awake my soul

i love journaling. i love journaling a whole bunch. it has become an integral piece in my prayer life and quiet times. in july i started a journal that i titled "waiting". it was specifically for the time between school and ywam. (its funny that i ended up hardly using it during that time. i wrote in it seven times before i began this beautiful adventure. seven times!! bleh!) i finally finished it at the end of october. the satisfaction that comes with writing the final word in a book that contains some of the most intimate words from my heart is pretty great. its like i get to physically close a chapter in my life. but before i close that chapter i like to go back and read it, go back and revisit what my heart was desperately seeking, what i thought God was teaching me, and what He actually revealed to me. the entry from september 13 is the entry that really started a desperate search for God in this city; september 13 is the day i came to san francisco. i thought i'd share this little piece of the last chapter of my life:

"awake my soul" is playing as i sit on the flight that carries more than just my body and my luggage. this huge bird that is taking me over an insanely intricate landscape is carrying me to change, it is carrying me to unknown, yet i feel completely aware and sure in this new set of footprints. six years ago i stood in the back of a church in lubbock, texas and heard a voice that was louder that anything i've ever heard. some people say You are in the details and that we should listen carefully, but God that day Your voice was loud and clear. you called me into a life that seeks to represent a love deeper than any ocean. six years ago you told me to go, you told me to do ywam. and two years ago you showed me the absolute beauty that is san francisco. you developed an insane love for a city that is broken and dying.so here i sit, in this empty row on this plane full of strangers, trying to fully grasp what it is i am doing. my head is telling me that i am completely insane and fear is pumping through every vein in my system. but there is something going on inside that is completely inexplainable except that it comes from you. i have such an overwhelming sense of peace. although my heart is about to beat out of my chest because of the demon we call anxiety, it is about to burst with love for a city i've barely met but feel like i've known forever. so God here i am, fully surrendered to you, with arms high and heart abandoned. God some people don't understand what or why i am leaving a life that is more than comfortable. but that is why. comfort breeds laziness sweet Jesus and you are better. "because you are luke warm, and neither cold nor hot, i will spit you out of my mouth... i counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire (rev 3:16-18)" and i am so tired of being warm. God that is one of my many prayers over the next six months. that you would begin refining me like gold in fire, that my identity would begin to be lost in yours. God you are better

and He is answering that final prayer more and more each day. while having 21 years of life sloughed off my soul is not pleasant it is so good. i'm learning that the more room i give Him to shine through my ugliness and the more i let Him pour light into the darkest parts of my soul the lovelier living life with Him is and the more i want pieces of Jesus.