Friday, June 22, 2007

still learning

It's been a while since I've felt the inspiration to blog. A lot has transpired in that time, but as I reflect back even futher on this year, that we are rapidly approaching the middle of, I see how quickly and vastly my life has changed. God has stripped me of many comforts, and through this He has soften my heart. He is, I believe, not forcing me, but rather inviting me to lean more fully on Him, in a reckless abandon I cannot fathom. As you know I'm in a strange place, with strange people, who speak a strange language. I've commited to do something that I know is above my head and out of my hands. I am often tempted to feel alone and forgotten, helpless and at times a little hopeless of ever feeling competent at anything again. I am acquainted with the overseas illness that brings out the little girl cry deep within for mom to come and make it better. I have been humbled by seeing how prideful and arrogant I truly am. I have often felt confusion, the painful awkardness of being different, and at times even shunned. Yet greater than all this I have been absolutely AWED at the glorious, beautiful, capable, unchanging, unmeasureablely loving, LIVING GOD I serve! I can't remember a time in my life when I have been more grateful and aware of the faithfulness of His presence. I am learning and unlearning much. I pray that through the entirity of this journey I remain sheltered in the ming-boggling peace that He supplies.

Lately this familar and, often for me, easily forgotten verse has been on my heart,

Galatians 2:20 ~ "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."