even manic.

The yellow school buildings are still standing, flanked by palm trees swaying in the Caribbean wind against a deep-blue sky. A few walls have crumbled and there are cracks here and there, but the damage is negligible compared with what has happened elsewhere in the country. The Haitian Project, which has an annual budget of $750,000, is located in Santo 5, a district in the eastern section of Port-au-Prince.

Moynihan has 12 student teachers from the United States, young and recent college graduates like Jonathan, who was peeling potatoes when the earthquake struck, or Betsey, a young blonde woman who was sitting on a couch, chatting with the other girls. The women tried to take cover under the couch, but there wasn't enough room. Instead, the student teachers assembled the students outside, where they sang songs, and then took them to a nearby soccer field, where they watched films like "Happy Feet." More than 100 shivering students spent the night lying on the sand in front of a television set, trying to laugh.

Moynihan missed the earthquake. He had flown to the United States the day before for routine meetings with donors.

"Of course, I'm not comparing myself with such grandiosity," he says. "Moses didn't grow up in captivity with the Israelites either, but he did lead them to freedom. Maybe there's a reason I wasn't there. Maybe it's because my energy is needed."

On the Friday after the Tuesday quake, Moynihan was standing in the airport in Santo Domingo, the capital of the neighboring Dominican Republic, where hundreds of people were jostling and talking, because everyone there somehow wanted to get to Port-au-Prince.

He said loudly: "I have 360 children to take care of, and they're in mortal danger. I have to get on a flight. I'll pay more. I'll pay right now." He put cash on the counter, followed by credit cards, he went for walks with helicopter owners and then with pilots, and before long everyone at the airport was listening to Patrick Moynihan. He eventually prevailed. The Chinese Embassy made sure a flight was approved, even though the airport in Haiti was closed, and Moynihan got his ticket.

"Over all those years, it became my country," he said as the plane was on its final approach, and as he saw the devastation below. His dead country.

The American Way

There are many North Americans in Haiti again, and they're doing a lot of talking. On Wednesday the White House press office reported that "152,000 liters bulk water and more than 165,000 water bottles were delivered" on Tuesday.

They have also turned their words into action, as 11,500 US troops, wearing mirrored sunglasses and carrying machine guns, patrol the coast, provide security at the airport and walk the streets. Former President Bill Clinton was there, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was there and current President Barack Obama is expected to visit Haiti as well. When it's all over, perhaps they will have saved Haiti, or perhaps the country will have been intimidated or smothered. Washington has sent 20 ships and 51 helicopters. The officers claim that this isn't another invasion, but it certainly looks that way.

The American Way for Haiti? Would that be such a bad thing?

The Europeans who arrive there complain about US dominance, and yet the comparison between the Europeans and the Americans is striking. Especially when one spends several days with Moynihan, who never stops moving between dawn and 10 p.m., and occasionally runs into European aid workers about to leave for the downtown area at 8 a.m., only to find that they have forgotten to call their driver. Then they realize they have forgotten to pay a bill, or misplaced an address, and 10 a.m. their vehicle is stuck in traffic.

Some of the Europeans in Port-au-Prince apparently need a little more time before they will be in a position to help save the country.

Then there is the contrast between the Haitians and the North Americans, which is as bizarre as it is disheartening. The North Americans are determined, resolute and see everything with a positive spin. The Haitians are apathetic.

Haitians still cannot comprehend what happened. Why this earthquake, and why here?

There is no explanation. Justice and mercy are not part of nature. They are human standards, and for those who don't believe in a god imposing such standards, it makes no sense at all. For them, it's just a case of bad luck, of tectonic plates coming together in a place where the people are particularly poor and vulnerable.

Part 2: 'The Dead Are Awake'

It is Monday in Haiti, and Moynihan has set himself five goals for this day. He needs a battery for a car he wants to lend to a group of nuns; he needs phones for his workers; he needs pipes for repairs to be done at the school; he needs an engineer to evaluate the buildings at his school; and he needs food for the students, the orphans and everyone else who lives in the school. His day starts at six in the morning, at the latest. All the volunteers at the school sleep in bunk beds and under mosquito nets. Sometimes their sleep is interrupted when Moynihan wakes them up at 2 a.m. to discuss something, or at 4 a.m. because he thinks it must be much later. He walks into their rooms without knocking, because he doesn't have time to waste.

At 6 a.m., the dirt road that leads eastward into the Dominican Republic and westward to the capital is still relatively empty. "But the dead are awake," says Moynihan, who still refuses to wear a mask.

Anyone who spent time in Port-au-Prince in the days following the big quake would have experienced many truths. Haiti's truths exist side-by-side, just as one house may have collapsed while another may be in good shape next door. Does it have something to do with faulty construction and poorly mixed concrete, as many here say, or is it fate? Coincidence? Fifty people are believed to have died in one house, and their bodies still haven't been recovered. Meanwhile, children are playing dominoes in front of the next house, while their mother, holding a towel in front of her mouth and nose, sells prepaid mobile phone cards.

It has become a city of invalids. Some say that 200,000 amputations will have to be performed in the coming weeks, but it is the sort of number that no one can really predict. Everyone is compensating for something, reacting, processing fears, revulsion or shock. Moynihan doesn't stop running, hardly sleeping at all, running and running, a man fighting a lonely battle against the violence and stench of nature. The people from HELP, a plucky German aid organization, smoke to overpower the smell, 60 to 80 cigarettes a day. Some people fall silent while others become louder, standards begin to crumble, and so does language.

Two Options

On this morning, Moynihan picks up a car battery from his friend Patrick Brun, and then he brings the Sisters of Mercy a Nissan to transport patients. There are 70 men loitering in front of the fence, pushing and pulling and shouting. Moynihan stands in front of the crowd and says: "You have two options: You can eat me or you can leave. But I can tell you that they don't have any food in there." The crowd disperses.

There have been times in Haiti when rage resulted in bloodbaths. One of those times was when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from office. The situation in Port-au-Prince today is different, but people shaking their fists make for good television. And it makes for even better television when reporters set up their hotels like fortresses, sitting around the pool drinking beer, and using the scene at the fence and the reports of other fortress dwellers as their only source of information about life on the city's streets -- journalism as a chain reaction.

The people of Haiti seem lifeless, sitting rigidly and staring vacantly into space. They are pleased to find anyone willing to listen to their story. One of those stories is that of Bernard James, a Haitian painter who was sitting in his house when the walls collapsed. Now he is lying in the brown dust in front of the Hôpital du Canapé Vert, the ruins of his house within sight, a resilient man, muscular and tattooed, with a fracture lower leg. Will he be operated on? "At some point, maybe," he says, "but not now, the doctors tell me. Others are more important, all the people who are dying."

Inside, the hospital is crowded, with 10 or even as many 20 people to a room, lying on cots, mattresses or the floor, writhing and moaning in pain, their wounds covered with dirty bandages. They timidly beg for water. The Haitians have become a lethargic people in the decades of dictatorships, occupation and poverty. Moynihan once made it his mission to send out creative, educated young people into all branches of society, so that this society would become one of solidarity and ideas. He believed that this was precisely what the United States owed Haiti, after decades of looking down on and ignoring this deeply impoverished country.

"This is where America begins; we are one America," says Moynihan.

There are signs on the roadside that read: "USA help! Dead bodies inside."

The Trouble With Aid

The claim that help is not arriving quickly enough is one of those truisms in disaster zones that remain true until proven wrong. Surprise and chaos are an inherent part of natural disasters. The earthquake in Haiti, with a magnitude of 7.0, was so devastating because it struck an already suffering country and its biggest city. It flattened the presidential palace and the government ministries, churches and the UN office, wiping out everything that could have coordinated the rescue effort.

The United States sent its Marines storming into this vacuum of helplessness, troops that are accustomed to securing foreign terrain.

Aid efforts normally unfold in four waves. In the first few minutes after a disaster, help comes from local residents. Then the government institutions get to work, followed by aid workers from neighboring countries and, finally, from the rest of the world.

As horrible as it was to observe, it was inevitable that nothing worked in Haiti during the first four or five days after the disaster. Many local residents couldn't help because they were dead, the government institutions were already in bad shape before the quake, and there was no organization at hand like the German Red Cross, which has a mobile hospital at the ready in Berlin at all times and only has to wait for fresh medications before responding to a local disaster. The first two waves of aid were eliminated or unavailable in Haiti and, for the rest of the world, Haiti is a faraway place. The reason it took so long was that it had to take so long.

Then came the North Americans, taking control of the situation, as if the war against nature was their next conflict. And why not, when the purpose of the effort is to save lives? According to White House reports, US personnel pulled 43 people from the wreckage, while 122 survivors were saved by US personnel working in multilateral teams.

And now the remaining rescuers are showing up. Some are confused and disoriented, generally small organizations overwhelmed by the absurdity of the task. Their people are drinking the water that could be going to the injured and clogging the roads with the cars they rented at Avis in Santo Domingo.

Part 3: The North American Plan

Some became part of the disaster relief effort unexpectedly, like Eran Velija, a photographer from Prizren in Kosovo. An avid traveler who has spent time in Sofia and New York, her plane landed at 3 p.m. on the day of the quake. She had come to Haiti to visit a friend and perhaps to change the country, filled with dreams of opening a bar in old Haiti.

But 113 minutes later, old Haiti ceased to exist. Velija wondered whether she had brought the earthquake to the country. She too smokes to ward off the smell. She and her friend are now in the process of establishing a small aid organization. They have a house and are raising funds through Facebook so that they can provide shelter for the homeless.

Most of the relief workers are passionate people, as is often the case in disaster areas, people with past experience in other natural disasters. Organizations like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders have smart people working for them, people who give up their vacations and often their private lives for efforts like this.

Still, Moynihan doesn't like the relief workers. He prefers the military, because it comes, does its work, and leaves. "The aid workers will keep us dependent because they live from our dependency. Here," he says, "this the biggest mistake."

He drives past a large, open area that has been converted into a refugee camp. It is covered with garbage and makeshift housing made of plastic tarps. "These people won't be leaving this camp for years, and even our businesspeople will be dependent on the aid organizations, because they'll be their best customers."

What would be a better approach? $1,000 for each survivor, he says, -- and back to normal life. He laughs, but he's serious.

The stench of death has returned. "Wherever we go," says Moynihan, "the dead are there first."

A Hopeful Mother

He tells his driver to take us to the Montana, once the most upscale hotel in Port-au-Prince. The Moynihan family used to go swimming there. His four children, Robert, Mikhaila, Timothy and Marianna, loved the pool on a hill above the city, and they loved the gelato. Now Chilean UN peacekeepers are there to guard the premises. The "Gelato" sign is still up. The roofs have slid into the pool, where thick slabs of concrete are now jammed on top of each other. The earthquake happened six days ago, but Joëlle Benoît is still sitting there on a folding chair, keeping watch. She has been there for the last six days, without interruption.

Is she a mother mourning her child? A hopeful mother, she replies. "I know that my daughter is alive. I can sense it. The former elevator shaft moved yesterday. Back there, you see it? There's a gap there now, so the air can get in." Sarah, her daughter, worked at the hotel as a banquet manager. Suddenly Benoît asks suspiciously: "Are you a journalist?" Then she begins flailing at us with her bare hands, until the peacekeepers push her back into her folding chair.

Moynihan says: "This hotel was a symbol once, like my school. It was a symbol of the possibilities in this country. After all, we had an elected president, and the street gangs had disappeared. In the past, you could expect to see people throwing rocks at you when you drove to the airport, but that was over. The Montana was fully booked, Haiti was slowly attracting visitors, and I was on the verge of opening a second school. Was it hubris?" He walks around the pool, with sections of the hotel roof in it, holding his nose and breathing through his mouth.

Networks have always been the key to power in this country. It was once ruled by the Duvalier clan, first by Papa Doc and later by Baby Doc. Then came Aristide and his cronies, followed by René Préval. Then Aristide was back in power, only to be ousted by Préval again. Haiti was controlled by mafia-like organizations, nepotism and corruption were rampant, connections were everything and the power struggles were invariably bloody. The United States intervened, supporting one ruler and bringing down another, deployed troops and pulled them out again, approved funding and then withdrew it again. It was a foreign policy of the moment, and in retrospect it seems pointless and arbitrary.

Now the Americans are back, determined to help Haiti once again -- and to save lives. At the moment their efforts seem earnest and well thought-out. Whether it will last once the media are gone, and whether they will be able to take the Haitians seriously will soon become clear.

Moynihan, former capitalist and current missionary, spends his entire day helping people. He takes journalists to the airport, invites the stranded to his school, lends money and touches people. He embraces the survivors and strokes the orphans. He is constantly talking to his employees, talking about courage and strength and the joy of being alive. Sometimes he's impatient. For example, when he asks his student teachers about their experiences in the earthquake and during the hours afterwards, they remain silent for a few seconds and he starts talking again. Then he asks his student teachers what they need and runs off to get it.

Moynihan founded the Economic Growth Initiative for Haiti, which lends money to new companies, usually small businesses "that produce biofuel or spaghetti or chairs or solar panels, something of intrinsic value, real products," he says. He is sitting in the back of his small truck as it is being driven through this city, a city that would have blossomed in five or six years, he says, if his plan had come to fruition.

'This Could Become a Different Country'

The scene is completely different in the mountains of Belot, 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the epicenter of the quake, where there was little damage. In the vast and green mountainous region, even wooden huts are still standing.

It is already noon. Moynihan's driver takes us to a villa in the center of the town, where Brad Horwitz is staying. The CEO of Trilogy, the parent company of the Haitian firm Voilà, has made millions in the telephone business. He bears a slight resemblance to Richard Branson, the head of Virgin, with his long, gray hair and goatee. They sit together on the veranda, just as they used to do before the quake, chatting and giving each other compliments, and within 15 minutes Moynihan has convinced Horwitz to give him two tents for his students and 30 phones for his workers, and to send over an engineer to take a look at the school buildings.

"This catastrophe," says Horwitz, "presents Haiti with the biggest opportunity it has ever had. And if they don't just cover up the holes in the ground, if they install cables for a modern world instead, if someone has a plan, this could become a different country."

Is a North American plan what Haiti needs? "Of course," says Horwitz, who had 600 employees in Haiti, of which five are confirmed dead and 70 are missing. He has decided to spend $2 million on "Voilà Village," a new development that will consist of 30 houses for his workers.

We drive on to the next stop. Patrick Brun, Moynihan's friend, also a Catholic, who calls himself a social entrepreneur, sometimes doing business and sometimes simply helping out, has a warehouse and the pipes Moynihan needs -- something easy, for once.

Moynihan tells his driver to take us to supermarkets. All are closed, but voices can be heard coming from one of them. Moynihan knocks on the fence and talks his way into the building. The word "battlefield" can hardly describe the scene at the supermarket. The shelves have fallen down and the food products have turned into a stinking, sticky mush, while the injured are starving in the city's streets. Moynihan picks up baskets and gathers eggs and peanut butter, enough to last a few days.

It gets dark outside. He has achieved four of his five goals for the day, "four for five," as they say in American sports and business jargon. It would have taken him an hour to achieve his goals in the past, but that past now seems like a long time ago. It was a good day.

The one goal Moynihan hasn't achieved is to find the engineer. Horwitz's engineers were too busy, and the embassy wasn't able to send anyone, either. "Bodies are more important than buildings," the embassy official said on the telephone.

'Fear is Healthy'

It is Tuesday night in Haiti, and Moynihan is running through his house again. The mother of one of his student teachers received a call from the embassy to let her know that her daughter could be evacuated. "Can you guarantee my daughter's safety?" the mother asked. Moynihan replies: "These are adults. They're all 22 to 25 years old. And who can guarantee someone else's safety, anyway? Is that possible in New York? In Hamburg? Let's hope that this isn't the beginning of the end for us. We can't give up. Without us, none of this here will work."

It's 6:02 on a Wednesday morning, just after dawn. Haitians normally get up early and go to bed early, but no one is getting much sleep these days. Patrick Moynihan, the Moses of Haiti, is standing on a table on the edge of a basketball court, talking to his students.

He says: "Fear is a natural instinct. Fear is healthy. But after that intelligence has to take over. We have to use our heads and think about what to do next. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. There's a reason why that's such a famous quote."

6:03 a.m. The earth shakes. "Shit," says Betsy, the teacher. "What's wrong?" Moynihan asks. "Can't you feel it? An aftershock."

Now the damaged walls of Port-au-Prince are coming down. Urgent reports quickly circle the globe, reaching the American embassy, the mothers of the student teachers, the school's financial backers.

The Haitian cooks and Haitian employees start running, not sure where to go, just away. The children squat in the sand and cry.

Moynihan remains standing on his table, unshaven, wearing a stained T-shirt. His lips are trembling, his eyes look enormous, and he stands on his table with his arms spread out. He doesn't fall, and he doesn't step down, either.

A lot has happened in four months...

I think back to how unsettled I was at the beginning of January and how far God has brought me and how He is directing my path and frankly, I am amazed.

So much has been clarified and so much remains unseen and unheard. I know my next steps, but there are also many longings in my heart which remain unfulfilled.

But He will always be enough.

God has come so close lately. I find myself wrapped in an embrace so constantly. It makes me weep a lot of times.

He knows what we need, even when our moms lose their job and dads feel hopeless. He knows what we need when our little sisters are self absorbed junior highers and the guy we like asks the other girl to the dance. He knows what we need when we are very far from the country and people we love...HE KNOWS.

I'm tired...I need Him.

Long Time, No Write :)

Mmmm...it's been a while since I've written...

God has brought me a long way since January. That time in my life was so uncertain....I didn't have a plan or any vestiges of a plan either--I was graduating in FOUR MONTHS and I had no clue where I was going!!! I was basically terrified (I even cried in front of my grandma... :)

But NOW...I can see the future...tiny bits and pieces, very hopeful things. I know God sees my heart ad my love for Haiti and He has such good plans for that country and He wants me to play some part in all of this...He knows what my future holds, who I will marry, where I'll end up in 10 years...and so that's all going to turn out okay, because He is the one holding it all together and moving through it all perfectly. I have seen His perfect timing at work in my life so often...I don't doubt that He'll continue to move as I wait and lean into Him...

I was in Haiti last week...nothing dramatic happened...but it was good. I know my heart, the heart God has been shaping and forming in me...its a heart for Haiti with all its troubles and worries, but also a heart for the whole world. Children need to be rescued in every country--people need to be fed in every nation--and people need to hear about Jesus everywhere!!!

So...we'll see where the future leads...lovely, hopeful, beautiful and pure...God has so much good ahead of me. I can't wait to begin to step into it all...with all the people He sends my way! I love that God never pushes us out into the dark unprepared. We are constantly--if we choose to stay near, listening to His voice and be surrendered to His will--being shaped and formed for what is ahead of us. So good!!! The steps I need to take will be set before me just as I need to step into them...in the meantime, I have hope and words from God that will sustain. I have been given all the strength I need to endure... :)

I will live for you, no matter what the cost...
Relationships I have to say no to...
Friends I must leave behind...
Opportunities that I have to let go of...

This is no martyr talking...I hate pain and these decisions I must make--which will lead me closer to Him, but may break my heart in the process--will be no easy thing. I must rely on Him fully to make it through even one day living this way. But I am willing, no matter what the cost. I want what He's always wanted for me. My friend had this quote on her wall: "God's will is what you would have chosen if you had all the facts". I'm gonna live believing that. If I knew all that was behind the reason I have to say no and walk away...I would always and joyfully say no and leave those things behind.

He's gonna lead me...

My heart is finally fully surrendured to Him. I can walk into my future without fear.