I flew from Dallas to Paris determined to find a sense of purpose after the hardest year of my life. I flew knowing one thing- I loved traveling to discover other cultures. I love being lost in a crowd of people who don’t speak the same language as me. I love how my perspective never fails to broaden when I’m abroad, and how Jesus speaks to me the loudest when I’m being brave. But there have been so many moments wen I haven’t been brave on this trip. When my bravery fails and I flail, trying to grasp onto some sense of self.

Last Sunday morning I woke up and I felt as though I was a bottle of ocean-water that had been violently shaken. My sense of self was askew and I couldn't seem to remember who I was. Everything seemed wrong and yet I knew it was right and good and quite amazing. It was though I was reading about my life without feeling it and numbness was spreading from my heart to my toes.

I felt done with being unsettled and on edge, done with the expectations and complaints and the constant nagging to be better, stronger, and more everything.

I found a far corner in a backroom of a church and I cried. I cried because I am so much less than I thought I would be. I cried because my life has not followed the script I had so carefully prepared. I cried because some of the dreams in my heart are crumpling like an old piece of paper and some feel like they’re impossible.

And then I stopped crying. It was less of a voice and more like God zipped his credit card through my my mind and valuable information was loaded.

I have been living my life with a crippling lack of trust. It may not seem like it on the outside, but I know the truth on the inside. I may have flown to Paris, but the entire time I was strategizing and configuring how this would fit into my master plan.
I have all of these ideas of what I want the future to look like, all of these expectations and hopes. And hopes are good. But hopes are not God.

God’s plans are good. They are good and He will bring them to pass. The dreams that I’ve been clinging to with such ferocity are not bad, but maybe it’s time to let them loose. To truly give them to God.

“But who are you, a mere man, to criticize and contradict and answer back to God? Will what is formed say to him that formed it, why have you made me thus?”- Romans 9: 21

So I’ve been asking God what His dreams are for my life. What He wants to give me. And I’m learning to live in freedom, not in slavery to my expectations. Because maybe He’s preparing me for those dreams without the pressure of knowing it. Everyday, I’m trying to open my fist a little wider, let it all slide through my fingers. I think that my mission here is to be open, to love people well, and to learn French. That will only only only be done by the grace of God.

Loneliness rarely plagues me. I’ve adapted to the culture fairly well. I love it here. I love waking up to the sound of the metro. I love speaking broken French with people who speak broken English. I love that Jeff said he was surprised by our willingness to serve and be involved. I love that Gaelle calls me sunshine, and I love that people sit around nursing one cup of coffee and talking to their pals for hours. The battle I face is with myself. Who am I in the midst of a thousand voices, and where do I fit into the puzzle that is life?

“Arise {from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you- rise to a new life}! Shine {be radiant with the glory of the Lord} for your light has come, and the glory if the Lord has risen upon you!”- Isaiah 60:1