A Letter from Me.

It has been a long time since I've sat down and just wrote directly to you. I've been working on a series of letters these last couple months as part of a bigger project I've been dreaming of and praying over - and those will continue to show up - but I think I needed to just write and be extremely raw.

I've been looking at this screen for some time, watching the cursor blink in and out of vision, attempting to formulate a letter for where I'm at right now; it won't come. The words aren't particularly cooperative lately . . .

If you were to find my journals lost on a sidewalk somewhere you would hear a girl who is desperately praying for a break in the darkness, for a change of season, for different desires. Because this season feels heavy. There is a weight to these days.

So I probably could've sat here a little longer and come up with a letter subject with which to disguise the feelings I'm having behind it, but I won't.

I leave for India in twenty-six days. In exactly twenty-six days I will be doing something I swore I would never do; if you would've told me at 18 that I would one day willingly go across the world to share Jesus with Indian children I would have laughed in your face - or vomited. But it will be a reality in less than a month. And I am feverish with prayer that the Lord just explodes - that He just wrecks me in the most incredible way. Because, guys, I want to want His plan and story and authorship for my life more than anything I could attempt to desire for myself.

And He's slowly doing it -- as I knew He would. For the first time since I can remember in my twenties a relationship is not something I am losing sleep over. I still desire it, but it feels so much less urgent than it ever has. And I feel free.

I wish I could say every area of my life feels free . . . but things are dark right now. There is purpose, I know. I also realize, for the first time in maybe ever, that He is good - even though things don't feel really good right now. I find myself looking for Him in these days. And I find Him.

I suppose I didn't turn this into a letter of some sort with a fancy, spectacular title because most of the time I do not feel fancy or spectacular. And that's okay. I don't need to feel those things, or be those things, to have a good life.

I also think this letter is the most bland I've written because honesty can't always be flowery and vast in its vocabulary. I want there to be freedom in being able to say "this is incredibly hard right now" and people hear and understand it the same way as they would if I engaged that Creative Writing degree I worked so hard for.

In this season right now, writing feels harder than it ever has -- and I think there is a lesson to be learned in that. And I'll be honest -- sometimes the lessons overwhelm me and I just want to throw my hands up and say "Just quit with all these things I am to be learning, please." But who really wants to be stagnant and unlearning?

I don't know what the days will bring. I'm unsure of what the school year ending will lead to. I am unaware of how India and its children and my King will change me. I don't know when the darkness will lift - but I know it will.

Life can hurt. Be kind to each other. We're all fighting a hard battle.

-sd.