9:57

last night at campaigners, my sister shared her testimony. she cried, i cried. i will never, ever be able to explain the feeling inside me, even thinking back on it. i don't even know why i'm trying to put it into words, but she's beautiful. she's better than me inside and out, she is everything i'd hoped. two years ago, i was at a fall weekend standing around a tree at rockbridge in the snow for 45 minutes with 3 of my close friends, and we spend the entire time praying for our sisters. for the past two years i have been praying for my sisters heart, that she would find acceptance and understanding and hope and intimacy with the One who loves her. and the past couple months i've seen it, and my heart is about to burst due to the gladness.

as joyful as i am, there's something on my heart that's weighing me down, and i don't know what it is. i've been feeling this way for a month or so, and i can't shake it. but i can tell i have my guard up, and walls are built around my heart to some extent.  i know the Lord has my back and is working in me, and i do my best everyday to be vunerable and open and to fully give my heart to others, to love them thoroughly, but there comes a point that i just can't let anyone get deeper.  last night i was on the phone with beeboy, one of my dear brothers, for a little over an hour, and it was a lot of me just talking, trying to make sense of my heart and the conflict going on inside it, then there came a point where i just didn't want to talk any more. i think i've been hurt more than i know. and i don't know how to explain what i'm feeling or why, i just know that i feel it. i'm unsettled. and i don't like it.

book

a couple days ago, i took one of my wydlife girls out to lunch, and she cbay and i all just chatted and laughed until we got down to the real reason we were there. obviously we love each other, but it came down to us talking to her about her sport, gymnastics. this girl is good, and i mean GOOD. she spends roughly 4 hours a day at the gym, 6 days a week, and is in a ridiculously high level. and me and cbay were telling her all we could, talking about where her true identity is found, and how her worth is not in gymnastics, and it ended in tears. we aren't sure what she's planning on doing, because she came to us to wondering what she should do when the sport that has been so much of her life for so long doesn't make her happy. after we dropped her off, me and cbay talked about how much we wanted to give her an answer, and yet there was nothing we could do about it. we didn't have the answer. and that got me thinking...

i have the answer. one word: Christ. and that to me means hope. because this world is going to let my girls down a lot, and i was reminded that the only answer i can give them, the only hope i can give them in this world is Christ. that's my job. i think i used to be caught up in loving them and them loving me, but that's not it. it's my showing them Christ's love, and them loving Christ. and i think that's beautiful, because even i will let them down. i leave home in 6 months, and i'm leaving behind girls that could change our world, i mean it. and it breaks my heart to leave them, but if i've let the Lord work through me like i desire, hopefully i've been a chapter in their lives that they will never forget.

i can't wrap my head around the love Christ has shown me through these girls.