today's worship

also, today's worship was out of our normal routine and beautiful. here are some of my takes.
//sidenote: luckily i did not fall off the stage taking pictures today, because that definitely happened to me last friday. #MostEmbarassingMomentOfALLTIME

 practice

iridescent light

Angie visiting with her {quickly growing} little siblings

oh, we want Your glory

adoration

august aches

in the midst of it all, God remains faithful.

my eyes have been at the point of falling out my head for quite some while, and in this month alone, i have cried more than i have this entire past year. multiple mornings i've struggled with the fleshly desire to move back to the States, wash my hands clean of all responsibilities here and try on the easy life once again.

what a joke.

i've tasted of Jesus too much to go back to anything less, experienced too deeply of His love, witnessed too much of His healing and faithfulness, to ever go back to the life i once lived. although it would be easier, i know my heart would start to feel that emptiness once again, that yearning for something to fill it, the crying out for purpose, for meaning. i know that God weaves in every strand of our lives for our good and for His glory, but i never really found God till i left behind my life. in order to leave it behind, i had to jump countries and expose myself for the fraud of a Christian i was, but now i can feel His hand stirring in my life, the process smoldering through me, and it's a beautiful kind of burn.

so flesh, i won't be giving up the fight. i'm staying here for another year, believing that God can make something of me and my constant mistakes. i know He is worth it and i refuse to settle for easy when He has called me to the difficult. reward or no reward, fruit seen or unseen, it all serves for His sovereign purposes. He knows what He's doing, and i am trusting in that, even when things look bleak and everything in me is weary.

friend, if there's something you need to let go of, it's time to let it go. it's time to stop searching for other little things in your life to turn over to God and turn over yourself. He doesn't just want your education, your job, your possessions, your family... He wants you. all of you. believe that you are valuable, that you are of worth, and whether you believe it now or not, that is why He wants you... the immense purpose and importance that a life has when turned over to Him// that your life has when turned over to Him.

here are six of the nine young ladies in my dorm.

Rosa, Susy, Esme, Angie,
Mireya, and Lupita.

each one is distinctly different, but beautiful in her own way.
keep them in prayer, would you?