Over-sharing, under-filtering and talking about debris... you're used to this by now.

It’s been just over a week since I said goodbye to Lifa and only a weekend since I said goodbye to Mona, Lindsay and Anda. Life keeps going, and the hello’s and goodbye’s happen along the way, creating milestones, landmarks and moments that shape my life and my faith.

Today it seems like it’s all a whirlwind of coming and going – with a larger-than-life-sized load of emotions that come with it.

Here at the Ten Thousand Homes base where I live, we’ve had visiting teams in-and-out  constantly since February. We have the privilege of walking through the most intense weeks in people’s lives, experiencing transformation with them, and then saying goodbye – only to do it again with the next team. An honor. And a whirlwind.

I went 5 months without seeing Lifa, then saw him surprisingly and suddenly for a few hours, and then welcomed him home as his full-time mama for 3 weeks. And then said goodbye again.

Today I feel like I’m in the middle of one of the biggest storms yet. Trying to cling onto something – anything – and then realizing that if it’s not God, it’s only debris.

It’s a new normal.

A normal where the only thing that’s consistent is change.

Culture-shock is a state-of-being.

And contrasting extremes are a way of life.

I’ve been spinning and debris-grabbing on overtime this week. The more and more I invest myself in South Africa, the more I don’t know what life is “supposed” to look like or feel like anymore. The contrasting everything has left me overloaded, ultra-sensitive and extra-vulnerable.

So much life and so much death.

So much hope and so much hopelessness.

And, somehow, that’s just normal.

Two weeks ago we went to bring Ruth hope – and tell her we were going to start building her a new home! We arrived to find her grieving. She had heard only an hour before that her grandmother- her picture of Home on earth – had just passed away.

My friend Nhlanhla who is constantly speaking Life into people as he helps us build homes, spent the weekend mourning the loss of his 42-year old brother. The 3^rd family death since I’ve known him in a year and a half.

Last Sunday, we witnessed a redeeming and restoring hope at a family reunion. Life and relationships being restored, teeter-tottering in my heart with the devastation of saying goodbye to Lifa, even temporarily. Trying to get – and be ok - that we have to be apart for now for a family to come together.

And, as my tears were just starting to slow down on the dark ride home from leaving Lifa in his father’s arms, death flashed before us on the road. A man had just been hit, his body still sprawled across both lanes.

Life and death.

Hope and hopelessness.

Family coming together by being apart.

I can’t reconcile it.

I can’t make sense of it.

I can’t rest in the grey, fuzzy, increasingly painful contrast.

But I can rest in Him.

I can cling to Him.

My Rock. My Redeemer. My Strong Tower. My Fortress.

Since Sunday, I feel things differently.

When people come experience Africa for the first time and get a glimpse of hope amongst poverty, brokenness and death, it leads to an initial disabling and beautiful brokenness.

People are always asking how I can live here and do this everyday. I explain that you have to be broken to give God room to move through you. It’s the first layer of compassion.

But then compassion moves from a puddle to a verb- compelling you to love deeper, live a life worthy of the calling and be a worker for His harvest. You find a new normal and see God with new eyes, a new heart and a new understanding of how His family works.

Sunday changed things for me. With Lifa in my arms and praying over a church full of children putting their piece on our mosaic, a mother’s heart for the Kingdom was activated in me. A new intimacy in an encounter with the Holy Spirit. A new level of calling from which there’s no turning back.

And I find myself now in a new puddle – a puddle of broken compassion for families losing family members, a little boy confused and moving from house to house and culture to culture, and every one of those hungry faces and empty hands I encounter weekly at the feeding programs.

I’m trying to grab debris. Trying to just be able to hold myself up.

I’m doing things like walking out of meetings to hang out with adopted Ethiopian kids.

And trying to drown out the roar of my emotions with really loud music.

And Google all the answers to life’s problems – starting with the South African Home Affairs page.

But knowing I need to give into the Wind, feel the fullness of brokenness, and let the Spirit do His thing.

My prayers today:

Jesus, make my heart more like yours. Let me feel the way you feel. See the way you see. Touch the way you touch. Talk the way you talk. Love the way you love.

You’ve encountered death and hopelessness over and over again. You encountered it being hammered your hands and your feet, hung on your head like a crown and lashed across your back.

You felt it all the way with sinless, selfless compassion. But the whole time, you were infused with hope and rooted in love. You never left the Father. You knew He would never leave you. I don’t know how to live here – or there or anywhere – but I want to do it your way.

You are the Way, the Truth, the Life.

It’s possible. You said so.

“But when the, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you in all truth. He will not speak on his own; He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” (John 16:13-14)

Then I stumbled across this verse and realized I wasn’t the only one looking for a quick out in a storm.

The disciples were stuck in an embarrassing learning curve between heaven and earth. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of earth coming head-to-head in the daily lives of 12 nobodies, has-beens, tax-collectors, fishermen and even a doctor. They didn’t know how to walk, talk, feel or manage in their everyday. They said and did a lot of stupid stuff: a lot of debris-grabbing, ear-chopping, seat-stealing ridiculousness to try to manage the pain and confusion. (Did I mention I just ate about 14,000 Reese’s peanut butter cups in my own attempt? Thank you, Pastor Steven Yoes.) I get it. (Making a mental note right now to not discredit anybody who breaks eye contact while walking on water ever again.)

Jesus must have been so frustrated. They were betraying, denying and rebuking left and right. I probably would have used  more concise words… you know, something that could be summed up in four letters or a chocolatey peanut butter cup.

But He said, “I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born she forget her anguish because of her joy that a child was born into the world.”

(John 16:20-21)

Jesus, living on earth for Your Kingdom is hard. But you already know that. Better than I do. And I already have the story right in front of me, written in black and red letters. I don’t have to wait in that miserable gap between John 16 and Acts 2 to be filled with You living in me. Your Holy Spirit is in me, filling me with power, glory and Truth.

Sustainer. Counselor. Everything.

You promise that the fullness of Your glory and power is alive and active in me. You’re here. Now.

You’re gently reminding me – even when I’m lonely and looking for debris to grab onto – that it’s all about Hope and Homes. It’s all about You. It’s all about Family.

Help me to know I belong. To be loved. To be known. To be blessed. And then give it back to You.

The vine and the branches.

Amen.