the race

Welp, I'm just kind of a mess. 

I'm sure you predicted it. I guess I did, too, but you just never know what kind of kind of mess.

I've been doing this--life in Haiti--two week trips, summers, or full-time since I was 18, and it's just kind of overwhelming to me to still be being so stretched by it.  

You'd think I'd have been there, done that...at least enough to be less phased. 

But Haiti is so stark that it just can't ever seem to get comfortable. 

Maybe it's important to have those places, those people, in our lives.

I didn't realize that I had gotten so comfortable until the past few days, and especially in chapel today.

The worship was what it always is...vibrant, loud, passionate, unchecked.  On beat, on key, well-rehearsed, dignified? not so much, and not at all the focus. 

The prayer time was what it always is...heavy. Urgent. On the floor.

The community was what it's always been...known, shared, where I learned "brother and sister" from.

And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was in tears long before I knew why, realizing that I have been working hard in our new culture to worship that way, to think that way, to feel that way, to fit that way, to interact that way.

How sweet it was to realize that I wasn't thinking or observing...just worshipping. just praying.

How sweet it has been to watch our children this past week...not trying, not observing, not unsure, but in their instinct. They understand why others are doing what they are doing. They understand how the interactions are happening, what to expect, the language of the culture. And they GET it.

They're finally more at home in Mississippi, and have genuine and God-sent friendships. But it has been a lot of work, and watching them rest here in so many ways has been a joy.

I miss my friends, Lily said yesterday, but man, am I having fun.

Not going anywhere, for there is nowhere to go. Not participating in activities, for there have been no lessons or classes or groups. Not watching tv, for there isn't one. Just being, and understanding.

It's all sweet, except it struck me in chapel as bitter...for the relief and at homeness-in-the-LORD that I found there and that I have been missing NEVER left. He didn't stay when I went, doesn't hang out in Haiti when I'm in America. He isn't restricted by all my restrictions, has been limiting Himself to me...I have been limiting myself to Him.

I shared this idea on FB and I'm sharing it here because I didn't even realize that I forgot, and I had.

RUN NOT the race of those around you, but run hard and focused the race God-alone has put before you.

Don't run in the shoes and strides popular to our day and age and people, but in the the shoes and ways He has walked in with you. 

Haiti and her ways once felt SO bizarre and foreign. Mississippi, in the last two years, have felt equally so. 

But the Lord is not a God of places, but of people. He need not fit and will not..but wants to be our instinct culture.  He wants to be our freely and surely.  He wants to be our out-of-tune, our too-loud, our without-dignity, our everything and our uninhibited. 

And He wants that kind of abandoned running NOW, right where we are.