it's been a while..

i haven't written on this thing in forever it feels like! it was a weird feeling to open it back up...brings back memories of when i would be blogging ALL the time.

oh how life has changed in a year.

Jesus has done some seriously great things but these past few months have been hard. i am so thankful to have a job that i have always wanted, blessed to have lots of things that i don't deserve and it makes me happy to know i am surrounded by some pretty great people. but growing up doesn't look the way i thought.

i feel like i can't get a grip on life right now. there are so many things that need to be done throughout the week and that i want to do but it just doesn't seem like there is enough time. i can't put my finger on what the Lord is doing in my life...which isn't necessarily a bad thing but i wish i had more time to investigate it. I try really hard to think about things i could eliminate or if there is an area that i am wasting time but i really can't figure it out. my days seem so full and at the end of the day i am exhausted. i feel like at this point i just need more discipline to do the things that really are important to me. i've spent the last few nights tossing and turning, feeling like my mind is going 100 miles a minute and i am already thinking about all that needs to be done for the next day. what i wouldn't give just to be still. i really miss the intimacy and stillness i had in morocco.

having my first big girl job has been a shock. nothing at all like i thought it would be. i am growing and learning though and even though this time right now is confusing...i couldn't ask for more than i have been given...i want to remember that when i feel like giving up.

..this may seem like rambling but i promise i was trying to make my thoughts make sense. i don't even know if they make much sense in my head yet :)

life since morocco

hard to believe that i have been home almost 2 months. some days it feels like i just left and other days it feels like i have been back in the states forever. the Lord has really been at work since i have been home..majorly in the area of trusting Him. i can honestly say this is the one time in my life where i literally have NO clue what my next few months will look like. a few weeks ago i moved into my own place which i love! living alone in africa was such a challenge but i learned to love and really crave the time i got to myself. so when the time came for me to figure out where i was going to live...a place of my own worked out within just a few days. it's still an "organized" mess but it is my mess :) the job hunt has been draining to say the least...full of encouraging days and some days where i just want to give up and cry. but i know that something will come. i've really been having to be still and wait on the Lord which is HARD. i feel like as soon as i think things are moving in one direction and i am starting to figure out what life is going to look like...something on the opposite side pops up and leaves me even more confused. if you are reading this i ask that you would pray that the Lord would make his will clear! that i would be obedient in listening and trusting that He will provide...i know that He will.

i miss my sweet family in africa and am looking for any opportunity to see them again soon! it has been a great time of being back home with family and friends here. i really feel so blessed with the community i am a part of. so thankful for the people who know me and love me well, who challenge me and who are walking this road alongside me!

i was reading this the other day it was super encouraging:

"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."--john 9:1-3

i love reading that verse, knowing that the Lord often does things that we DO NOT understand...in order to bring Him glory. i do not understand what the Lord is doing in my life right now, i don't know why i don't have a job or when i will even get one, but i do know the last thing He asked me to do and that is all i can follow at this point.

words of wisdom: if you're ever in walmart, don't appear too fit, or you may be challenged to arm wrestle

As I am sitting here, watching the rain fall, I am sweetly reminded of what a gift the rain is from the Lord. Yes in the aspect of watering the earth but to me it is such a reminder of the cleansing He offers for our souls. No matter what junk or stress, chaos , joy..no matter what is going on in our lives He is always there quietly reminding us that He hears us and is fighting for us. In this season of life that is just the reminder that I need...to know that the rain does come as a way to wash away our worry or concerns and the "what ifs".

this may only make sense in my head but I figured it was worth sharing :)

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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.