Where? What? Huh?

I don't know where to start. I feel like if I let the flood gates open of all things simmering in my mind I will not be able to stop until I have written the longest blog in the history of man or managed to make such a mess of my thoughts that getting things back in order would take longer then the initial spillage. (Oh, Lord, help me!)

Life is beautiful. I feel more alive today than I did yesterday. I feel deeper than I did last week and less like I have anything figured out than ever before. God has shocked me yet again.

Zimbabwe was amazing, truly. I didn't know what I would end up with and in the end it was more precious and more real than I could have thought. The reluctant contrast of suffering and hope, of past and future, of assumption and humility, of wonder and despair . . . the human heart is capable of so much. Daily we make the choices that determine which side of the photo we will be in, the shadow or the light. This weekend I encountered both.

In the midst of death I witnessed the faith of a rural pastor.

In the midst of growth I heard the despair of those who held-on to the past alone.

In the midst of possibility I saw the hearts of the revolutionaries, wounded but still beating.

Now what? What do I do with all this new information? The testimonies and the questions? The grace and fear? The future and the unbroken cycle?

I am discovering that life cannot ever go back to normal as I see the things God has granted me permission to see. I am too small to change things alone. I am too weak to undertake it. But the patterns and cycles that are hindering people, driving them down instead of lifting them up, need to be shattered. So now I endeavor to write something that others will find purpose in . . . I do not know what will come of it, but I suspect you will be the first to know.

the photo of the road was taken by me, the other two by Michaela Wilson, our fantastic photographer.