These Last Moments

I apologize for not posting in a while, friends. Here is my senior kick-off.

We all come into high school with some idea of what it will be like and who we want to become in four years. But things happen that will shape you into a totally different person than you expect. You will meet people, things will happen, and by the end of it you'll be someone you never imagined upon first entering the doors of High school. It's completely up to you who you choose to become. That is a cliche statement, but so true. My freshman self would have never expected who I am today. And I'm sure that a year from now things will be completely different.
In this precious time- in these last moments, I want to do more than Live it up. I want to live every day as if Jesus would come back tomorrow. Because, friends, we're living in the last days. We have four years to be in the biggest ministry platform we could imagine, and it's a dark place. But Christ is drawing near. And everyday in school I pass people who are cutters, drug users, depressed, lost, and in need of a friend. I don't want to live senior year with my nose stuck in the air. I want to live senior year humbled. I want to live this year reaching into the lowest places, seeking people out who need Jesus to be their healer and comforter. You don't have to run through the courtyard speaking in tongues to get people saved. But you can choose to go into your prayer closet and pray for them. You can choose to sit by them at lunch. You can choose to say hello to them and ask how they are, and if they're struggling you can choose to reach out your hand.

You can choose to be a light this year.

So let it be the best. Let it be the hardest. Let the challenges come. Let the ocean try to overwhelm me. Because no matter what we face this year, with the Ultimate Best Friend at our side, we can overcome anything.

Let this be a year as if it were truly the end. 

Close your eyes.

Sometimes all I have to do is close my eyes and I'm there again. There in the hot van squished in the back seat between Connor and Bekah, bumping down the dirt road as we travel around the mountains. There sitting in the dining area with the new, sweet friends whom I wish I could see again. Sitting there laughing with them as if I'd known them my whole life when we only just met. I close my eyes and suddenly I'm There, shaking, heart racing in front of thousands and thousands of people who have lived lives much different from mine, all staring at the stage listening to me tell them about a little girl in their city who was healed of fractured legs that day. Sometimes I close my eyes and I'm standing in line for breakfast, and James hands me a piece of toast with Jelly and a cup of goat milk. And I thank him kindly and go sit with Tori, who puts on my ragman skit makeup that morning, and then I sit next to my long lost sister Caitlin.

Sometimes I close my eyes and I'm dancing to some electronic american music among a bunch of little kids who love to jump and dance. The teachers are giving us strange looks, but the kids love it. I close my eyes and see the little boy whose hand I shook in greeting, and I remember meeting his eyes in just that one moment, and I felt our hearts connect. From one heart to another. And he looked deep into my eyes, smiling. His belly was empty, and he had no shoes, and he was in a crowd of hundreds of little kids, in a city of thousands of people, in a continent full of millions of injustices, and he took my hand and looked deep into my eyes and smiled.

God, I want to go back.

I have to go back to them.

 I need to see them again and I want to love them and I want to sit in the dirt with them and listen to them and let them teach me. Not because America thinks it's nice to help poor people. Not because I want to be a cliche American girl who thinks that Africa Needs her. Those African children don't need her and her riches and healing and education. That girl needs THEM. She needs their eyes, their hearts, and their mentality and humility. Together, we need you, Lord. Because your heart for them has been rooted deep within me, and it has become a part of who I am, I must go back to the Nations. You've given me your heart for the fatherless, the brokenhearted, the captive, and those who need justice. And they need you. And together, we need You.