fresh eyes

When I got the list of immunizations I would need to travel to Ethiopia, I didn't even read them. I skimmed right past that section and moved on to the rest of the informaiton in my prep packet. I don't need to get shots... I've lived in Africa. I haven't gotten travel immunizations since I lived in America and made short-term trips around the globe. Oh wait.

Sometimes I seemingly forget. I'm once again living in America, taking short-term trips around the globe. So I promptly scheduled my appointment. (It's today at 10:30, by the way.) {EDIT: It's been rescheduled for next Tuesday afternoon.}

I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, this is just a surfacey reminder of how I've been approaching not only this trip, but this entire season of my life. And of how I need to start looking at things differently. Or rather start seeing things the way they actually are.

This Ethiopia trip isn't old hat. This isn't "been there, done that, got the T-shirt".

My life experiences up to this point make me who I am, but they don't negate the current and future experiences on my journey. And they certainly don't trump them.

The faces I'll see in Ethiopia, the villages I'll visit, the poverty I'll witness, the unshakable pains my heart will feel... they will all be new. Familiar maybe, but still new.

I don't want to glance over poverty because I've seen it before. I don't want to overlook those I encounter because I think I already understand. I don't want to ignore what's right in front of my face because I feel like it holds lessons I've already learned before.

Each person I meet has a story I haven't yet heard, dreams I haven't even imagined, and a present-day reality that is just as real as mine is.

Each person has more to give me than I could ever give them.

I want to listen with new ears, see with fresh eyes, feel with a still-tender heart.

So I am choosing to go as a learner, not a teacher. As a listener, not a speaker. As one who holds closely, not at arms' length.

With eyes and heart wide open.

So I don't miss a thing.

Right now, look at what's around you with fresh eyes. What do you see?

coffee talk: friendships

I know there are seasons in friendships. I get that there's a natural, healthy ebb and flow in relationships. But sometimes things just seem to change. I'm not talking about a fight. Or a falling out. Sometimes you just sense a shift... something's different...

So, I'm wondering...

Do you initiate a conversation about it? Or do you wait to see if the other person brings it up?

Does it depend on who it is?  How so?

Or do you just ride the whole thing out and silently let that chapter of  your friendship come to an end?

How do you handle subtle changes in relationships?

Tawk amongst ya-selves.

on ethiopia

I have vivid childhood memories of being captivated by the glimpses of Ethiopia I saw on TV. I remember the long, emotional commercials with the graphic images of starving children. I recall feeling a deep sense of tension in my inability to reconcile the fact that I was watching these emaciated, dying people while sitting on my carpeted floor, eating cereal in my pajamas in front of the TV.

I knew something was wrong with that picture, but I didn't understand it.

I still don't.

Even though I've experienced it the world over.

I had that same sense of unreconcilable tension when I flew to Nicaragua at 14 for my first mission trip. I felt it in Amsterdam when I spoke with people at coffee houses, hearing their stories of love and loss. I couldn't shake it in the rural villages of Botswana. And it lived with me in South Africa, ever present, ever pressing.

And still, I have no answers. I don't understand the disparity in the world. The extremes of affluence and poverty found practically on each other's doorsteps.

That deep place in my heart, affected so strongly by Ethiopia as just a young girl, is about to get wrecked by Ethiopia once again. I'm traveling there next month with Food for the Hungry.

FH is an amazing organization, engaging in community development through child sponsorships all around the globe. I've had the incredible opportunity to work with them for the past six months, helping them set up their first-ever Blogger Mission Trip. It has been such a joy to work with my friend Daniel on the planning and preparation for this inaugural trip. And I feel even more blessed that I get to travel with them as part of the team.

There are 6 of us bloggers going, along with a photographer and several FH staff members. I am blown away by my teammates, and am really looking forward to getting to know them more on the trip. I know I have a lot to learn from each one of them. Meet the whole team on the FH Bloggers website.

I know I'll experience the same no-answers, only-questions unreconcilable contradictions in Ethiopia. I know. And I want to embrace them. To wrestle in that space—with myself, with my heart, with culture, with my questions, with Him...

Some things will just never make sense, but that doesn't mean they are to be avoided. Ignored. Disregarded.

No, they are meant to be run headlong into. Embracing the tension to find the Only One Who Makes Sense in the midst of everything that doesn't.

Will you go there with me? Travel with me by following my journey here, on Twitter, and with the rest of my team... And wrestle with me through the stuff that just doesn't make sense?

Let's look for Him together...

,

life is messy

,

"Nobody likes letting go. From our earliest moments, from birth till we're six feet under, our instinct is to grab, grip, cling. To a finger, a bottle, a best friend... Sometimes we hold on for dear life to the very things that keep us from actually living it. But that comes with an upside—It's the way we feel when we finally let go.

The trick, I guess, is to not find a way around the curve balls life serves up, but to live with them. In halfway happy, uneasy alliance. And to search for new things to cling to, and when we finally find them, to hang on just as tight.

And around and around we go, holding on until the time comes to say goodbye.

And like it or not, ready or not, we have to accept one universal truth: Life is messy. Always, and for all of us.

But a wise man once said, 'Maybe messy is what you need.' And I think he might be right."

From In Plain Sight, S5 E8