be still my heart.

all i could think about over the past hour was exactly what the title of this blog says. i was watching the girls tonight while their parents went out for some stuff...we are hanging out in the city i fly out of so its kinda like a mini vacation for all of us...especially the girls because they are almost done with school! we were watching little house on the prairie...a nightly routine for them :) and sweet eden was upset that her mom wasn't there. she was crying those big pitiful tears that just roll off your cheeks...break my heart. so we let her cry for a bit and i went in to talk to her and see what she wanted and we settled on her coming out to sit and watch with us. she cuddled up in my lap...wouldn't let go of my arm, gave me a kiss and eventually fell asleep. OH MY it warmed my heart. zoe and aaliyah were on each side of me with their heads on my shoulder and it hit me that i am leaving this in less that 48 hours. my sweet girls that i have laughed, cried, screamed, been frustrated, grown and watched countless movies with aren't going to be around when i get home. ohh it made my heart sad to think that. i didn't realize how much these girls have meant to me and how i really do think of them as sisters. being with them tonight was so fun and so special to me. something i will cherish forever. how could this sweet face not warm your heart!!

nearing the end.

I have been wanting to blog all day...but haven't known what to say. Part of me feels like my head and my heart are just blah..like i don't have any words to express what I am feeling. Maybe I don't even know what I am feeling.

The weather here has been yucky the past few days, we haven't gone out visiting at all this week and honestly I've felt pretty worthless. At times it is a struggle for me to spend time with the Lord..my mind is going 100 miles a minute and i can't even seem to calm it down long enough to just be still. When i first got here...stillness was so unfamiliar to me but i loved it and welcomed it. The "to-do" list has already started in my head and it's driving me crazy.

I was just reading back over a sweet friend's blog of her time overseas last summer. I was encouraged by the blogs toward the end of her time and so many things that she said are things that i am feeling. On the other hand...the enemy also used this as a distraction.

he has really been on me recently...saying my time here wasn't enough, that i didn't do enough, didn't learn enough language, meet enough people or share with them. those thoughts have been so far from my mind until now. and it really takes all that i am to refuse those thoughts and say that they aren't true. but it's hard.

my mind has been so all over the place and i am begging the Father to draw me back to Himself. to quiet my soul so that i can rest in His presence. I am so excited to go home..to see my friends and family and be with them again, but i can't forget what i have learned here..the ways that the Father has stretched me and grown me.

i don't want to rush these next few days..i want to savor my last 2 days of school with the girls..the visits to say goodbye to sweet ladies that i have been around for the past months and time with the people that have become my family here. I know that the Father is so much bigger than my thoughts, that He promises to calm them and calm my spirit. I am asking Him to do those things..asking that these next days would be the sweetest of my intimacy with Him.

I am pretty sure this is the time in my trip that the enemy begins to tell me that I haven't done enough here...

I must refuse not to believe that.

3 months.

Where does 3 months go? I am down to single digits of being here and it is starting to hit me...I am more than excited to be back home but i will for sure be leaving part of my heart here...saying goodbye may be harder than i thought. We had our last sunday morning breakfast and fellowship time this morning...next sunday we are leaving to go to the city i am flying out of and we will spend a few days there before i leave. when i first got here i didn't think this day would come..and now it is approaching quickly. my last week of teaching my favorite girls starts tomorrow...i am really going to miss them all..

it's 11 pm here..i've been up since 4 this morning because we had to catch an early flight back from Paris. I am exhausted...i have bags under my eyes and am I asleep? nope...i am sitting on my couch with a pillow and blanket looking out for COCKROACHES. ew. i got back to my apartment and there were tons of them...dead and alive. i have been finding them all night. it is times like this and when things like this happen that i realize how alone i really am here.

i want to leave here knowing that the Father used me until there was nothing left to use...and that is how i feel right now. but i know that He is the only one that can fill me up in order to finish these next days.

if you are reading this...would you please be lifting up the remainder of my trip? that i would have rest and that the Father would fill me up.

4 weeks.

i can't believe that 4 weeks from tomorrow i'll be getting on my plane heading home! i have so many mixed emotions about coming home..i am excited but i will miss it here SO much. this place has become like home and i am not really prepared to say goodbye.

it's been a tough weekend. i have been sick which is never fun and i've just been exhausted. i've done really well with fighting off sickness until now. nancy and i went to a wedding saturday night which was SO fun! tons of ladies sitting around drinking tea and dancing...couldn't get much better. i was sitting there watching...which wasn't long because they made us dance :)...but i was thinking how crazy it is that i really do love those ladies. i can speak very few words to them but smiles really do say more than anything. they are so welcoming and loving, it really is such a blessing to be around them. it breaks my heart to think that they don't have the hope that alot of us do..that they are living in darkness and alot of them have never even heard of J. i know that at this point my role is to love them and lift them up. i am privileged to be able to do that much.

i am asking the Father that these last 4 weeks would be so full of JOY. i remember when i first got here and everything was so different that i never thought i would see the end. time really has flown but my time here has been so sweet. Thank you J that you allow us to experience you in places we never thought we would be!

i know that the enemy is going to be hard at work these next days and i DO NOT want to be distracted. i ask that whoever reads this...that you would join me in lifting that concern to the Father. that my time here would continue to be rich and full of His love. i have learned so much and grown here in ways i never thought were possible...alot of areas that He made clear to me that we needed to work on...may He continue to humble me.

my hope is that we never forget His grace. I never want to stop being thankful for the gift He has given us, the gift that many are still waiting to receive.

grace

Today I am so thankful that His grace is enough. That is all we need.

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