MIA

I've been MIA but not because I haven't had anything going on. In fact, it is because I have things going on that I haven't been able to write. I don't want to just start something and then have to stop it to do something else so I just haven't started period. I feel like I have been put into a blender and the just been a part of a whirlwind type of life recently. I don't want that to sound like I haven't been having fun or that it's a bad thing but it is just how I have been feeling.

I was thinking about Africa a few days ago as I usually do, and I was looking through pictures in my room and on my iphoto and I just can't help but tear up everytime I think about the babies. I looked through the pictures of the morning Rachel and I left and I felt like I was sitting on that couch playing with Sele on photobooth, and I was wishing I had taken more pictures (more than 2000? yes) I think there are 2 categories of former and current COL volunteers. Everyone picks a baby (or I think the baby picks them) and there is always sadness in leaving them, but the different categories are whether the babies have a 'future' or not. Some of my babies I know what is in the cards for their future (yes I realize that only God knows the future but stick with me), other babies, their future is up in the air. They either were taken from their families because it was not a healthy environment, or they have no family to go back to for many different reasons. The latter is the hardest for me because "my baby" has a future that is up in the air and it makes me SO sad to think of this sweet boy spending the rest of his life in a children's home. I don't know if it is in the cards for me to go back there and to adopt him, and I have left that up to God to tell me that if he wants me to do that then to let me know. I don't know what is normal in regards to how I 'should' be feeling having now been back for over 4 months and still thinking about those babies daily and about the life that was created there. I know that when you are not somewhere, there can be a temptation to idealize it. I don't think that is the case for me though, because I can distinctly remember all of the bad things and the frustration and annoyances that life there brings. I don't miss the lack of ice, water pressure, being dirty all the time, not having a comfortable bed, no chickfila, terrible roads...and the list goes on. But really all of that is just comfort or convenience. I don't know what is normal, but I am still trying to figure out normal for me. All of that is not to say that I am unhappy here doing what I'm doing.

I am stressed out and anxious but at the core I can still see clearly that I am saved and that I am a new creation and that there is nothing to really worry about because my life is in another's hands who knows me so much better than I even know myself. That alone is such a comfort. But...it's kinda like I am digging through a type of muck of past events and things that I need to work on, and it's not something that really anyone wants to do. I can see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel but I still have to go through all the stuff. I feel like I have been just blabbering on for quite some time so this is enough for today.

"We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Romans 6:1