In this place, I am weary yet rejoicing

It has been one of those days where I feel again that in this place, before these students, I feel His pleasure. He has given me high and lofty goals and I am trusting him with those, but in this classroom before my students from 7 or 8 different countries, it is pure joy.

   I listened to an interview done by Bethel Church recently. Two Olympic runners have started going to that church and attending the school of ministry. Can you imagine- being a professional runner. That career alone is proof that God made us all unique and different!!
 
   And Sarah Hall, who runs steeplechases, talked about how she knew that God wanted her to run. And she talked about her passion for justice, for the poor and how that felt so much more important. And yet God said, run. Run because I can do more through you running that by yourself-with just your two hands on the mission field. And it shook me a bit. Because you know I have struggled with my identity and finding it in a holy and high calling. And it has been a journey finding it in Jesus. I am still on the road and it is a long pilgrimage with new friends and unexpected showers and dusty roads that remind me where I came from but it is beautiful and new and it feels right.

   Standing before those students today, the ones that so intimidated me only a week ago, I feel His Pleasure. It is coursing through me and I feel 'light as a butterfly' and I know His Joy must be shining because I can hardly keep it in. I feel like bursting.

And it is in these moments that I am thankful for the trials that have taught me to speak through against the lies. To catch the lies at their early stages and see their destructive end. I don't catch them all and I, again, am still on this journey, but it is a bit of beauty I am finding in the broken places. It is restoration and redemption for the lies that have rocked our little boat. So we are learning and I am thankful. For in those moments, when Truth has scattered lies and I am lifted up to see His great tapestry of love and I catch just a glimpse of the beauty that he is weaving, I am transfixed. Transformed. Renewed. And then I am back to where I can only see the knotted underside of that tapestry but it is enough. Enough to press on, with tired feet, and to remember that these feet are beautiful. That me with my lack of grammar skills, can teach English and bond with students and proclaim His Love. It is more than Enough.