Confidence

^{Psalm 27:13-14} 

I remain confident of this:
    I will see the goodness of the Lord
    in the land of the living. 

 Wait for the Lord;
    be strong and take heart
    and wait for the Lord.

               

Milestone

First week back at work. Never thought the day would arrive when I started this journey in July. I have been surprised by how well my hip has done. I was afraid I was going to set myself way back but each day has felt better and better. The rest of my body just needs to get used to waking up in the 5 o'clock hour and being at work for 12 hours. Man, it is a long time!
There have been good and challenging things about being back at work already and it has just been one week, so we will see what comes of all this. Glad to be starting down a path of learning more about myself and my work and where I am best used.
More later this weekend, my brain and body are beat after this week!

Tuesday

One month from today I leave for Tenwek. Well, let's be honest, one month from today I will be finishing packing before I leave for Tenwek in the afternoon. Not afraid to admit to my packing procrastination. 
Today the new Mumford and Sons album is out! Their lyrics are something else. They have been playing I Will Wait on the radio here for a bit, so I already like this one. Here are some of those lyrics:
So I'll be bold
As well as strong
And use my head alongside my heart
So take my flesh
And fix my eyes
That tethered mind free from the lies
But I'll kneel down
Wait for now

Happy Fall

I missed it by a day, but Happy First day of Fall! This week it has felt like fall...cool mornings and evenings; sitting on the couch yesterday drinking tea with the cool air coming in; driving back through the mountains, seeing some color change on the trees. Season changing...

Fall-ish Camping

I forgot to include this on trip pictures...
Last minute I got to go camping and it was the perfect post hip surgery camping trip...I went with friends who have an 11 week old and friends who have a 10 month old. Right in line with a recovering hip.
The weather was great, it was a quick trip and I even went on a short hike. Thankful for time with friends and getting to be outside.

One More Day

I know I posted this quote last week, but I thought it needed one more day in the spotlight. It is such a beautiful image and what I continue to pray that stillness, especially once I return to work, can be in my life.
Thanks, Brene Brown (From The Gifts of Imperfection):
  Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness; its about creating a clearing. It's opening up an emotionally clutter free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question

Trips

In the past few weeks I have been taking some trips, seeing folks, enjoying the freedom. I have done a horrible job of taking pictures, really everywhere. So sorry to my friends in D.C....you are totally neglected here! As are my parents. And I didn't do a great job in Philly either...just some instagram photos, one from Danielle. So this won't be super exciting but will maybe cover some fun :) Blessed by sweet friends who have helped keep me entertained and sane during this time!

My favorite little ladies in Philly

Kiss your Scars

A friend emailed me these lyrics from a Fray song before my surgery as encouragement in a different situation. It is from their song Heartbeat...
"I know the memories rushing into mind. I want to kiss your scars tonight. I'm laying here, 'Cause you've gotta try, you've gotta let me in, let me in"
They applied during that situation and I hadn't thought too much about it until I was cleaning out my inbox and found the email again last week. I started thinking more about how this has applied to this time.
My surgery obviously brought more physical scars that will remain with me and hopefully remind me of both the pain and sweetness of this time. But I think part of this season has been about me allowing the Lord to kiss my scars. But before I even got to that point, I had to allow him to point out what some of the wounds and scars are in my life...there have been some things that have come up that I was not anticipating or situations where I wouldn't have said I had a scar from that experience. But I did; we all carry around some deep wounds, some that I wasn't acknowledging. And those un-kissed scars continue to bring pain, to bring shame, to change how I view myself, change my ability to trust. But until I can identify that wound and scar it left, I cannot allow the healing to begin, to allow God to kiss my scars, to enter into that pain and speak the truth.
I have known this about myself for years, but I so dislike pain I try to avoid it at all costs and when I am in a painful situation I fight what God is trying to do in it. I wish I could say I have matured in this, but I haven't (shocker!) and I fought these last 2+ months a lot. But the good news is, he doesn't allow me to wreck what he has for me. And I am glad he doesn't because I have needed every painful minute (as I say this I am also hoping it doesn't mean there are more in store :).
Lamentations 3:22-23 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness

Hearts of East Africa Progress

Things are coming along! We are still waiting to hear about our official non-profit status from the government. We are working on our website and towards some things for our October trip.
But most importantly we are selling t-shirts-our first fundraising venture. Our goal was to sell around 80-90 shirts in this first order. We sold 132! And that was just the first go around. We will be selling more soon. Honored by people's generosity. I am also excited dreaming about what this can do for our patients.

Onesie version...so cute!

Toddler version-front

Adult shirts

Can't wait to see such sweet faces after surgery in these shirts

Stilness

I would like to say these past 10 weeks have been filled with blissful stillness, with me taking advantage of every moment. The truth is, they have been filled with a lot of wrestling, of painful stillness, of a lot of emotion, of avoiding dealing with things and hopefully some fruit from all the struggle. Things seems on the "up" now that I can do a lot more and now that I have an end in sight until I return to work and more normal looking life. I am starting to get even blurry images of maybe some of the things that God has used this time for. I know I will never know the full reasons why, but it is nice to see some glimpes.
I have still been making my way through Brene Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection even though our girls group is taking a time-out. Yesterday in my reading I came upon this in the chapter on play and rest (which I have realized I cut out way too much play in the wake of RA diagnosis, but that is another post altogether):
"Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness; its about creating a clearing. It's opening up an emotionally clutter free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question"
I am seeing how I needed a lot of stillness, forced stillness, to work past a lot of raw emotion in order to see some things. I wonder all the time how God can look past all the gross walls I put up. And now my stillness is not so painful but I do feel an opening to dream and think and question. I am working on the feeling part. It is a strange place that I haven't been in for a long time-of dreaming and thinking life could look different than some of the norms and standards I had set for myself.
There is no conclusion to this post, no big Aha moment, just a sweetness of new freedom of possibility of promise.

Yard

Now that I am able to do more I have spent the last few days tending to my sorely neglected plants. They suffered this year during my post surgical time, yet some have survived the heat, lack of watering and lack of weeding. Yikes! Now that the weather is getting cooler it will be nice enough to enjoy the back porch a bit more :)

I laughed when I saw something like this on Pinterest the other day..who knew I was ahead of the times?

This is a massive tomato plant that only makes a few tomatoes but I am keeping it around a bit longer

Late blooming cucumber

Sunset

I love a good sunset. Something about the way each moment the sky takes on new shades of color, how one second it is just a plain ole sky and the next it is like God painted his most beautiful piece of artwork up there for me to see, how just as soon as it turns beautiful it is over, something about the simplicity of the beauty.
I took about 100 pictures at our 4 day beach trip and probably 85 are of the sunset over the course of the nights.
These are a few of my favorites.

Beauty of Words

As a person who loves to read, I often wish I had been given the gift of words or writing. This is a portion of a Rabbit Room post by Janna Barber in which the words were so true yet also so beautifully expressed.
I’m struck by the possibility that I spend most days wakened only in the physical aspect of my being, while my spirit slumbers on inside me. What does it take for these Lazarus ears to hear? How many times must Jesus call out my name, and why can’t I make it through the rest of my days, without doubting the reality of his voice? Behold my microscopic faith.
Yet, God mercifully continues to call. May the eyes of my heart flutter open just in time; may the full weight of his gaze falling directly onto me be itself the sun that wakes my spirit for eternity.
Like water to my thirsty soul...

Back

Back to the almost real world. Like I said I have been aiming to enjoy my last bit of time off now that I am more mobile. So I have been gone for almost a week driving up the east coast to visit friends. It has been a fun week...lots of time spent with sweet little girls and friends, lots of hours in the car and lots of time away from here which I needed after all the long hours of time here in the past 2 months.
Now it is back to reality, almost. I am still not back at work yet, but will get hopefully a more definitive idea of when that is in a few days. And back to having time to sort through some of the stuff that has been in my head for the past 2 months-time I need to spend with my thoughts and my heart-even if it is hard. I think I reached a saturation point a few weeks back, hence the need to flee. But I can only flee for so long...hoping the time away will give me some good energy and heart strength to do the work ahead.
"Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!" Psalm 107:8