Let your hearts revive

I'm finding that my ability to express life here is often stunted by the array of areas that living in this land touches. Life here has a way of being a thousand different things all at once. I could say so much about it that it almost leaves me with nothing to say at all. This is a place where I experience some of the greatest joys, deepest sorrows, times of fulfillment, utter disappointment, loneliness, peace, unrest and everything in between. This place can be completely paradoxical yet so bare and simple. So I found myself unable express anything here, almost altogether. I stopped writing. I stopped journaling. I stopped trying to capture my thoughts and emotions because they were too many things all in one. And at first I didn't even recognize it, I figured with the busy month of December some things were just being naturally neglected. Slowly by slowly, God started revealing to me that there was an absence of remembering, of processing and expressing life in all that it was here and that it was a problem. The monotony and difficulty of life here suppressed the true passion and joy that I've felt for this place. Even though there were tremendous victories, sweet moments and days of enjoyment the unexpressed lull that fell upon my heart overcame and silenced my ability to understand much of what I desired to convey. After recognizing this deficiency I was lost as to what I could do about it. Each day I just felt God telling me to be obedient to the tasks before me, even though the feeling was as though I had lost the drive and passion for it. The constant reminder that my calling here isn't based on feeling kept me obedient and true to what he's asked of me. I had a timely reminder of a passage in Luke that held me from abandoning what I know he's asked of me...

Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty.' -Luke 17:7-10

Thankfully, we serve and loving and kind master who followed up each act of obedience with a gift of excitement and passion for each task as I entered into it. It always came as I stepped out in faith and it renewed and revived my heart. I feel Him restoring the lost words and reestablishing my expression of joy in this place that is home.

"You who seek God, let your hearts revive. For the LORD hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners." -Ps 69:32b-33