i wanna feel it from within

My mind is currently racing at the speed of at least 1,000 miles per minute. But my body is still. My heart is racing at a slightly slower rate of 500 miles per minute. There are so many reasons for this. Life is moving much too quickly, and at the same time, I feel as though I have barely taken a step forward in the past year.

I feel like something is coming, like change is coming. I can feel it. But I've felt it for several months, and I am losing hope and patience for when change will arrive.

God has moved in the past few months. He has answered prayers. He has spoken to me in dreams and in thoughts and sometimes through people. I know He is here. I know His hand is over all of this, and I know He is sovereign.

But my heart is hurting, and my mind is tired. And my body is sore. And I'm just at a point where I feel like I can neither slow down my mind, speed up my heart, or propel my body forward. I am in the place He wants me to be; it is a place of waiting. It is a place of uncertainty. It is a place of crying out to Him and then at times keeping to myself.

The past seven months have been some of the most difficult. There have been beautiful moments tangled in with the difficult ones, and there have been moments of clarity, of understanding. I know He is preparing us for something much bigger than me, than my husband, than the lives around us. A part of me feels as though I know what He is preparing me for, but I do not plan on this knowledge becoming truth. I know He can change the plans, and if He does, I will follow Him where He leads.

It's frustrating because I want to align my life with the life He desires me to have. Thinking back to my childhood, to my teenage years, I see how He placed people in my life to bring me to this point. I see how He prepared me to have a heart for people who others have forgotten. I see how He molded me to be a person who desires to take in the orphans and to love them as He first loved us.

It's a dream I share with my husband. We want a large house. We want at least five bedrooms. We want playrooms and plenty of bathrooms. We want at least one large office. We want a house with a large backyard. We want at least one swing set in the backyard. We want grass. We want a vegetable garden (or maybe that's just me). We want a fence.

We want these things so we can provide a life for the children in need. We've talked about having children of our own, but I have no desire to become pregnant, to birth a child, and to raise a child. Maybe one day I will, but right now, there is no desire. I do have a desire to open up my home to children who need a safe place to go. I want children of all ages. I want the children who need extra help, the children who have been forgotten, the children who need someone to fight for them and intercede for them.

I want to see these children return home to a safe place, to parents who love them and who know how to provide for them. I want to provide love and nurturing to these parents. Because when you take in a child, you also take in their family. When you love a child, you also love their family.

And if they can not return home, I will make my home their home, and I will provide for them the best I can. This is the desire of my heart. It is a desire I feel has been on my heart for years. The picture has changed and developed as I have changed and developed, but the subject matter has remained the same.

And I am close to being ready. My heart is close to being ready to give until I can no longer give anymore. But my house, my finances, my life are not ready.

So I am waiting. For this and for so much more. I am waiting with my husband, and I am praying for the time to come quickly but also when it is meant to. Because while I think I am ready, God knows best, and I need to believe in His timing, in the way He wants things to work. 

And so my mind races. My heart races a bit more slowly. And my body remains still. I remain still and try not to waiver. I cry out when it becomes too much. I ask for His hand to fall when hardship comes, and it does.

There's more than just this, but many of the other callings are ones that I have pushed aside out of fear. I am called to write, to tell stories. It is a desire of my heart, but I ignore it out of fear. Every now and again, I will tiptoe back into the world of stories, but I generally tiptoe out after only a few days, maybe a few weeks. 

And it's up to me not tiptoe out. I know that. But I fight it. Out of fear, out of uncertainty, out of knowing there are other storytellers in the world, some are better than me and others are not.

I've felt called to take better care of myself but have also ignored that calling until recently. I am on my third week of working out, but I can feel myself backing out of working out, out of eating better. I slip on eating something not healthy and try not to focus on it, but I know it's just one step closer to giving up, to going back to the lifestyle that did nothing positive for me before.

And so, maybe, it is these things that need to line up before my dream of a large house become reality. Maybe it is these things that need to be fixed before my mind, my heart, and my body move at the same pace.

(title from "shine" by rosi galan)