Today marks the beginning of my 6th month in country. Wow! Amazing. Time has flown by in some ways, yet moved in slow motion at the same time. After June is over, I'll have been here for 6 full months. That's half a year as well as 1/4 of my total time here gone.

How do I feel? Stretched, but not broken. Stretched by my heavenly father. The symbolism in the potter and they clay scenario comes to mind when I say I'm being stretched. Pushed, pulled, kneaded, and molded. Either way you look at it, I'm being changed. My mind is changing. My eyes are changing. My heart is changing.

I tell God on a regular basis to make me better. Make me less... Make you more, God. That way, people won't even see me. They'll see you. With this request comes a whole lot of things, but the biggest thing that has come has been the molding of my heart. I can feel something inside of me that is moving. In middle school and high school, I was pretty feisty, angry, stubborn, and cut-throat. Not to mention bitter. Since I've accepted God into my life, that person has been changing. Slowly. Painfully. But it's definitely happening. My life is different now, and there is no turning back. Seeing myself through His eyes has caused me to see others differently. I think I get a glimpse of how He loves. Jealously, passionately, whole-heartedly, selflessly, gently... This is how I want to love people. And me by myself??? I cannot love like this. I don't have it in my sinful self. But there is one who has mastered the art. Heck, he created it! And He's a great romancer of my soul. Man, how I want to be like him and see like him. By all means, God, keep changing me. I might feel like Stretch Armstrong, but keep pulling back my layers and molding me. That's the only way I have freedom... First, I have to give you the chains that bind me and ask you to rid me of myself. That's when freedom comes.

If these 2 years were a game of baseball, I'd say that right now, I'm sliding into first base.

Hitting the ball was the first step in going here. Saying... Ok, God, I hear you. I feel you leading me here. And, I'll go where you go. I'll love who you love. Whether I have to eat all my meals on the floor, sit on tiny wicker stools, eat bugs, get stared at, or feel like a complete stranger, I'm in. 

After all, nobody probably felt like more of a stranger than J3$us did. Out of place from a heavenly home and throne, and among sinners from a different culture.

So, here I am. This is home. For the first few months, this didn't feel like home. I'd say it was, but didn't really feel it deep down. Now? It feels like home. And what was abnormal is now becoming more and more normal to me. Learning how to survive is turning into learning how to function and thrive. That's a big big step! Where you go, I'll go. Who you love, I'll love. Where you stay, I'll stay. Who you serve, I'll serve. If this life I lose, I will follow you.

BRING ON 2nd base :)