Adjusting to Absense

coming back to a city with finished roads and new buildings is fun until you don't know where you are. being able to drive again is nice until you realize 65 mph feels like you're about to fly off the freeway. i am experiencing similar feelings as i get back to so many relationships that have kind of been on pause. things have changed. i have changed.

it has officially been a full week of being back in Vegas. the feelings that i carry with me on a daily basis are kind of indesribable. and the only word that always comes to mind does not at all do them justice. but alas . . weird is what I feel. i find myself just observing the things and people around me. like i am relearning how to interact with the familiar atmosphere around me. my adjustment process is much like the way i am handling jetlag: i try to engage as much as possible before my body just won't let me go on. i am realizing it is okay to zone out, existing is all that matters sometimes. God does not expect me to be super; that's His job. life is a process even here in lovely las vegas with so much that i love. yet it seems like i have been apart from it for so long.

the other day, in the throws of running around and visiting people before they holiday, i was thinking about what God has been doing while I have been gone. everyone i run into wants to hear stories from my life these past 6 months. but i want to hear theirs. as we exchange tales, i understand more and more something my father told me the night he picked me up from the airport. "you will never know how much your choice to go has impacted people." before i found it a bit absurd, but i may have just been sleep deprived. with each day that i am home, i am beginning to see what he was pointing out: the value that God has in calling us to 'Go.'

i know for myself, being away from home and friends and family left a gaping hole that had to be filled. there was a void and walking away from my natural habitat forced it to be filled with something other than what I readily had access to. i had to find something else and i had to learn how to get it. Jesus told the disciples before he ascended to heaven, "But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don't, the Advocate won't come. If I do go away then I will send him to you."-John16:7 The Advocate is the Holy Spirt, our Comforter, our Encourager, our Counselor, our Friend. He is meant to fill the void.

Jesus said he had to go, in order for Holy Spirit to come. So it makes sense that we on earth would experience this, too. Looking at my life and the ones of those I love, I can now see the value God had for the absense we endured. So much growth has ensued! Beyond the unexpected accolades of people expressing how my journey has inspired them (super weird btw). Beyond the tangible differences I can see in my character and my own personal walk with my God. Right now, what encourages me the most are those lives I left behind 6 months ago. Those family members and friends who offer up stories of the valleys they trekked through and how they reached the mountain on the other side. And how they came to be the thriving lights that I have the extreme priviledge of returning to this Christmas season.

i am not saying that i came back to a perfect world. not at all. but i am grateful to have come home to a place that i vaguely recognize, physically and spiritually. because God has evidently been hard at work in His garden (John 15). He has been tending to his branches and showing us all what it means to abide in His love. and how to watch  expectedly for the Advocate. we get to rest and reminisce, knowing that the manger has long been empty and God our Savior is a Man sitting on a heavenly throne. Yet, he is also ever with us. Emmanuel. God with us wherever we go.

Prioritizing the Presence

Sitting here at the hotel cafe in Siem Reap, seemingly "at the end to all things," a question lingers. One that has probably been there all along, but now more than ever is rising to the surface. It is flooding my awareness with its reality. It will no longer be silenced. No longer can it be contained by depths and leagues. So, I ponder it. I seek it out in response. And I wrestle with it. Struggling, flailing and failing at times. "What does it really mean to prioritize God's presence?" Outside of Battambang, soon outside of Cambodia, outside of this team and me.

These five days of debrief alone have shown me how easily it is to revert to our old self-looking out for what we want and pursuing our own comforts. We are only a few hours away from the place we called home and the people we invested our lives in and gave so much of our love. Yet, I find that the compassion with which we championed and immersed ourselves in now threatens to become stagnant. Sometimes, I feel that its power is growing faint. A cloud of judgment has crept over amidst the cat-calling of restless tuk-tuk drivers, bombardment of eager (even pushy) market-sellers and abundance of people begging on the bustling  streets. Slowly, but surely, its heaviness blotting out the sun. Concealing its rays to the point we forget the light we knew before. Going unnoticed in the whole process. Yes, it is a wonder how fast things can change.

Remember what life was like before? All those months. Remember what we said? The stirring in our guts. That reality is still available. It is still there. It has always been and always will be. All we have to do is ask ourselves a little question to return to the realm of our whole being. To again walk with clear vision and steady footing enlightened with the knowledge that God surrounds and pervades everything. To make it back to our original intention of continually being made whole.

Am I prioritizing God's presence? Am I bringing His kingdom as I said I would? Or dulling my senses with worldly musings, by trading wisdom for stone. Right here, right now, today . . .seriously WHAT ARE WE BRINGING?