Forgiveness is a strong woman, tender and earthy and direct. Since her children have left home, she has embarked on an extended walking tour, visiting ruins and old monuments, bathing in rivers and hot springs, traveling through the small towns and large pulsing cities, tracing the current of sorrow under the stories she hears. Sometimes the city authorities and officials don’t want her within their gates; but if the people want her there enough, she always manages to find a way inside.

Forgiveness brings gifts wherever she goes. Simple ones, a three-stranded twig with leaves turning yellow, a belt she wove on an inkle loom, a little song that grows inside you and changes everything. She brought me a silver ring from the South with a pale stone, pink with a hint of brown. When I had asthma, she taught me how to breathe.

via Amanda

I read this quote and I think about forgiveness and reconciliation in Rwanda. I think about forgiveness among families of our clients in Uganda. I think about the forgiveness between estranged family members. Forgiveness between friends and enemies. I think about the need for my heart to forgive. The forgiveness of my heart, and forgiveness of others. And I breathe deeply as I think about the forgiveness of my sins that gave me life. 

Complimentary drinks from Starbucks for my birthday. Grande Peppermint Hot Chocolate. Oh the little things

Thankful for small reminders of Paris as I sit at a French bakery, Le Pain Quotidien, with amazing coconut macaroons and my final paper.

Thankful for my first piñata ever that took a blind-folded beating and showered many chocolate goodies.

“…for he had come to think that so long as a man wants to do right he may go where he can: ‘He must really want to do right, and not merely fancy he does. He must want it with his heart and will, and not with his rag of a tongue’” – The Princess and Curdie, George MacDonald

I also wrote this post about adventure a few months ago. I’m a little overdue… but I haven’t forgotten about this promise that I made to myself to live each day as an adventure.

You see, there’s been a lot of changes in my life. In the past few months: I moved to D.C. for a job here, met a lot of very valuable people along the way, and I’m about to get my M.A. degree in about a week. But I feel like my life is missing will. It has heart, but I need some will, or mojo back in my life.

But I can’t help feeling… that my life is mundane and it’s missing something. I feel like life is passing by and I’m not really living it. So here I am, I’m going to make a conscious effort to seek adventure in items and moments of gratefulness each day and document it as a picture for the 24th year of my life.

Cheers.

The job

The resume

The car

The boy

The girl

The clothes

The church

The school

The career

The education

The salary

We’re great with defining worth by things that are tangible yet ephemeral. We’re also great with making things that were meant to be supplements, our idols. And we somehow manipulate these areas of life to define our worth, to define our sense of self and identity. As Red Hot Chili Peppers sings, each day I realize, “the more I see the less I know the more I like to let it go.” But there are two things that I grow more certain of each day:

i. I will never really be good enough. There will always be someone better than myself. I lack and that’s a hard fact.  What I do with this knowledge will set me apart from who I am today and who I was meant to be tomorrow; and

ii. I don’t deserve anything. However, despite all the areas that I lack, He is made perfect in my weakness. Furthermore, I have the liberty to solely rely on: His grace is sufficient for me (2 Corinthians 12:9). Knowing that I am not good enough illuminates unconditional grace and love more than ever. Because I know that I am not enough, and will never be enough, I drop to my knees as I come to appreciate grace so much more.

I don’t have to define my worth. It is written in the Word and nailed on the cross. My life was worth the ultimate price.

A mustard seed is… 1 – 2 mm in diameter. Whompwhomp. What does that mean? It means it’s tiny. You know that @ button on your keyboard? A mustard seed roughly the size of the a in @. Crazy tiny right?

In the bible, Jesus says: “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

Which makes me think… I definitely can’t move mountains. Not only can I not move mountains, I have zero faith in believing that I can move mountains. So what does that say about me?

My faith is smaller than a mustard seed. And even with that tiny, tiny, little faith of mine, God uses my life to do things—to do big things that I probably don’t even know about. Now my friends, that is the manifestation of grace when our faith is weak. That is the grace that supplements our faith and fulfills the covenant to the utmost.

And to take it all one step further: It’s not faith in believing that I can do this. It’s faith in knowing that God is bigger than this. And really etching “all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27) into our hearts. And having faith in that—in Him. Walking in faith in knowing that He has conquered all and nothing is beyond His reach.

Disclaimer: I don’t know a thing about the traditional motifs behind each symbolic act in a wedding. Regardless, I’m still going to write down a few of my thoughts.

Let’s think of the aisle as a journey.

The doors open and the bride enters. She is coming from somewhere. She walks down the aisle with her father or a prominent male figure in her life. This relays the journey that she has walked under the shelter of this man. She has walked under his guidance, and he is leading her down the aisle.

As they approach the altar, they aren’t so much looking at each other, but looking ahead—looking towards the altar—towards what is waiting for them at the end of the white, flower-laden carpet.

They approach the altar and the groom walks down to take her hand. He walks down to greet them. The groom, bride, and papa meet at a certain point. The groom first hugs/hand shakes with the man who had walked with her until now—there is an exchange—a moment of giving and receiving. The groom then takes her hand, walks a little further up towards the altar and they stand to exchange their marital vows.

The bride’s journey entails walking with and being led by a man. Her father leads her; the groom comes out to greet her. And all of this is being done beneath the guidance of the Big Man upstairs: looking ahead and walking towards… all under God’s sights and reach.

As a woman, I think I get to have a very specific and unique relationship with my God. He’s the man and He’s my man. And as I walk through life, with my papa as my pillar of guidance, I know the Lord is looking down on us and He is the one we should be looking towards.

Can I have your attention
What are we starting here
Just look around you cause the answer is clear
Ahh, Listen, listen
and hear the coming sound
All of the children are singing it loud

Let’s be the revolution
That lives for holding nothing back, nothing back

We’re after Your heart, after Your heart
All of the walls now are breaking apart
Live like we see it love like we mean it 
This is the start we’re after Your heart

Start the ascension
Begin the holy climb
Up to where heaven and the earth collide
Bring your affection
All that you have inside
Enter the kingdom and become alive

Cause love with no condition
It lives for holding nothing back, nothing back

We’re after Your heart, after Your heart
All of the walls now are breaking apart
Live like we see it love like we mean it
This is the start we’re after Your heart

Oh let’s go higher and higher
Hear the sound of the free
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Lift your soul join with the choir
Sing the song, let it ring
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Bless Your heart never going to stop until we reach You

We’re after Your heart, after Your heart
All of the walls now are breaking apart
Live like we see it love like we mean it
This is the start we’re after Your heart

Bless Your heart never going to stop until we reach You