Psalm 73:21-26

Today I completed my first semester of sophomore year at The University of Tennessee. The past three weeks have been an absolute chaotic storm of Christmas parties, work, and of course every college student's favorite week of the semester... finals. Among the stress and the craziness one thing has constantly been on my mind red dirt. Anyone who knows me knows exactly what red dirt I am talking about -- the red dirt roads of Uganda. I won't lie, the past five months since I returned from my month long mission on the other side of the world has been far from easy. I rarely talk about it, because I just haven't been ready to. It almost seems too personal to talk about with anyone. My time in Uganda was beautiful and extremely challenging and it had its high points and its low points. There were moments during my time there when I swore I would never come back, and there were others when the thought of being back in America made me sick.

The roller coaster ride that was those five weeks in Uganda were very different than I had planned on them being... key word there being I. I expected my trip to be just like my first, very busy always on the run always meeting new people always having something to do always having my mind on Jesus and doing whatever I could to shine His light in the small time I had there. To my surprise though, this second time in Uganda was nothing like the first and nothing like anything I have ever experienced in my life. While it was very busy and I did do a lot of new things and I met a lot of knew people and my mind was constantly being pushed towards Jesus, at the same time it was very quiet. It was very still. And things got very personal between me and the Big Guy upstairs, and not always in the most desirable ways. I was put face to face with many of my weaknesses and I was shown how worthless my life truly is when I choose to spend it apart from Christ. I am still not very clear on what exactly Jesus was doing to my heart for those five weeks, I still think about them and wonder about them everyday. But what I have found, is the longer I am away the more I ache to learn more, the more I ache to be in that stillness with my savior again, the more I ache to be stripped clean of the ways of this world I am engulfed in. Even while sitting here I hear my God whispering in my ear, I feel his presence in the room, and I am in awe. Unless you have spent time in a third world country it is hard to explain, but anyone who has knows exactly what I am talking about. It hurts my heart to say that these moments, like the ones I am having right now, undisrupted and focused solely on Jesus, are few are far between for me here. But in Uganda it is just so much easier. Not to say that I can only follow Jesus and learn more about him on the other side of the world, but to say that while I was there, the things that He revealed to me were unlike anything I had ever been shown here.

I sat down to tell you a story about one of my best days during my time in Uganda, and now I find myself telling you all about some of my hardest and I am not exactly sure why. Like I said, it has been hard to talk about. To many of you I am sure these past however many words you have read will just seem like a bunch of rambling that make no sense, but it is my hope that to others these words will relate you to your own -- your own confusion, hurt, and hunger to be closer to the God that understands it all --- just like my own.
 I have said this many times before and I will say it again, I am an ugly ugly sinner and I am so unfit to share the words of Jesus, but yet everyday I wake up and I see the little brown faces in the photos around my room and they remind me. They remind me of the love I have been so preciously given as a gift, not because I deserve them nor because I have earned them, but because I have chosen to accept them. I have chosen to accept the fact that I don't understand, and I probably never will truly understand, but I will spend my life trying to fill this hunger for the Lord and whatever crazy  roller coasters He chooses to send me on -- whether they may be here or on the other side of the world.


"When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73: 21-26

XO,

Katie