It’s time to get real honest—I am having a hard time “being all here” when my heart is screaming that it just wants to be back there. This week marked one year since I flew to Charlotte and this whole life-changing year began. Since Wednesday, I’ve been thinking in terms of “this time last year…” I want to be back in the sticky Charlotte summer—connecting with new friends and meeting others in situations I never thought I would be in. I want to be experiencing the anxious-excitement of being on the brink of the fulfillment of a life-long dream. Yeah, I want that high again. The high of knowing for certain you are right where you’re supposed to be, supported (literally financially and prayerfully) by family and friends who have put their money and their mouths in the same unequivocal place affirming that “yes, this is good, this is beautiful, this is what we see for you, and we want to be a part of that”. I want to be back walking the dusty red roads, Swahili chatter as my soundtrack as I weave between stands of vegetables, fruit, blue jeans, and pots and pans. I want to hear the confident “hallo muzungu” from hopeful owners and the shy shrieks of “how are you?!” from their curious children. I want to be there. My heart yearns for conversations with diverse groups of people from around the world—our voices and accents blending harmoniously because we are called to a purpose that unites us uniquely for this time, this place, these people. As my mind continuously plays back—just like the beginning scenes of Up—I can’t help but acknowledge that this type of reliving and remembering is good—for a season. But I can’t stay here—becoming one of those washed-up has-beens who lives in the past and solely to recount the “glory days” all the while missing the opportunities that come each minute to make this day equally purposeful.
So how can I “be all here”? How do I honor the importance of the last year without letting it drain the joy, purpose, and my role with the people in front of me today? Whenever we look at how Israel, stranded in the dessert began to long for life back in Egypt, in slavery, we tend to scoff. But this morning, I wondered if any of those Israelites wanted to go back to the Exodus—wanted to relive the pillar of fire, of smoke, the frogs, seeing the Nile turn to blood—those glory days when they knew God was working on their behalf and they knew he was leading them. If so, I can relate to that. I can relate to the desire to have that profound clarity in the midst of a unique season of life. It’s easy to forget God is just as present and working just as much on my behalf when the most exciting part of my day is a surprising lack of traffic as when I bypassed a long visa line because of a Kenyan Momma who looked out for me.
I can be all here when I let myself be encouraged FOR today by the ways I was lead and the experiences I had this time last year. I can be all here when I see this day as an important part of fulfilling the next part of my journey and dreams—this day of rest is preparing me for the craziness of graduate school, which a year from now I will be almost done with. Today I can be all here as I read a book about a girl with Autism whose window to the world is typing. As I’ve read the portion of her story written by her dad-the one detailing her early “pre-typing” years—I cannot help but see myself in the dedicated ABA therapist who spent countless hours pushing Carly to engage in this world—relentlessly seeking communication. I cannot help but hope that my life and career will be marked by that type of influence—as someone who is “all there” in my work to help the marginalized and very special—in America and in Kenya.
I can be “all here” because there is always a new dream that is driven by the memory and the experiences of the last one.
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