"For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late."

Habakkuk 2

love, jamaica

let me start with this:

jamaica was great.

it was everything that i needed it to be: life-giving, joyful, relational, challenging, exhausting, beautiful, no less profound than trips one, two and three.

i have countless stories that i'd love to share, if you'd be willing to ask for them. they'll be accompanied by a billion photos, plenty of babbling and probably a few (happy/homesick) tears. i would tell you about our patchwork mural with my favorite kids in the entire world or early morning conversations on the veranda, slowly picking up phrases of patois, being welcomed into my Jamaican family. then i'd probably tell you about an unavoidable tension between the realities that i find myself in. i'd have to give you a brief history of jamaica and the lessons i've learned over the last two years. i'd probably direct you to previous blogs, one two and three. if you're interested in that, let's chat.

but for now, there are other things on my mind. less tangible experiences. instead: the slow beginnings of my transformation.

it never ceases to amaze me how quickly my heart jumps to love in jamaica. as if every fear never existed and the sting of goodbyes would be dulled. it's not--it never is. leaving always makes my heart ache, the kind of aching that lasts for days and weeks and comes up again months later. i miss it. i miss it because i love it, with the kind of love that my heart has never felt before.

contrary to the usual--i love in jamaica without fear, with abandon. i let the love come in.

(it's the kind of thing that would be much better explained in person, over food, while i blab my heart out. but i've noticed it in myself, had it affirmed in me, and know it to be true.

jamaica (place, people, experiences) has shown me that my heart is capable of deep and freeing love.)

so, my post-jamaica goal: carry that willingness and fearlessness with me across the caribbean sea and 2, 568 miles of land and into my right-here, right-now life. remember that perfect love drives out all fear. start all over again with my congolese refuge family and my biological family and my longford court family; with new friends and new career goals and new crushes and any other place that i can learn to love more freely. invest my heart freely, deeply and purposefully. here we go.

for those of you wanting more, pictures and stories will come soon(ish), promise promise :)

san diego, i love you

i don’t really know where to start
there’s so much going on in my life,
so much i’d love to share,
but everything is all scattered in my brain,
and that’s confusing, even for me.

i guess i’ll start here.
where i am.
san diego, at the start of another semester.

i wasn’t here last year. no, no, last year was a wholly different experience. a different school, different friends, changing relationships. and last year was hard, probably the hardest semester i’ve ever experienced. and while i was in it, the Lord gave me strength and determination to push through.

but as soon as i left,
and i signed the readmission documents,
moved all of my belongings back into my san diego home,
and briefly dropped my defenses,
i realized exactly how fractured i was.

the journey to where i am now has been long and painful and exhilarating and beautiful and more life-giving than i could’ve ever imagined. so when i say that i am happy to be back in san diego, it’s not just lip service. it’s not just words that you say when you’re starting another semester, or when you tell people about your summer.

it is those things, but it is more. i feel this happiness at the very core of my being.

i’m not sure that typing all these words will do it justice, but san diego means so much to me.
san diego represents Jesus and healing and laughter and adventure.
san diego represents all of the things that i’ve always wanted, but thought i would never have. and here i am, and i have them all.
i have it all.
the Lord has put me in san diego, and given me the desires of my heart.

there’s an intimacy of relationship that i’ve never experienced before. our bond is only getting stronger and stronger as the days and weeks and months spent in intentional community, sharing beds and food and gas money, continue. my friends here, they know me. they see a side of me that may be hidden in san ramon.
they see a creative side and encourage it.
they see an intellectual side and challenge it.
they see questions and attempt to answer them.
they know the subtle encouragements that I need,
the conversations they should start,
the right questions to ask.

they know about the depths of my anxiety and depression, in vivid detail. they’ve seen it. they were there when the Lord began to pull me through it. they watched in living color as every day, i received healing, every day i stepped into joy. they made me laugh and let me cry. they noticed the specifics of my days—days where i was agitated and distracted, days where i was present and alive. they held my hands, fingers interlocked and prayed prayers that must have moved the heart of God. they believed for me.

they believed for me, we prayed, and goodness, just look.
look at what the Lord has done.

i was broken, sure that i would never be whole again.
i was sure that i was incapable and undeserving of love.
i was living in fear.
i trapped myself, afraid to leave the boundaries of what i knew.
i was hesitant, on-edge. i was resistant, closed-off.
i was so many, many things.

san diego, a physical place, can’t take the credit for what the Lord did. but i cannot pretend when i’m here, when i’m with these people and doing these new things, that i don’t remember that it was on quiet tearful nights, in my apartment, in san diego, that the Lord changed me.

so now, here i am.
in san diego.

and, by the grace of God, i’m doing things i never imagined i could do. things that bring me joy and make me feel alive. i’m using my creative side on a daily basis. i’m loving people and learning them, and letting them do the same for me. i’m living this crazy adventurous life that i never saw coming, and that i pray will last forever.

san diego, to me, represents the fullness of life, and i am happy happy happy to be back.

i love this place.

The wind is raging outside, pushing up against the house, knocking and begging to be let in. It's forcing its way through the wind chimes, and the trees outside are rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

I'm sleeping on the couch. One of those sleeps where I'm semi-aware of what is going on, but still, lost in my dream.

I wake up. Eyes half-open, I stumble down the stairs.

Gram, sitting at her desk, opens wide her arms.
I sit on her lap.
She holds me in her arms, like I'm a little kid again. It's nice.
She says, "I love you so much."

I love this place.

Now the music is playing upstairs.
Tango, twenty-four/seven.
I can hear heels tap-tapping on the floor, and Gerald saying "uno mas, uno mas."

I tangoed, too.
A nice man asked me to dance and led me around and around the floor.
Then Gerald asked me to dance. He loves to share his passions.
Tango embrace. I closed my eyes and followed, leaning into the arms of my partner, finding the rhythm of the music and somehow doing steps I've never learned, back-stepping and front-stepping, turning my body to the right, and back again.
I can tango? In hiiigggghhhh heels? Apparently.

I love this place.

p.s. Heated toilet seats are such a cold-morning treat.

heaven breaks

It’s 8:30 p.m. and it is definitely a lazy Monday. It feels a bit like my day has consisted mostly of cuddling on the couch and eating cookies and frozen waffles—the best kind of day. I’ve been trying, and failing, to talk myself into doing my history reading; it’s all very interesting, but other things seem to be capturing my attention.

My apartment is perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. We have a whole shelf full of games, and wicker baskets and lots of colorful mugs and vases and pillows; there are little trinkets here and there, including mason jars and a cute little set of giraffes. I love giraffes. We have coffee table books and tea-a-plenty. It’s home. It’s home and I love it. My bedroom is even better, with my card collection pinned up and constantly inspiring me, and my do-it-yourself stained shelf with flowers, and all the other little things that make a room a home. By the end of the week, my roommate and I will have matching forts under our beds. We also both wore blue colored contacts and make weird sound effects, often. It’s going to be a good semester.

We’ve been back for only a few days now and have already shared so many laughs, played our newly invented card game and eaten lots and lots of food together. We have bedtime talk and it feels so good being back in the same city, the same school as some of the greatest people I know. I am so excited for what the next weeks and months hold. Classes and game nights and dinners and friends that are so much like family. It’s been so good for my soul.

And I need it to be good for my soul. I need it because making a new home, starting over, resettling and rebuilding, can be exhausting; change is not my strong suit. Change makes me anxious and nervous and weird. It’s these times of big change where God seems to do a ton of work, where He seems to bring up things that I had lodged in the deepest crevices of my heart. And I feel like I’m learning Him all over again and maybe even, in some ways, for the first time. Cool, but exhausting. The kind of exhausting that makes me want to cuddle up on the couch with hot chocolate and listen to “Needle and Thread” on repeat and watch the fan blades spin. In my cozy apartment. Just because I can.

It’s days like today, when I come home from class and wrap myself in a blanket and listen to the wind outside that I want to pick up the phone and call someone. To tell him to come over and watch the fan blades spin with me; to sip hot chocolate and enjoy the cozy ambiance; to sit in silence and just listen to Sleeping at Last bring that song directly to my soul; I want to invite him to hear about my crazy heart that beats four times as fast as it should and makes me feel like a phony human being, instead of the real me, made of flesh and blood. I want him to just listen, or pretend to listen, to my word vomit, and somehow, be the kind of contagious calm that I need. And then I wouldn’t need to say another word. Maybe we could play team solitaire or war or Scrabble. It’s days like today when I wish I could just call and invite him over for dinner. I could make spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread, or Mac 'n Cheese with hot dogs, or maybe I could try my grandma’s pancakes with chocolate milk or orange juice. It’s a breakfast for dinner kind of night. We could sit on the couch and tell stories and talk about history and politics, or not, because I hate politics, or we could talk about our favorite spots in the whole wide world. We could make plans. We could share life together as our lives weave around each other. Life is always better when it's shared.

It’s days like today, when I make myself comfortable on this couch and leave the phone in the other room; days like today make me thankful for my new home. It’s days like today where I watch the fan blades spin and dream about this guy who will sit with me and hold my hand on days where I just need to watch the fan blades spin. It’s days like today when I find myself wandering the campus, ending up in the breathtaking chapel, on my knees, praying for Heaven to break. And even if today was a “watch the fan blades spin” kind of day, I’m eternally grateful that my fan is in this room, at this school, with these people, and that God speaks while the fan spins.