The Nitty Gritty

(warning: this post has to be short so it leaves out a lot... i'll try my best to post more soon but no guarantees!)

I'm so tired right now I sort of feel like I could faint. Sometimes I feel like the only one here who has a thousand things on my mind. My teammate heather keeps saying, "live for today, you just gotta live for today"...

I'm not entirely sure I believe in that. Maybe I do, but perhaps I don't..

Because my today is not all there is in the world. What I experience today isn't going to have anything to do with what the people I love who are sprinkled all over the world are experiencing today. And it's those people sprinkled across the globe that are on my heart and mind all day every day. It's the fact that there's an entire world out there.

It's the fact that the Holy Spirit will not let me go, and I don't want Him to.

Life is not flat for me. It's not dull. It's not mundane. It's not the day-to-day. It's not on one level. I see a homeless man and my heart aches, my spirit groans, my hands reach for my peanut butter sandwich, I see the globe as it spins and turns and frustrates itself into believing this is all okay. I wring my hands, I hand him my sandwich, I see myself in his eyes, and as I walk away I wrestle with the desire to do something, anything; I believe for a second that if I could feed this one man I might be able to feed them all. And if I could feed them all I could bring them hope, life.. I could change their worlds and then they could change more worlds and pretty soon the entire world would be singing this song of deliverance and hope, assured that love is more than a word and life more than an experience.

There are days when I would give anything to be in the Spirit and days when I know I won't be satisfied until I'm sitting in red dirt with an African child stroking my soft brown hair. There are days when the thought of 9 months here literally makes me panic. Fear rises in my throat and I can't swallow much less allow myself to engage in any conversation, lecture, project. Though I've always been a wanderer, a dreamer, I find myself zoning into other worlds more than ever before. I can't settle with all this stuff inside me. I wonder why I'm here sometimes. I know where I want to be, I know what I want to be doing. But I can't do it right now. And so I'm here, hoping to be proactive while getting out of debt.

There are moments when I know I need to be here. Part of me knows the structure is good for me. I'm going to be able to interact with and work for tons and tons of non-profits throught the next 1700 hours of service and really, who knows what might come of some of that..

for now I am tired. and my spirit groans as it waits for all these things to come together. one day they will. right now i have to believe this is preparing me. someway, somehow.
I just wasn't expecting it to be such a challenge.

oh, deep spirit...

*a year ago now ghana was wrecking me in that beautiful, profound way..*