Solitude

Solitude is the furnace of transformation rather than an escape from busyness. Times of solitude develop sensitivity to God and allow us to savour intimate moments, to let them fill us and satisfy us.
-Lorie Martin, Author of Invited

is it time?

As I typed out the last paragraphs of the grant application, a flood of emotions came over me. Not one emotion. Not even two. To be honest, I don't even know what to think.

Fiji is not just some place on a map. It's not just a bunch of islands, and some people. Along time ago, I began asking the Lord what He wanted from me. What should I do for Him? What can I give Him?

Night after night I'd ask, and night after night I'd get the same answer. "I just want your heart"

I was confused. I thought I had done that. I thought we we're squared up- yet the same response again and again caused me to question, "What does He mean?" When we went to Fiji the first time, I had asked, no, even told God: "Give me your heart for these people. Don't send me if you can't give me your heart." As I sat one day, in a few moments of stolen solitude, overlooking the south pacific ocean from a bamboo bench, I felt something. I think in that moment God put missions in my heart. Before then, I didn't like missions much. I was convinced that I was not called to missions. But there, on that trip, something changed. I fell in love with fiji. The people, the culture, the land. God put it in my heart, because it's in His- and now, more than two years later from that afternoon on the bench, my heart still yearns to be with the people of Fiji.

It's been hard. This thing thats so in my heart, I feel I've had to die to time and time again. It's not time, it's not time, it's not time. I wish some times that I could just go. I wish I could leave this. All this stress. All this technology. All this administrative stuff. All this waste. Something in me wants to run away to the simpler pace of life that is Fiji. But it's not time. I remember the feeling I had when it was time to leave after my one and a half month trip, about this time last year. I felt sick to my stomach entering the airport. So .... big. So commercial. I had just come from the village. I wanted to stay. The contrast was too much.

I didn't know what I was going back to. Life took a slow time getting started once I came home. Eventually I found my footing, just in time to enter in to a dark season of the soul. God was doing some inner purging. Meanwhile on the top, youth continued at full speed and in the new year, became a source of actual (part time) income. I fell in love again with youth ministry. Which took time, because often I think of Fiji. Often I wish it were time. Often I dream. Often.

So now this grant comes up. A second time. The first time got my hopes up and dashed them. So this time, I walk on eggshells. I love what I do. Youth. Soon to be Mexico and Chapel. I love it all. I love ministry. I love the people here,.. but what about... what about there? is there something there for me? am i done there? Is it a not now? or a not never? What if this grant goes through? what about youth? what about solo? what about maca? what about? The reality of what this grant going through to me, is so much bigger than steve or those guys think. to me, this is life. Something like this grant could be the start of what I think I was made for. But all I need to know.. .is... is it time?