Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Africa is big


Sometimes while I'm in class, I feel like all we are doing is creating a stupid world full of hopelessness and not so passionate people and we only talk about problems not fix things let alone build them and we really waste hours days months years calling it learning but in reality all we're really doing is indulging our minds in circles spun from the silk webs of the people who decided long ago that we need to know everything in order to be someone.
And then I think to myself,

These times are hard, but dreamer hold on.

I had a nightmare the other night. There was a little boy in Africa who was still small but I knew that one day he would know and discover the cure to cancer. I couldn't find him though. I spent my entire life walking around Africa with just my backpack in that dream, and my feet were dusty and my clothes were sweaty and I was dirty, and I couldn't find him. I ended up in some rural village sobbing while the people stared at me.
Then I woke up.
I was clutching my throat and real tears were on my face when I sat up in my bed.

My saving grace these days are my morning time in the Word + the love letter campaign I have taken upon myself. Most of them as of late have small envelopes and tiny paintings that say, You can change things or You are wonderful wonderful wondrous.  I am growing tired of the perpetual + incessant message being preached in the classrooms here of we are not capable and it is already too late. It's showing, in the love letters, it's obvious.
But I like that.
There is something so dissatisfied in me at this point in my life, this part of my mountain, that I really can't ignore it anymore. We are beautiful creatures, fearfully + wonderfully made. And too often we belittle ourselves which in turn belittles the Carpenter and His power. I am fed up with that. I mean, I'm nothing incredibly special, but I am not simply just a human being who exists. I have a purpose. I am almost required to be passionate. In fact, it's possible that I am required to be passionate. Passion is necessary. It is holy + beautiful + desirable.
I don't want to just be here anymore.
I need to be more.

I am not preaching selfishness or a me-centered life. I promise. I only want you to recognize that when you have Christ, you have undeniable storehouses of power. I have that power. And what do we do with it?
What do I do with it?
Nothing.
We just keep breathing.

So, here's for a change.

Build. Anything. Everything. Big + small. Build wooden boxes and friendships and relationships and churches and huts in tiny villages. Build bridges and treehouses and castles. Use your hands.
Change. Change yourself first, then change your neighbor, then your community, then the world. Change a town. Change a person. Make change, find things that need changing, be a change.
Pursue. Hot + fast + with a ferocity unmatched. Be determined. Live brighter and saltier. Run after the things you know you should, and even only those you think you should.
Climb, higher + with more determination.
Love harder.
Do better.
Try more.
Fall often.
Get. Back. Up.
Stand firmer.
Hide in the cleft of the rock.
Sing louder.
Worship real-er.
Live by grace.
Believe always.  
Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.
Live righteously.
And remember,
these times are hard, but dreamer hold on.

As I sit here at a table on campus with barely anyone around me and I write these small notes and letters that are becoming such a big part of my life I can and will only conclude again again again that this is important this is big this is something good because people need these letters and they need to know the simple truth of the matter.
We are all human beings.
We are all very vulnerable.
And things are hard.
But we will never find the boy who is going to find the cure for cancer unless we are all searching + guiding + looking + discovering, because Africa,
Africa is very big.

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