Preaching to myself.

I forwarded this email a few weeks ago to some friends who are out on HNGR right now; I wrote it midway through my own internship in 2009 and hoped it would encourage them in those oh-so-fun "HNGR September blues". I went back this week and needed to reread it to myself... what was it I was saying again?

In moments of tiredness, when I don't know what to do next and I'm wondering if I'm where I should be, when energy or even joy feel hard to find... let me just be faithful.

"...I’ve had the phrase “live faithfully”running through my head for a couple months

and I’ve prayed it often, that I would live this time “faithfully”, whatever that might mean.

I’ve asked God for joy;

but I’ve also been reminded that living faithfully,

often means just doing what I am supposed to be doing at any given moment.

Living faithfully isn’t necessarily waking up with a huge leap of joy in my heart to be in this city the way I have felt at other times; it might be just going to work (preferably on time), trying my best to love the girls, working on my independent study, and playing cards with my host siblings.

Maybe right now I need to be learning how to just fulfill my responsibilities faithfully and as cheerfully as possible, with or without “feeling” how I want to be feeling;

and that THAT is what I am called to
in this time."

 

 dried hydrangeas and vanilla candles on my bedroom wall.