change is coming.

August 9.

I leave Peruvian soil on the 9th of August. I hit North American soil el 9 de agosto.

My mother says I have to start over in a way, and it'll be okay. Debbie, my best friend's mentor whom I've never met says "Change is good."

I want to believe them.

I feel like I'm floating in a bubble of emotion; if something in my bubble is shifted even a little bit, it will break and all these emotions that I can't begin to explain will spill out and my "safe" bubble won't be so safe anymore and I'll have to shuffle through these aforementioned unexplainable emotions.

I'll then be wandering around in a haze, even more so than I seem to be wandering hazily as I write this.

I can't begin to tell you how I feel. A friend mentioned that the goings-on of these last years are things that God alone understands. Have you ever felt that way? Something in your spirit that you know wants to get out, but you can't get it out very well?

I've found that I can write some things down in hopes of communicating effectively, but even then, I can't promise much. People have started to ask me "How do you feel about things?" Well, I don't know. I'm emotional. That's all I know to say. I feel that it's time. I feel excitement over seeing my family. I feel scared to move into the unknown.

"What is next?" This is 'The Question" to which I don't know the answer. All I know to do is cling to the truth that God will show me in time what I'm supposed to do. My "unknown" isn't God's unknown--it's His reality. His plan will be whispered to me (or maybe it will slap me in the face, I'm not sure) on time.

The unknown is something I remember being swallowed up in during my junior year of college when I was being prompted by the Spirit to move overseas to do ministry. But He was faithful to send me here and take care of me; now, I've somehow gotten semi-comfortable in Peruvian life and I'm leaving it behind, moving into a life that holds few immediate prospects from where I sit.

God doesn't sit where I sit, though. He sits above me and has something for me. I have to remember that. I have to remember that starting over is okay. I've done it before and been blessed; I've encountered change and been blessed.

For now, the blessing is going to come when I step off the plane, hug my dad, and cry into his shoulder as I can't bring myself to let go. And then I'll just go sit with my family. I'll hopefully receive words to say. God is going to use this time to speak to me and to my family about what is next. I don't know how I know this--I just do.

Listen. Dream. Laugh. Rest. Remember. Cry. Give and get hugs. Pray.

That's what I'm doing. And among these things, even greater things are coming.

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Here is a cool song lyric I heard the other day. I can't remember who sings it. Find Ryan Northup, my amigo who gave me the song and ask him. :)

What's left to lose? You've done enough...
And if you fail, you fail, but not to us.
Cause these last [two] years
I know they've been hard
But now it's time to get out of the desert and into the SUN.