the right here

Word seep in and they seep out.

My soul lies barren to your open eyes, and it’s the closest you will come to this not-so vulnerable heart.

There is a quickening in my pace to do well and thrive here.

Right here.

Walking the concrete floors, picking up unwanted clothes, right here.

Fighting back the negativity that hangs over the heads of those around me, right here.

Loving the faces that compliment my waking hours, right here.

Loving comes easy when that is your forefront task, but sometimes we cloud our vision, we forget- no guilt, no questions asked.

We love the easily loved, not the unforgiving.

We love the familiar lands and the known ones, not the strangers.

We love on our good days, not the bad.

But we have the capacity to love the whole world, not just the unfamiliar nations that draw butterflies to scurry in our hearts, but the right here.

We have the capacity to love the right here, whether that is the patients that are lost in suffering, the customers that come in- not so much to buy things, but so as not to go back to their empty house. The not-easily loved, the people of our homes, our jobs, and our streets.

We have the capacity to love those, right here. 

Sometimes I think we hold out our hands, palms up and empty. We declare that our energies are used up enough for ourselves, than that of those about us. We pull out our pockets and stowaway all that is spare, and that doesn’t just mean our change- we throw out our spare love and kindness. We throw it away, because it just takes too much out of us.

I say all this, and I’m just as guilty as the next one.

The walls of my store are full of the not-easily loved, the people that use their bad days as reason for blatant rudeness- but if I return the same, what does that do?

Nothing.

I want to thrive here,

Remember?

I have the capacity to love the whole world.

And yes, my heart was built for Spanish-speaking land, pesos, kisses on the cheek for greeting, dirty faces and hands, Spanglish battles, hair pulled and tugged into braids, ten little babies screaming out Christina, enchiladas for breakfast and dinner, my heart was meant for Mexico.

But God constructed this life of mine, with this bit of transition in mind, before my feet stepped foot onto Mexican land.

He knew that my heart, quick to pack up bags and fly away, for months at a time…would need to be tested, He’d have to take me away.

Bills would have to be paid, work would have to be doubled, friendships would have to fade and I would have to do it all, right here.

Miles away, from the home my heart has come to know.

But doesn’t God deserve “our right here?”

The right here means those in-between moments, the mundane days, when we are just reaching from the beginning to get to the end.

He deserves that.

It isn’t about loving the easily loved, leaving behind our hearts on the fields of foreign travel, selfishly stowing away all that is spare.

It’s about the right here.

The not-easily loved, the streets we know as second nature, the homes we moved out of- to move back into for a spell, the smallest and insignificant part of our routine- the right here.

If we give him these moments, we trust him with the right here, I think one of these days he will bring out his projector and play out our life before our eyes, showing us that those right here moments were precisely when he used us the most.

I know maybe you aren't where you thought you would be, but don't be discouraged, there's more to this. 

So be used, little heart; be used in the right here.

And don’t you for a second-leave any last bit of love and kindness to spare.