4 AM

Sometimes, I don't post for awhile because I don't think my words are worth being heard. Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in the things I should do, I forget who I am. I lose my identity in the world.

It's 4AM. I can't sleep. I can't even bawl, like I am wanting to. I am just sitting here, waiting for God to awaken my soul. I read my bible, did a devotion, revisited memories from Costa Rica, looked at blog entries from the World Race. Nothing seems to get me where I need to be.

When did I change? When did I become so busy? When did I lose my passion? Where did it go? Why isn't my heart breaking over this? Why haven't I been calling out in distress?  Why don't I want things anymore?

Where is my heart for missions? Why am I more concerned with being sexy than stopping sex trade? Why am I planning a Christmas trip to Hawaii when I have always wanted to go to Africa? Why have I been finding the littlest excuses to not go to church?

I'm not sure where I want to be...but it's not here. I don't want to be up at 4AM, freaking out about my inadequacies. I want to be up at 4AM praising His name. I want to be up at 4AM watching a sunrise in a foreign country. I want to be up at 4AM reading my bible to young girls who have just finished working the streets for the night. I want to be up at 4AM walking across town because there is a need that must be met.  I want my life to be about so much more. I want my life to mean something. Maybe I won't be Mother Teresa or even like my older brother, but I want to do something. I can't watch myself waste away in the selfish abyss anymore.

Speaking the Words

Writing is the hardest thing for me. Right now, I'm looking at my computer, begging to do anything but write. I'm even willing to do my pre-calculus homework. The funny thing is--sometimes it's hard to do the things we love. I'm not talking about texting or Facebook, or any other guilty pleasure. I'm talking about the things that compose the very fibers of our being. 

When I write, people expect me to be profound. They tell me I have a gift; they tell me I'm wise beyond my years. They tell me all the things I've been dying to hear. The things that make me feel elated, things that make me realize my purpose in the world. How ironic, but that's exactly when I have to stop. 

See, I do this weird thing where I make it impossible for myself to become comfortable. When I think become too adept with something, I flee. If I stay on Facebook too long, I won't let myself go on for a few days, I constantly throw away "unnecessary material objects." My mom thinks I'm a big sack of crazy, but I think it's just good to let go. When I went to Costa Rica in 2009, someone told me that it's not that God doesn't work when you're comfortable, but He works so much more when you're uncomfortable. 


In Costa Rica, my life changed. I experienced True Love for the first time. I *slept with strangers. I watched the sun rise in the middle of a broken street. I hiked the tallest mountain I'd ever seen. I wiped out in the middle of a rain forest. I slid through a muddy, hollow tree. 

I did thousands of things I never would have done at home. Things that were scary, confusing, and hard to admit. When I left, I was just an American teenager, but when I got home I was changed. I had become a great explorer, a missionary, a vagabond, even if just for a little while. The strangest part was that home didn't feel like home anymore. Honestly, I was anything but comfortable. 


My hope for you is that you can find the balance I can't seem to find. Fervently pursue the things you love, but never become comfortable. You have to change to change yourself. 


*meant in a literal, not sexual context

Melodrama

I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to play this game anymore. I don't want to walk around acting like I actually want to live the American dream. I want something more.

I don't want to earn an MBA and work in a fancy office somewhere. I don't want to work on Wall Street. I don't to be a professor at an Ivy League university. I want something more.

I want to feel alive.

I love that as a woman and a person of a low-income family that I have the opportunity to go to college. That's so awesome. Everyday, I am thankful for all my rights. I am thankful to be an American. Just because America is great doesn't mean we should neglect the rest of the world.

As a high school senior, everyone is asking me what I want to do with my life. I have three very short simple answers. I want to travel. I want to write. I want to help people.

I don't want a lot of money. I don't want to be a member of my local church and chamber of commerce. Those are very respectable, very important things, but I want more. I need more.

My parents are trying to make me into the things that they wish for themselves. They are wishing a better life on me. They just want me to successful by society's terms. I may seem like just another melodramatic writer, but I'd rather stick my head in the oven.

Help!

Things are revealed to us in the most unexpected ways, aren't they? For the past few months, I have been sitting on my butt wondering hour after hour, what was I going to do with myself this summer. I looked for absolutely every opportunity I could have accepted. First, I wanted to go to a ritzy acting camp, then there was singing lessons, then early scholar classes and of course, various plays. Crazy enough, none of my ideas went as planned. I figured well, I'll just have to get a job like every other high schooler, but I feared that. I feared normality.

About a month ago, while talking to my brother about desiring to be busy this summer, he suggested to me a mission trip. I told him I'd look into it, but honestly, I didn't take him seriously. Yes, I loved God, but my own selfishness was in the way. A week later, I did look up those mission trips he was referring to, and knew it was time.

I'm asking for help, but until I help others, I can't help myself.

I can't just keep saying I want to make the world a better place. I can't just keep planning for the future. I have to think about right now. What if I die tomorrow? Would I want to be remembered as the girl who didn't want to save the world until it was convenient? I took some time to really think and pray about it and I realized this was what I wanted.

My brother told me he could see a desire in me to help others, and he's right, that desire is here. It is streaming through every one of my veins. It is shouting, don't wait any longer. With every heart beat, I know what I have to do. God puts passions into our heart for a reason, does He not? If you don't use it, you lose it, right?