abundantly.

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within." (Ephesians 3:20)


abundantly.

that word speaks volumes over me today.

in the last (almost) three months i have seen this verse come to life on several different occasions.

at the annual sozo dinner this past Saturday i watched over $50,000 be fundraised in front of my own two (tear filled) eyes.

in uganda this summer, i watched a group of teenage boys who were raised in the muslim faith, put their trust in Jesus.

in my own life, i have seen wounds be healed that i though would hurt forever. that i thought would sting every time someone reopened them

i serve a God who can do and will do abundantly more than i could ever dream up myself.

i serve a God who laughs at what i have planned and thinks to Himself how much greater He can do.

so as i sit here, writing this, with a big cup of coffee and spoonful of peanut butter, i wonder what my next year (or five years) will hold. i wonder how Uganda will effect my plans and the remainder of my life. i wonder if there will ever be a time where the memories i made this summer won't haunt me because of how the serious the effect those people, that culture and that brown mud had on my heart. somehow in that sea of thoughts I'm brought back to one word.

abundant. abundantly more.

let go of your worries. let go of your five year plan. let Him do what He does best, abundantly more.

home [and all that comes with it]

home. i'm home. 

it's strange and confusing and good and hard, but i'm home. 

unexplainable. that's the only word I can muster up when I'm asked the somewhat dreaded question "how was Uganda?"

silence. unexplainable. I don't even know. it's hard to explain because Uganda was everything. 

it was beautiful in the most heart breaking way. it was terrifying in a way that made you feel safe. it was exhausting and a breath of fresh air all at the same time. 

it broke me down and built me up all together. it stripped away ugly parts and things that I secretly clung to and revealed new things that I didn't even know about myself. 

I'm a new person, in a sense, and it's all thanks to Africa. but here I am, sitting on my bed in America. but you see here is where the challenging part starts. I have to take these new pieces of me that I formed in Uganda and the lack of things I once had but left in Uganda and figure out what that looks like in America. life doesn't change just because you do. 

for now, I'm clinging to the hope Jesus gives me. I'm clinging to the people he put on my journey beside me. what a good God he is to have let me have 15 other people who fully understand. I'm clinging to the truth that I'm just as called to be in America right now loving on people as I was called to be in Uganda loving on people this summer. I'm clinging to the fact that God knew I would struggle once I was home yet he still thought this was exactly where I needed to be.

he is so good even when life is hard.

I'm going to leave it at this: Uganda was exactly what God wanted it to be. and it was indescribable in the best way. it was sensory overload and I learned more in those 65 days than I have in the previous 20 years.

 

Uganda was good. so good. 

better than before

one massive thing I've discovered about myself amongst the two billon others in the last fifty days is I'm extremely relational. i just want to be with people I love. I don't care if we're driving down the road singing an overplayed song, binge watching Netflix or cooking breakfast for dinner, I just want to be with people. it makes me feel alive. 

people are the best medicine. so often the way God chooses to heal us is through people, and I think that's beautiful. he could easily snap his fingers and decide he wants us to be brand new. sure, that would work and he would get the glory. but something tells me it just wouldn't feel right. instead, he sends us people that he has perfectly equipped to help heal us. these people don't come with hypnotic devices & over priced oils to soak you in, however they might come with addictive laughs & overpriced coffee. you start doing life with somebody, and I mean real life where you cry, laugh and word vomit all your problems to them, and before you know the pieces start coming back together. you start realizing that you're more you than you've been in months, maybe possibly years. and you start noticing that things inside of you are fixed that you never knew were broken. 

community in itself is so crucial. there is something about realizing you're not in this alone. there is something about knowing if you wake up at 3 am upset, you have a phone number to call that you know will have an answer on the end of the line. or knowing I can lean down to the bunk under mine practically in tears and Rachel will scoot over to make room for me. I wake up every morning to someone hugging me and another bringing me coffee because they know how to love me. I get ready in a bathroom the size of my closet with 8 of my closest friends. and sometimes it's difficult, sometimes I can't find my hairbrush for days or I'm out of toothpaste because what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. but at the end of the day, we're community. and it's a beautiful thing. I wouldn't trade these days for all the money or cadeburry chocolate in the world. I'm learning about myself. I'm learning about others. I'm learning about the heart of my father and the way he loves me in such little ways. 

in 12 short days I'll be sleeping in my queen size bed. Abbie won't be above me and Rachel won't be below me. I'll never have to worry about not being able to find my favorite shirt or lack of bobby pins. I don't like to think about it, but it's reality. 

but my mission trip can't end when my feet touch American soil. in fact my mission trip can't ever end. I must take every memory, moment, lesson, smell and taste with me or what was the point? to have cool pictures and good story to tell? absolutely not. I'm never going to unsee the things I've seen. or unlove the people I've loved so radically. I have to take this with me. I have to apply it to my everyday, American lifestyle. 

these 9 weeks have impacted me in ways that someone who wasn't here won't ever understand. and thats okay, just know that I've learned about myself, learned new skills, learned I can have more love for complete strangers than I ever thought possible. but most important remember that I've learned that Jesus is so good to his children. I've learned he speaks to us in things as little as the way the wind blows the dirt or the way the valleys are so green or through a toothless grin of a little babe out the window. I've learned that this life I'm living is so much bigger than me and the career I decide on or who I spend time with. my life is just a very small piece of God puzzle, and probably not even an end piece. probably one of those pointless middle pieces that can be done without. but God didn't do without me. he created me, not because I'm needed but because he wanted me. and not because I'm gonna change the world all by myself but because I play a small role. and that's the beauty of it, my friends. 

so here I am, days away from kissing this beautiful country goodbye. tears of all types fill my eyes as I type this. Tears of thankfulness, excitement, devastation, anxiousness expectation and nerves. Uganda I pray I will see you again soon, thank you for leaving me better than you found me.