Take heart.

Life is overwhelming.  The ups and downs, the happiness and sadness, the hard work and the emotions we all feel each day...

it's a lot.

I was reminded today of the fragility of life while reading some updates on Daisy Merrick, the little girl with cancer who has become well known through the amazing power of the internet and the willingness of God's people to pray.

I was also reminded of the strength of the spirit and the ways in which we were created to overcome, to conquer, and to redeem so much of the hard stuff...but not alone.

Every single day I find a portion of my thoughts falling to India and the time I was able to spend there serving, learning, growing, and being challenged.  I sometimes have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I was chosen to go, me of all people...so broken and emotionally scattered...yet I was blessed with an experience of a lifetime.  It doesn't make sense, but it's beautiful and for that I am thankful.

While learning to live again in a place labeled "home," I feel the weight of adjustment every day.  I feel the anxiety set in each morning taunting me to feel unsettled and unsatisfied.  But I have to fight against what the world pushes upon me because I know I serve a God bigger than any pressure, real or imagined.

Take heart, weary servants, knowing that we are not alone in our pain and our anxiety.  Remember to let go of the complexities that make our heads spin and simplify life into one thing: loving God so we can love others.  There is immense joy to be found in the journey but you have to remember to allow yourself to find it...

Street Sweeping.

This morning was one of those mornings in which I kept waking up afraid I was going to over sleep...and I over slept.  Rather than my alarm waking me, I awoke to the intrusive sound of the street sweeper...and remembered with a sharp pang that my car was still parked on the street and it was a few minutes after 8...

Sure enough I started my day late and with a parking ticket.

Though this is generally not a worthy topic to blog about on its own, I have been meaning to blog a  lot more often and it bums me out that I've already let myself become too busy to do the things I want to do, even the little things.

I miss India and the slow simplicity of life there.  Sure, sometimes I got bored but nothing was ever really that stressful.  I had time to just sit and think, time to contemplate, time to just be.  For whatever reason, I don't allow myself that time here and during moments where I have nothing else to do, I feel anxious about figuring out the next thing I'm supposed to be doing.  I have always thought that it was just me but now that I have seen myself outside of my culture, I realize so much of it is just my environment.  It feels like a terribly difficult up-hill battle to fight against busyness...but I realize it's perhaps what I have to do to maintain my overall health.

Why do we keep ourselves so busy?  What are we afraid of?