many roads

So I was just looking back over some old pictures, and I found this:



an early-morning photo of my school in Tanzania.

Sometimes a picture, a sight, a smell, a touch a sound brings you back to a moment with such lucidity that it feels like you're actually living it again. And that is what just happened to me. About 2 years and 3 months ago, I was walking along the path to this school, and I thought: this is it, this is home, this is what I was made for. And I haven't been the same since. But sometimes I forget that happened, sometimes I forget why I care about what I do. Right now I don't though. This photo put me right back on that sandy path, brought me right back to that very moment. That one when I looked at the clear blue sky, felt the early-morning sun, and breathed the fresh.african.salty sea air and knew that a part of me belonged here, and would never feel completely at home anywhere else.

That being said, and remembered, though, makes being here in Nashville all the sweeter. Because even though I have laid down my heart there, and part of it will never re-inhabit my chest, a part of my heart is here too, a rather large part. So I can wait here, enjoy here, be thankful here, and KNOW.TRUST.BELIEVE that someday I'll be reunited with that chunk of my heart. That continent.country.town. people.language that I've left behind, the one that feels like home. Because right now, here is home. Lots of music and southern food and thunderstorms all the time and 105 degrees and cubicles and cockroaches and my alma mater. And most of all people: wonderful people, those who are here for years or months or weeks or days, but they're here, and reminding me how blessed I am to be here too.

And the best part is: everywhere, every home, every piece of my heart is filled with God, and his provision, and his blessing, and seldom have I felt.seen.realized.recognized.known that more than right at this very moment.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your lives and caring about mine.