Looking up at the trees in the setting sun, it seems like the leaves are coated around the edges with gold. The cement of the back patio is cool against my legs, the air a little cooler and I am drinking in this moment of solitude. I don’t feel the need to get up and go talk with people, the need to shatter this moment.
Mourning doves glide from rooftop to rooftop and the mission house dogs pace by, barking at any other dog who dares come near the front gate.
A moment has passed as I stare up at the blue of the sky, purposefully breathing slowly and deeply. The gate swings open and in the next second my friend Kelsey sits down on the chair in front of me. She has just finished up with ministry at the church and is “letting that last thought spiral through her head” before she heads inside to do the next thing. Before she goes through the door, she reminds me that she enjoys being my friend, that pursuing our friendship is refreshing for her.
These moments are my treasures.
Hours fly by, meetings crunch themselves into our days and intentional conversations threaten to overtake every spare moment in between. It is easy to walk under the weight of these things. Surrender is letting this all go and faith is trusting that the world will not fall apart when you do.
The air is growing cooler and now only the tops of the trees are golden leafed.
The question of my future, of what comes next after the race has been a dumbbell or two added to the weight of refugees on the streets, unfinished conversations ending in a question mark instead of salvation and the general growing pains of life, BUT the sweet thing about growing pains is that life is happening, maturity is forming and the natural course of things is taking place.
The sun is almost gone and the dogs bark at the next door neighbors, the mother of eight new puppies begging for scraps of food from their table. Any time she scampers out of the house, she is scavenging, begging and whining for food. She is nurturing eight little lives. There is growth and newness taking place and she is starving, intent only on feeding herself so the growth can keep happening. In time, this stage of her life will pass, but right now it fills her whole world. She can’t see past her hunger or the urgency of the growth that needs to happen.
It is two days later, a warm afternoon and the trees are fully cloaked in sunlight.
We are bearing fruit. We are growing and maturing as believers. It is easy to get so caught up in the urgency of the growth, to worry about the hunger we are experiencing and forget about the bigger picture of our full life here on this earth. This is natural. It is natural to feel the tension of growth, but it doesn’t have to steal our joy. We are still the branches coming forth from the vine. Sometimes it is a season of blossoms and other times a season of fruit. Sometimes it is a season of harvest and other times a season of barrenness. Through it all, the most important thing, the unchanging thing is that we are in the vine and the vine in us.
Life Updates…
I am excited about…MY MOM COMING FOR PVT!!!!! It just keeps hitting me again and again that she is really coming?
I am praying about…how to live out the calling of church planting after the race.
I was encouraged…when I watched a man intently reading a Bible that I had given him during a follow up visit.
