Three Days.

I have three days to make a decision.
The most random but enticingly wonderful door flew open for me.
I've been asked to go with a team to Ghana in March for two weeks to build a school and be with the children there.
I met the team today, five men and one gal. The team leader, Dale, is one of those people I'm just drawn to.. when we all prayed together I recognized something beautiful and deep in his spirit. The same goes for a couple of the others (i don't even know their names..). They need another girl to go.
I'm their hope.
How random.

or is it..

I'm available. I've been seeking God and asking Him what's next. Nothing has really grabbed me yet. But I realized this afternoon after sobbing for fifteen minutes while I drove home after the Ghana meeting that I'm restricting myself. I'm not letting myself get excited or be drawn to anything because I'm so afraid that I'll wind up doing something I wasn't supposed to do. I'm so afraid of making a decision only to find that there was something else I was supposed to do; that I was wrong. That, and it all seems too easy. I went to church with my parents one night and their pastor (the same incredible man of God that started my church) approached me after the service and said, "Kendra! I've been thinking about you a lot lately." (umm..okay..strange?) "We have a team going to Ghana in March, if you're interested. We'd love to have you on board." I've never talked to the man in my life. Okay, maybe I smiled politely and said hello once this summer. But I'm certain that was the extent of it.
And I've wanted Africa.. ohhh, how I've wanted Africa! I want the dirt and the children and all those bright, vibrant colors swirling together with the sounds of drums and laughter and the rain, the pouring, pounding rain in the distance.. I want to live with nothing. I want to go with bursting suitcases and come back with absolutely nothing, save the clothes on my back, hands full of blisters and a throbbing, aching, broken, full heart.

I have three days to make a decision.
I think it's almost made.

h.o.n.e.s.t.y.

I'm sitting in a room that has become a sanctuary, surrounded by books of long ago spread out around me.. big thick books that hold the kendra I used to be. I've changed so much, and yet in some ways I feel I haven't changed at all.

When I was 13 years old I wrote the following in what would become the first of many journals to come:
"wow-i need you so much. God- i want to be so much closer to you. I want to know you so much more. When you are rejoicing, I want to rejoice. When your heart breaks, I want to feel that brokeness. I want to be so close to you that I can hear and see your heart. God, please pour yourself out upon me. Give me an even greater desire to know your heart and to know you personally. I want to be a messenger of your love, a disciple of you. Please teach me discipline and help me to never stray from your truth. Please bestow on me the amazing strength that I will need to be a light in this world of darkness."

Looking through these books, I am amazed. The longing to know Him, to be used by Him, to carry His heart, to be pure, to be pulled deeper and closer...to be held by Him and Him alone...

It all runs together for me. When I think about brockport my mind gets fuzzy. My mind cannot hold all of this. I asked Him to break me, to take me deeper, and to show me Truth. He did every one of those things to a greater extent than I could have imagined and in ways I never could have anticipated. I didn't realize it would hurt that bad. I couldn't have known I would learn this much, experience this much.. I want to write about it but my words are getting gunky and I can't. I don't know what to do with it, with any of it. I don't know what to do with myself... I'm in a "meanwhile" and I don't know what to do in that meanwhile.
I want what's for right now. I want something fresh. I want to move forward, to discover something new..

I feel as though my senses have been tainted and I can't...sense...which is so, so strange for me. For as far back as I can remember I've always had a feeling about things. I don't have any feeling right now. And I'm afraid to start talking to God, or anyone for that matter, because I know that when I do it's all going to come rushing out and, once again, I will be ruined. Once again I will have no choice but to admit that this life of mine isn't mine at all anymore. I will be challenged to stand with faith, to fight with tenacity, to wait...and wait...and believe. All of which I will do, but am trying my hardest to put off until absolutely necessary.
It's so much. All of it.
And I'm sitting here, surrounded by 8 years of my heart. 8 years of deep longing, of great breaking, of frustrations, realizations and dreams. 8 years of believing for that which this world knows little to nothing of. 8 years of naively asking for things that would shape me, wreck me, undo me.

I'm overwhelmed.
I will stand up. I will walk forward. I will wait. And I will certainly believe. But I won't pretend that my insides aren't crumbling right now. I won't pretend that my soul doesn't want to lay down, and stay there for awhile. I won't pretend that I understand, that things are great and I'm on my way to changing the world, arms raised high, voice singing songs of freedom. Because honestly, right now I feel a captive; captive to the last 8 years of my life that have led me to this point, to where I've always dreamed of being but never imagined what it would actually look like.

There's always so much more than what is seen.

Like a rushing river am I
Like a raging torrent inside
I find that I’m full of knowing nothing
I find that I’m hungry for the fullness of Christ
Like a rushing river am I
Like a raging torrent inside
I find that I’m free falling again
I’m letting go of the mountain view,
Letting go, but what into
(misty edwards)

We Would

If this life were my own and I could choose exactly how I would live, I would want something very similar to Phase 1: either a run-down house or a few shabby tents somewhere with a bunch of random, interesting people who don't give a second thought to when their next meal will be, how much hot water is left, or how many times they've worn the same clothes in a row. We would have sunny cheeks in summer and blustery cheeks in winter and campfires with guitars and beads and braiding every season. When feeling especially creative we would dance and chant around the fire, raising plastic cups to one another, to life. We would read Kerouac and Hesse and break our pastels into tiny pieces, leaving them everywhere they might possibly be found useful. We would have talent shows and dress up nights, paint each other's faces and carve our emotions into branches. On the occassion that we could find a piano we would take turns playing while the others danced around the yard, the field, the forest, the street. We would make up obstacle courses through town, racing barefoot through crowds of society-soaked people.
If I could build my own life there would be people. Lots of them. All drastically different, but every single one genuine and authentic, overflowing with a love and acceptance surreal to the surrounding world. There would be music and paint and color everywhere. Nothing would be perfect, but everything would be meaningful to us. We would have crazy nights and calm nights, mornings on porches and mornings in rivers. We would laugh and feel and believe. Nothing would be shocking or impossible. And at the end of our nights we would lay beneath the stars and allow our minds to float beyond the bounds of our own worlds. In the morning we would wake up alongside the rising sun, flutteringly excited to be awake, untamably happy to be alive! We would jump to our feet and run across the lawn, watching the sun rise and listening to the birds sing gleefully of a new day. We would work odd jobs, but never to sustain us. We would be just as content without money as with, because no matter what we had or didn't have, we would live...and never succumb to existence.

"I have you right where I want you.."

Here we go*

I've been trying to come up with the perfect way to fade out of the last phase of my life and into this next one..the nice, neat words to tie together everything I'm thinking, feeling, everything I've been through and hope to one day soon walk into. The older I get the less words mean to me. And yet I spend hours searching for them.

So I think I'll take the easy way out and just say dear blogger, this is a new blog. I intend to be honest. I intend to be authentic in all I think, say, and do. I intend to be real and raw, even to the point of criticism or judgement, if it must go that way. I can't pretend I haven't lived what I've lived. I can't pretend my heart doesn't feel what it feels or that I don't want what I want. I can't pretend my head isn't spinning with possibilites or that my soul isn't swirling with colors as it searches for the best way to live this life as absolute expression...a life fully alive.
*Ah, to be fully alive*
Maybe one day I'll be able to sum up all that has happened in my life. I'm 21 years old. I want to write my book before I turn 25. It will be incomplete, innacurrate, naiive as a result of my lack of years, but ah how satisfying it will be to look at a complete work of...me-ness.

So this is my hello.
This is my ice-breaker.
This is my promise to be authentic.
here we go.