fresh paint.

I figured I should write a little something since I haven't in a while..

Life. This life. I am full and empty at the same painstakingly slow-but-ceaseless tick of that old wooden clock down the hall. It keeps going, and I keep going. But it never has to think the way I do.

23 days 'til Ghana. I am excited and scared beyond words. Something inside of me knows there's a part of me waiting for me over there, and that alone is enough to draw me to another nation, regardless of finances or logic. It's also the very thing that makes me hesitate.
The only expectation I am packing into my fancy, super-sized, synthetic suitcase is the expectation for change. We will make changes, and we will be changed. period. I cannot anticipate how, nor can I presume in what ways that will play into the rest of my life. I don't want to know what's there before I get there. I don't want to go into this thinking that it's going to be so hard to wittness, so hard to experience, or so hard to return from. I want to go and leave every ounce of me that I possibly can there. I want to give my heart, my hands, my labor for those people, whoever they might be. I want to fall in love, pour out love, and come back with empty suitcases and nothing left to give.

In regards to my "future"-

I am restless. My stomach is in flutters. My sleep is solid; I'm up by 7:30 when I sleep in and I'm exhausted at the end of each day. I'm resisting. I'm afraid.

He's holding out His hand. In His palm rests His heart.. for this place, for this people. And I can't bring myself to say 'yes'.

Somehow all of this is going to add up to something He's been waiting to walk me into. Right now I don't see it becoming the masterpiece I've dreamed of, but the truth is I would rather crawl through His 'for right now' than run through my own 'what i've always dreamed of'. I really mean that. Something is happening. This is going to break me. It's going to go against my own immediate desires, but it's going to be exactly what I need for right now. I really believe that.

The waiting is hard. I want to run, hard, and I want to do it now. He keeps giving me tastes and pieces, little parts that sustain me for awhile and keep me hoping and believing. Like Ghana, what a gift.. a so-very strategic gift, on His part.

oh, and I've been doing lots of painting. painting walls. There's something oddly satisfying about it for me. Something about seeing the change... about slapping the spackle into the gouges and crevices, sanding it down, painting over it and seeing the transformation. I stare at freshly painted walls far too long..