When You Realize the Irony of Jesus as a Carpenter

I had a friend in my small-group at North Park first semester who has been blogging for a couple of years. She has amassed well over 500 blog posts in that short time. We are friends on Facebook and it seems that every time I scroll down my newsfeed I am assaulted (okay, that may be a grievous misuse of the word) by her contemplative, imaginative, beautifully ordinary writing. To this end, I am a horrible blogger. I fail massively at keeping my readers (another possible grievous misuse of the word) updated on my comings-and-goings. I complained about this to my friend Ethan over the summer and...

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Until Night is No More

     As the sun rises over the earth, darkness fades.  Rays of light penetrate the shadows; they will not last. The blanket of black that had once covered the city now hides in the alleys, under bricks; it hides behind my small frame, clinging to my feet.       My sin is like this feeble shadow, struggling for a place to hide amongst the glory of my precious Savior. This can either lead me to crouch with my sin, frantically trying to cover it, or I can stand tall and let every trace of it be burned off by the light.      At night, shadows...

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Let us dance!

"Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp." Psalm 149:3 As we approached the gate I felt the heaviness, but we went onward. As we entered the smoke from the incense was nearly suffocating. I saw a man throwing water all over his body and then scrubbing it all with much force. The idols were exalted with flowers, fruit and people. But then I saw the dancers. People could bring an offering to their gods and the dancers would dance for their gods. I watched them do their routine with such sadness and emptiness in their eyes.   I immediately...

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5am Wake Up Call

A couple weeks ago Abby, Juliette and I returned from a 2 day visa run to Laos. The good side of Laos included Laos t-shirts, new passport stamps and Thai visas…the bad side included a 12 hour roller coaster van ride, expensive not so good food, and no seven elevens on that side of the border. Oh and when we got back at 5 am Wednesday morning we were locked out of Zion for about 4 hours until they opened up the café.  I won’t lie-coming home to be locked out of our comfy beds was rough…I was not a happy camper. But I am beyond thankful it happened. Because we ...

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Thailand really happened

How does one begin to write a blog about the last two months living overseas? Good Question. Its been three weeks since my team and I have said our "see you laters" in Atlanta airport and quite honestly, I have had a range of different emotions since I've been back. Seems normal, since I was away from what was familiar for 2 months. Crazy to think that 2 months filled with tears, laughter, screams, bugs, bug bits, iced wawees, Zion pad Thai, feed back, songtauws, thai friends, prayer walks, ministry, and journaling seems like a dream. Although our team leaders went over re-entry...

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There’s Grace for that.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  Signing up to lead, I didn’t know which country I’d go to, who’d be on my team, or if I would actually be able to do it well.  Praise God, there’s grace for that. At training camp, The Lord gave me a word for the summer: “Surplus of Grace” Ever since, I’ve clung to that promise, especially in the moments when I needed it most. There’s grace for saying goodbye to your family, friends, and all that is uncomfortable and embarking on a journey full of unknowns. There’s grace for the moment...

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