We vacillate between treating people like children or treating them like criminals

I have unlearned a lot of things in my short time at HealthCare for the Homeless (HCH) working as a Lutheran Volunteer Corps Volunteer.
All that I have seen, all those I have met have changed me.
An uneasiness, however, has grown in my soul in the last three months that I have interacted and observed interactions with the individuals we serve at HCH. I have been questioning my motivation to be here.
I have no formal training in either mental health or social work, or for that matter anything that could be of any use at the moment, and I view my opinion as a very biased and untrained one. That being said, here it is questioned, untrained, unprofessional.

There's you(the therapist) and there's me (the client). We are sitting in a room (your office), I like the way it looks (your knick-knacks spread out here and there), I like the couch I am sitting on (your couch). The therapy ensues, your ultimate goal is to provide an open space where I can share my thoughts and emotions and the things that trouble me daily. I feel comfortable with you, except for the fact that sometimes (outside of the office and perhaps therapy) you treat me like a child. Despite whatever diagnosis you gave me, the fact remains the same: I come to this place with little to no agency, only to have the last strap of it removed by every interaction I have with the people in this place. I come from a place where either (1) I didn't have an agency to begin with, or (2) the agency I had I couldn't handle, or worse (3) it was removed from me by the system in which I live in.
I am no different than you or anyone you know, and the questions hang in the air: would you want to be treated like this? Would you want to feel like you are doing me a favor every single time we talk, that my difficult life is something to be pitied? If you were here in my shoes how would you want to be treated? Am I child you take care of, will you hold my hand and continue to treat me like a different kind of human? Will you remove any strap of dignity I have left by treating me like this?
Am I even worth your time and attention? Not just the helping kind, with the nice voice and all, but the real attention? The kind of attention where you realize that you and I are not that different, where you sit right in front me, look at my face and I look at yours. We can clearly see we are the same, for all you know this could be you in my seat. I deserve to be seen as human and as equal as you, my situation does not dehumanize me. My diagnosis does not dehumanize me.
My run-ins with the law do not dehumanize me, or for that matter my entire history with the law system does not dehumanize me. I am not a source of constant risk to you. What I have done is not who I am. You don't need to be afraid of me. Know it, yeah, I can't even escape it, but don't fear it.
I am not homeless. I am currently experiencing homelessness. But I am not homeless, and homeless isn't me.
I have a name and face. I am you, you are me.

Does it matter where we go?

I came home on a whim,
after having emotions tug at me for days I finally decided to make the trip back to this place I once called home.
Deep down, I know I came here to spend some much needed time with my family. I haven't walked these streets or breathed the mountain air for over a year. My heart yearned for the Andes, my mind yearned for understanding.
I've been trying to grasp another facet of my past and of my life,
absorbing everything around me, the good and the bad. Taking in everything and everyone I used to know. Grasping to understand who my parents are as I simultaneously grab hold of who I am.
I think I have understood now better than before that these souls and bodies that gave me life and a home make up an integral part of who I am and of who I want to be.
My questions had never probed so deep into their life experiences. Life experiences that have been so vast and diverse from my own and yet strangely parallel. After all we all look for love, we all experience loneliness, we all look for purpose and meaning. Their tales of love lost and found, of loneliness and community have helped me grip on more tightly to this ride of life.
I don't want to leave for many reasons. I am afraid of their growing accustomed to having me around. I am afraid that their health may take a bad turn.
And yet I know I have to leave. I could make this place my home once more, but my mind and my heart are headed in different directions. The challenge is the same everywhere: the search for community, but I must also accept my commitments and be lead by the things that make me come alive.
I have committed to doing a year with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, working at a healthcare clinic that specializes in treating homeless individuals. I have grown intrigued and passionate about this group of individuals. I guess that my expectation for the coming year is to better understand and interact with people in general and homeless individuals specifically.
Perhaps I am already setting the bar up to high, I tend to do that.
Perhaps though, after being here for a little over a month I understand that that is exactly where I should be in the coming year. My time here has been like looking at my reflection on the surface of a deep lake. I see my parents in the background forming the blurry shape that I see looking back at me. I see a country that bleeds from racism and environmental degradation. I see who I don't want to be. I see who I am. I see my family's past. I see the lack of community among siblings and cousins. I see who I can become and who I want to become.
I am hopeful and looking forward to whatever comes next.
I continue to hope in a silent God. I continue to search for the area in which my existence will be most helpful to others.

I continue on with this newfound rest.

"So when I'm ready to be bolder,

And my cuts have healed with time

Comfort will rest on my shoulder

And I'll bury my future behind

I'll always keep you with me

You'll be always on my mind

But there's a shining in the shadows

I'll never know unless I try.."

On a side note this video is amazing depiction of finding community anywhere. I strive that one day I will better able to do this.

Faithful and True

Two weeks from now all of
this will be over, and
nostalgia's cool air has come
calling before its time.
Can we truly overcome the deep darkness within us and around us?
Is certainty even possible?
Can we complete the unattainable task of defeating this darkness?
The darkness of uncertainty, of emotions, of the future.
Aren't we all fighting the darkness? The large cloud of loneliness that thrusts us desperately upon each other? The overpowering grey of insecurities? The blinding faith?
More and more it seems to me that it is the simple things that are able to diminish the darkness around and within.
I just hope that it is these leaps unto the unknown that will bring healing in their own small way. Perhaps, in acceptance of relationships, of changed plans, perhaps in the sorrowful surrender of a tired faithless soul, there is resolution.

Quite some time

That's all.

Flying

There's something so beautiful about needing something or someone.
There's something so beautiful about selflessness and true friendship.
True vulnerability is beautiful.
There's so much beauty.
There's so much God, as painful and hard that it might be for me to admit; God seems to be everywhere  in selflessness, in needing, and in vulnerability.
It's in the relationships that could not be any more normal and yet their very foundation seems to be metaphysical.
It's in hearts that have connected, that have understood beyond all reason beyond anything anyone could predict. That is God to me.
I am searching for those moments where God becomes as real as the air filling my lungs.
It's in that unspoken understanding, in compassion that seems so human. It's almost as if our hearts call out and tell us, that this, right here, this is what I was made for.
I recently watched the movie The Intouchables and I have not seen such an amazing depiction of life and selflessness as I did in that movie.
It is love that transcends culture, prejudices, time and words.
I think we must live for those moments, for it seems to me that through moments like those that we catch a glimpse of what life can be, of what we can be.
We catch a glimpse of faith and hope.

You know no love or hate.

O dear human,
How frail are your bones, how thin is your skin.
How small are your cries, how loud is your pretension.
How minute your importance, how great is your pride.
How big your ideas, how small is your kindness.
How wonderful is your creativity, how deep is your desire.
How powerful is your lust, how consuming your need of love.
How dear are your dreams, how beautiful your heart.
How painful is your violence, how eternal your forgiveness.
O dear human,
Come away to the lost,
become awake to the darkness around you.
Become aware of your limbs,
become aghast at your abilities.
This darkness, this evil--though overpowering makes you uniquely human.
O dear human,
your perceptiveness to the light and its grandioseness is embedded in your very spine.
Your propensity to return to pain,
to what hurts the most, makes you weaker and stronger.
Human you are a juxtaposition.
A species lost and yet strangely winning.
With one hand you tie your own noose
with the other you reach out to the hungry.
O dear human,
Who are you really?
Who can comprehend you still?
You would kill yourself in the name of love
and be found amidst the rummage of its fire the next day.
The same love that destroys you,
sets you apart.
O human,
your soul is so unique.
It loves unrequitedly and with a depth so incomprehensible.
Dear human,
How free you are in a cage of bones.
How loving and kind in the midst of war.

Well, you know me with that ancient gaze.

It might be simple as faith.
It might be simple as hearing his struggle with a faithful God.
It might be simple as looking into the eyes of a lover scorned and seeing her look to heaven with resiliency and grace.
It might be in the saddened eyes of the loneliest soul you have ever seen.
In these and many more, there was hope. Hope that the divine, that God held it all. Hope that God knew something. There was trust in Him, wounded and bruised trust, but it was there.
Maybe it really is all around me.
I had the opportunity to attend a large gathering of God-lovers (otherwise known as a conference) last weekend. And to my surprise, I was not so much moved by the messages but by the people. I was moved by the people around me that were clearly hurting and wounded and bruised. Gazing into their eyes you could see all this pain, but right next to this pain there was a slight glimmer of hope in their eyes. It was so powerful, pain and hope in complete juxtaposition to each other, struggling and giving with each other.
For so long I have walked by sight, but I have seen faith like never before. My own hope seemed so forlorn and now I am not so sure anymore.


Roo Panes-Know Me Well
http://soundcloud.com/crcmusic/roo-panes-know-me-well

Like the last breath I will breathe, like home to me.

Did I see a flash of gold, of that precious ticket that you hold?
Did I see your white teeth pass me by and never gave them a chance?
I think the knife hurt us all.
Dream.Real.Dream.Real
reality. No, the fortune did not say anything about this.
Let
it
go
Let
  this
          go.
Stay.
                  Stay with me, these
are the last minutes I have inside the eye of this storm.
        Is this real, not real?
Are we barely living, or living barely?
                      Your question of what
we
had.
No chance at all.
I saw your golden ticket and off you go.
Tell the mad hatter I say hello,
tell the queen I wanted you.
Tell
     your
            lovers
     that
           you
                 will
always be
w
   r
    a
      p
    p
  e
d
          r  o
       a      u
            d n
this
fraud.
Wasting such a perfect age,
                                   Such a let-
               



                                                          down.

A monologue to God

I turn twenty-one this weekend and I don't know if you'll be in the neighborhood or not, but if you are anywhere near 1902 and you could spare a few minutes for a talk, or a walk, or a hug, or a feeling or a breeze, my schedule is wide open.
It's okay if you can't, I get it.Times are hard, things are changing.
Did you see that the leaves have finally begun to fall?
I sat out in my porch today and I witnessed one of my lasts, for who knows if and when I'll ever be here again.
Anyways, let me know if you have time to spare. I will also welcome you if you come unannounced.
Even if you don't come I'll be looking out to the horizon;
My only hope is that we haven’t abandoned each other entirely.  

You were just saving yourself when you hide it

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. 

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung 

and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, 

you must give your heart to 

no one, 

not even to an animal. 

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; 

avoid all entanglements; 

lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. 

But in that casket- 

 safe, 

dark, 

motionless, 

airless

--

it will change. 

It will not be broken; 

 it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

-C.S. Lewis

Of God, life, love and MCAT scores from Ampfing.

There is one question that has been reverberating in my mind for quite some time. It simply asks,

What is God to you? Well,

God to me is an empty room. 

All the walls are blue and the ceiling is white.

There is a wooden floor and I'm sitting right in the middle of it. Hugging my knees and waiting.

Waiting for God to show up. But he never does. 

Sometimes a little cloud invades this room. It is faint and temporary, much like Berndnaut Smilde's fantastic display of clouds inside of rooms.

That little cloud is my tiny little glimpse of God's presence in this room. 

Sometimes it seems that He is coming, almost as if I can hear his footsteps rounding the corner into this room. And sometimes he feels so far away, I feel as if I've forgotten that he was coming at all. And sometimes all I get is a fleeting cloud. 

I think I could walk away from this room and take one of two different paths and finally find some peace of mind. But something keeps me here, in this room. Here, where nothing resolves. 

Because as crazy as it is I keep waiting for God to show up. I keep waiting for the time when all will be made right. I used to pray to understand all that I cannot understand. I used to pray for Him to show up, for me to see Him in the ordinary or extraordinary. 

Some people might say that my eyes have been closed, but I feel as if they have never been this wide open. I'm looking for him anywhere and everywhere. Don't get me wrong, because I do catch glimpses here and there, but my soul is not satisfied. I want resolution, I crave it. More than anything else in this world I want this. 

I think I keep myself in this room, because after all of this I still have faith in Him. Maybe my faith might be conditional, but maybe only because I hope that He is bigger than that. I keep myself in this room, because I know, that someday it will resolve. But I need to be here now, in order for that to happen. I need to be here now to encounter the pain, the struggle, the plurality of this world. 

So here I sit in this now not so empty room, maybe it is filling, at least temporarily. But that's the beauty of it all. 

Hope. Living and Breathing on it.

This year had an odd start. Before I knew it, it had begun. Two thousand and eleven was far behind me, and as the fireworks shot through the air I knew that I know nothing.
This year also came with a highly anticipated internship at Hospital Vozandes Quito. On January 3rd it began slowly and awkwardly (perhaps mirroring my own self).
I began with Clinical rotation where I rarely got to see patients but rather listened intently to symptoms and possible diagnosis in the daily meetings the clinical doctors had. I was excited for the 8th of January to roll around for I would be in surgical rotation. I got to observe two amazing surgeries. But I couldn't shake the feeling of the importance of the patient. The importance of the person inside.
This had never mattered before,
or maybe it was all that had mattered before.
This week in my ER rotation a patient came in that seemed to bring everything into focus, or was it out of focus? I'm still not sure. This patient had physical wounds that required a lot of money to restore to full capacity. Money which they did not have.
So simple healing, not restoration, seemed like the only option left. And although bravery encompassed this patient fully, there was something beyond the eyes that screamed out sadness.
And my heart ached, for even though we could give the patient physical healing, there was a whole other part that didn't seem to also heal. It seemed as if the patient's spirit was also broken. How my hands ached to reach out and whisper comfort, whisper hope!
The only Hope I have known.
But this hope now seemed like a thin thread I was hanging onto dearly.
A thread that threatened to break every hour, every day.
I still longed to whisper of this God I once thought I knew.
Oh how I ached; how I ache still!
How could I breathe life into dry bones? How could I bring light into dark eyes?
How could I give someone the Hope I have been searching for and have not found fully? How could I share this very last fragment of Hope I have when I don't know what it means still? How could I explain this metaphysical area which I cannot fully grasp?
I couldn't. I can't.
I reluctantly left the patient. For although an inner war waged within my soul about God. He had never seemed so real as he did then.
When the last scrap of hope I owned seemed to leap out of me. When my hope in God was the only thing that room that seemed to really make things okay.
I still don't understand a lot. And all that I know is this hope. But maybe it's enough. Maybe it is what will pull me from this darkness. This hope in God that seems to speak louder than my faith. The God in which I hope. The God that stirs something deep within my soul, beyond what I could recognize.

What Do I Know of Holy?

Filled with awe and wonder, they all screamed. They all whispered and all asked me
About this God. About the wonderful relationship I had with this God. And in my pride I gave away bits and pieces of my so-called knowledge of this powerful God. What it took to know him, who he was, his grace, his love. And deeper into my ignorance I dug, thinking that I had figured Him out. I knew everything. Most of all, I knew I was faithful. I still clearly re-call a conversation I had with my mother about the status of my faith, I think I said something to the prideful extent of counting myself lucky for never having doubted God. What little I knew Him, how little my faith was.

Now I'm caught up in a whirlwind of doubt. Of questions. Of tears and pain, and deep loneliness. For a world in which the belief you stood upon wasn't real is a world that is ripping and tearing at the seams.
Like W.K. Clifford writes on the ethics of belief, that a true belief is one that has "stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning."
The blatant acceptance of what I constantly heard had finally hit me. Not because I believed it to be untrue, but because it was not truly a belief I held, in the sense that I did not really delve into it deeply.
"To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances," Clifford writes.
I owed that God. To really delve into true knowledge of his word, of Him, of His truth. To delve into the doubts, into the fears, into the questions and discussions. If I really had said so many years ago that I loved Him, I owed Him the right to get to know Him. For how can you truly love someone if you don't fully know them? How could I truly believe in Him, if I didn't fully know Him? If I hadn't asked the hard questions, and forced an answer out?

If I had just believed simply and purely, would that even be real belief?

I once thought I knew Him. So fully, so perfectly. And sometimes I wish I could go back to my happy ignorant state, and I am by no means saying that I do know Him know. Because I don't.

He is bigger,
He is more mysterious, more confusing, more earth-shattering than ever. And I don't have Him figured out one bit.

I'm trying, and sometimes it seems as if my tries lead straight to the back of the darkest alley.

But sometimes in the powerful wind as the autumn sun sets it seems as if I can feel something. As if I can almost hear something.
And I dare to hope, beyond the tears and loneliness and pain, that I've stepped closer to Him even if only for that moment.

"Night of Fire-Pascal"

The year of grace 1654
Monday, 23 November, feast of Saint Clement, Pope and Martyr, and of others in the Martyrology.
Eve of Saint Chrysogonus, Martyr and others.
From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight.

Fire

'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,' not of philosophers and scholars.
Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
God of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
'Thy God shall be my God.'
The world forgotten, and everything except God.
He can only be found by the ways taught in the Gospels.
Greatness of the human soul.
'O righteous Father, the world had not known thee, but I have known thee.'
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have cut myself off from him.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.
'My God wilt thou forsake me?'
Let me not be cut off from him for ever!
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.'
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I have cut myself off from him, shunned him, denied him, crucified him.
Let me never be cut off from him!
He can only be kept by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Sweet and total renunciation.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and my director.
Everlasting joy in return for one day's effort on earth.
I will not forget thy word. Amen.

powerful video of life on the streets in Ecuador.

http://vimeo.com/28154713

Si Te Tengo A Ti

Ecuador-Quito, is complex. Far more complex than I remembered. With the busy streets teeming with automobiles, most new and silver cars; with people of many different racial backgrounds, and with the sweet complexity of the poor and the rich and the huge gap between them.
Coming back is always different. I always wondered what I was coming back to. Except for my family, there is nothing here I have ties to, or so I have thought. I always felt more at home in El Salvador, which baffles me for I didn't live there as long as I have lived here.
Quito is the place where I grew up, I guess. It's a place where I found my identity. Where I found God, or my simplified version of Him. Where my best friend and I raveled tales of adventure and romance of ourselves in some far away country. Where I sipped tea with her in my later years, and we discussed the turmoils of college life. So coming back now, and not having her here has been a challenge to say the least. But maybe through it I have seen another complexity of this city I guess I never really knew, maybe because I never bothered to know because after all this didn't feel like home to me.
But God has opened my eyes. To this city teeming with life, with sorrow, with pain, with abuse; and I have also seen joy, peace, love beyond what we deem natural.
As a college student coming back home, one believes one's mind is full of knowledge that is so radical that must be desperately shared with our parents. Unfortunately, one also believes that our philosophies and our "new-found" way of life somehow is better and must therefore be critical of that of our parents.
But in my so-called "new and improved" life, I realized I had not moved at all. I was still the same, young and bitter sixteen year old I once was. Thinking I had changed.
And as I am enjoying the community my parents have here I have begun to notice, the love that oozes from their very pores. They have changed, are changed and are changing. They have begun this new adventure, this new church, that comes with all these struggles, a lot of pain, and tears. And yet I can truly see that they do not do it for themselves. And in my selfishness, I have criticized.
And I, I have remained stagnant.
Coming back to this place where I am automatically drawn to the books of my youth, and the songs of praise I once knew by memory, and the adventure my heart used to yearn for; I realized I have not moved. Barely if anything. I may not snap at people as often as I used to, but anger still had a grip on me, even the in the cold depths of Michigan winters. I just had learned to bury in my books.
And here where life used to seem so pointless, I have seen what love was meant to do.
How it moves people.
I have seen what Jesus does.
And as I spoke with my dad of our struggles and of life, I could hear it clear as day, the love. Jesus' Love in Him for the people of Ecuador. My dad, a foreigner in Ecuador, who has known a powerful culture shock that has made him think more than once about returning home.
Jesus' love for His people has been injected into His veins, and has inspired Him each day-beyond the doubt, beyond the pain.
And he is a changed man.
Not because of anything he could do, but because of Jesus.
Oh that my faith were stronger. Fortunately, Jesus' love is. It goes beyond everything I once knew.
Beyond my anger, beyond my doubt, beyond my lack of movement.
Maybe all it took was going back and catching a glimpse of who I once was and still am, to find hope and inspiration in the Savior who can mold me and move me.
For I have tried, I have tried pretending to be different, ignoring the lack of change, and all to no avail.
So movement, change may be hard for me. But it is only God who can move in me. And I truly believe that I can do all things through God who gives me strength.

Tu Bandera-Jesús Adrian Romero

Como en un pais extraño me encontre sin ti
No entendia el idioma, ni las cosas que vivi
Y corri a buscar sin ver tu rostro entre la gente

Y aun sin conocerte
Convencido estaba de encontrarte a ti, de encontrarte a ti
Y en medio de mi confución se alzaba tu bandera
se enarbolaba como el sol diciendome que fuera
y a ti te siguiera
y asi me refugie en la cruz y en tu bendito amor
nunca imagine la vida que ahora vivo en ti
ni en la gracia que me diste cuando a ti volvi
mas a hora se que en ti yo tengo lo que anhelo
tengo vida plena tengo paz eterna
si te tengo a Ti.
Si te tengo a ti.

Can I have some water?

How many times do we unconsciously take some water to drink? How many times does our thirst pull us out of our seats to grab some water from the fridge or the sink and to pour ourselves a drink of water. Yet there is something so deep about asking someone for some water. Something so humbling. After all water is something that is so essential for our survival. For it is the liquid that makes up our blood, there’s only so much that we can live without before our kidneys begin to shut down. It is something that is so necessary and yet so humbling to ask for. So why do we shy away from people who have been ostracized by society who are only asking us or water. More than that maybe even a little bit of our time. TO just sit and talk, to ask about their lives. To ask about their today. For the last weeks I have been reminded on our fixation on time, and a story in the Bible keeps coming to my mind. It is in Mark 5.

It talks about this centurion, Jairus, who comes to Jesus asking him to heal his daughter, telling Jesus that she is close to death and he must come quickly.

So Jesus and the centurion embark off to go heal this man’s daughter. They are on the way, in a sea of people-probably rushing as fast as they can. The father probably fretting thinking of his daughter and the little time she has before she enters death’s door, maybe even walks a few steps ahead. Constantly looking back at Jesus in an attempt to get him to hurry.

Jesus is following this man, with his disciples around him. The tip of his cloak is gently touching the ground below him, when suddenly he feels a tug. And as if energy has escaped from his entire body.

Jesus stops.

“Who touched me?” he asks.

The disciples bewildered at his question, probably even laugh and say, “Master, we are surrounded by people. We are elbow to elbow next to people. How can you ask if someone has touched you.”

“No,” he insists, “Someone has touched me.”

Jairus is watching as this unfolds, he watches Jesus as he asks and he can’t help but fear the worst of his daughter. Doesn’t this man care? Isn’t he supposed to be the savior to all? Does he not know that she is dying?

And out of the corner a women escapes her fear and speaks up,

“It is I. I am the one who has touched you.”

She tells Jesus of how she has suffered of a bleeding problem all of her life. But she heard of Jesus and his power to heal and she thought that maybe if she could just even touch the end of his cloak she will be healed.

Jesus looks at her and listens intently, loving her as she shakes in fear as she speaks.

She tells him that as soon as she touched his cloak she felt completely healed. Jesus tells her, “Go. Your faith has healed you.”

Jairus sees one of the synagogue leaders beginning to approach him, and he knows by the look on his face that his daughter is gone. He doesn’t even need to hear him, when he announces, “It is too late. She is dead. Why bother the teacher?” Jairus’ heart breaks. If only they could have gotten there on time. If only they wouldn’t have stopped. If only, if only…

“It is not too late.” Jesus announces. And Jairus dares to hope.” Let’s see the girl.” As soon as he enters Jairus’ house, Jesus sees the weeping women and asks them, “Why are you weeping? For the girl is not dead, she is sleeping.” The weepers laugh at him, for they know that she is dead.

He enters the girls’ room. Bends down to her and says to her, “Rise up!”

and in an instant the girl rises, her eyes open. She is alive again!

He instructs them to give her food and something to drink.

I can’t even imagine what Jairus is feeling at this point. For a moment he lost all hope. He heard of her death, and yet here is Jesus who just raised his daughter up from the dead. Who truly is this man? And wouldn’t this teach him, teach us so much about time, and the importance that we put on time. The importance of reaching out to those in need. Oh that we would stop in our tracks to those living around us and ask them. Ask them about their lives. Ask them about their loves. Offer them a drink of water, when their mouths are so thirsty. Oh that I may be humble enough, and unafraid to approach those around me. Those in the streets that come into coffee shops in the need of water. To see beyond the ticking in our clocks, and see those in deep need. To see beyond our worldly restraints. And trust and love unconditionally, irregardless of the situations. To look at those that cry out for a minute of our attention. Oh that I may be more like Jesus and understand that time is to be spent. Spent wisely in lives. That we may even catch a glimpse and understand what it was that Jesus wanted to say. And to understand why the outcasts, the prostitutes are so important to him.

And I fear what I've done, means I've lost what I love.

Today in church we learned about God and how involved He is with us. Day in and day out. He spoke of how in American culture, you just gravitate towards a deistic point of view. I would argue, that it happens in many cultures, and not one person is exempt. Especially when you go through routine-filled days, in and out. Doing similar if not the same things every day, every week, every month, every year-all your life. You cease to see a difference, and you are caught up by this routine. And you don't see God as a personal, completely involved in your life-God. You cease to believe in miracles. You begin to see more things as impossible. Graduating, passing the LSATS, MCATS, getting into Law School, getting a job, getting into Med School, restoring a marriage, restoring your own life, ceasing to let the anger control you. Things you now see as unreachable, unattainable.
He also spoke on how we begin to see God as behind this fence, that we can't get to and He won't approach us.
But how wrong have we been, how wrong have I been. All the things I see as impossible are more than possible to Him! The pastor told a story of how when he was young, the pastor of his church gave the people of his congregation silk roses for them to take home and to put somewhere they can see them. That rose would symbolize an impossible prayer to God, and when God answered the prayer they would bring it back to the church and put it into this designated place for them. He told of how day by day, bit by bit, year by year the place started to be filled with roses. What a marvelous God we have! He is so faithful. And still we doubt. I doubt every day, about my future. My dreams. Of going to Africa. I question, and it's as if I'm almost waiting for Him to snatch those dreams from me. It's almost as if I'm expecting it. But how could I believe that God would give me this passion for something just to snatch it away? And still I do. So, I will say it again-how wrong have I been! My heart just aches from my lack of trust, from my fear of my Savior. Our Savior. He conquered death for us. That's the greatest act of love anyone could ever give. So I will continue to pray. For trust. For love. So that I don't fear this God, who only wants good things for me. For belief. In His power. He is the God of the impossibles, because He did the impossible. He died and rose again.
I believe. O, help my unbelief. I surrender.

Crucified to Set us Free.

A necklace. After much hugging and embracing she pulled me aside and gave me a necklace. A beautiful necklace, with a coral stone. This was no ordinary gift. After two months of volunteering at the red cross. I came out of it with so much. Today was my last day. And it reminded me that just two months ago, I would have come and sat down and listened to this doctor's life and love story. That she would pour out her heart and her feelings, as tell me of her adventures with Doctors Without Borders in South Africa, Bolivia and by mistake in Ecuador. She would tell me that that mistake would have led her to her husband.
 This was a wonderful woman. She was so cute and so clueless sometimes, and I think that is why she needed Jessica, the other volunteer, and I to help her out.
We sorted through boxes and boxes of medicine; typed blood, did inventory and soon the three of us became friends.
My heart ached for this wonderful doctor, this pediatrician-who in more ways than one was still a kid at heart herself. We joked around when we finally got internet in the office, and we checked all her unread e-mails, most of which were forwards, that lead to one story or another about her life. God blessed me so much through this woman, through this opportunity. For two weeks, we saw kids from a Home. These were children that had been beaten, raped, or worse. And it was those very events that had made them cognitively impaired, and yet they kept a happy smile on their face. The worst was when I had to write out the HIV test order for five of them. But this doctor had such compassion, she poured her life into these kids. And when we found out that one of them needed "un TAC Cerebral" (CAT scan) , she immediately said that she would find a way to pay for it, so they wouldn't have to pay the high cost. So today, as we all said our goodbyes. I was surprised, and I shouldn't have been-that she would give me such a beautiful gift. They were the ones who were being kind to me by allowing me to work with them. I didn't deserve it.

And in many ways, it reminded me of God and His gift of grace to us. We did nothing to deserve it. He made us out of nothing, He gave us life. Gave us hope. Gave us never failing, never ending love. What did we do to deserve it? That's what is so beautiful about grace. I don't deserve an inch of this, but He still gives it to me-fully and lovingly.I could never say thank you enough. For everything. The wonders say His name, the skies shout out His beauty, the rain whispers His grace, and the storm makes everything new again.

"Every day, again I'll choose.

there is no one else for me, none but Jesus."

Isaiah 30:18-26

Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.

For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, "Be gone!" And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous.In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.