the comforts of home...

my dear brother came over and sat right down beside me and held me for about twenty minutes exclaiming how much he missed me, our hearts sat still as i listened to him fall back into ease…

and my heart leapt. 

leapt for joy, because just maybe with a heart full, consumed of prayers, this will be his year...

where he meets Jesus. where he comes to know the love of a maker that made Him, the love of a Savior. 

my heart was full as i sat around a table where two girls giggling at my whole-hearted attempt at speaking their language, turned into three years of knowing and learning the ins and the outs, the comings and the goings, three years of stories sat around that table surrounded by bright pink walls... and i was consumed, because they were now more than names, they had become and still are my family...

sitting around the table, where the youngest opened up- just last year, losing herself to tears, admitting that Jesus did become more than a name to her, that she felt him, that conversations and vulnerability we had between us brought Him to life…the other, my how she's grown and seen and felt a pain, deeper than most will ever know, gently retelling me of her days…reviving the joy that rests within me for knowing that her heart, too, came to know our Jesus that Spring...

and my heart is full, because i see students reflecting love, i see students rising above their circumstances. 

and my how i believe in each and every girl and boy that has graced my classroom and even the ones that have just merely, just barely graced my presence. 

and well, sometimes, my emotions get carried away for them, because there's a fear that some day or in the middle of the night they might feel like they have arrived at a place in life, where they are alone. their feelings, their voice might go silent and they might need to be heard. 

so i hover over them, and i try my best to stay and fill the silence with rambling reassurance, but i forget that sometimes, it is okay to stay silent, to be a silent cheerleader, or to silently fall to my knees and give them back to Jesus who has graciously given them over to me for such a time. i forget that i can't fix things, that i can't know all things, and that maybe the closest thing that will come to love will be just to be there, to hold them for a time, or maybe even to walk away, with their names upon my lips and prayers being uttered for their dear soul…

and that's where i find myself, back in the arms of the ones I love. feet dusty from the foreign soul, that is now less foreign than the one i used to call home. reveling in the stories of my students and marveling at the grace that I see in them, the ruins that have been redeemed, the lost causes that have claimed victory, the messes that have become messages.

and i'm struck. left speechless and left consumed with gratitude, that my God, would choose me, to be here.

He chose me.

the idea that i get to somehow be a part of this, this beautiful thing, called life at NOE causes my heart to quake and my soul to shudder, my hands are still very much empty, but oh my heart is full. and i have found, that is okay. i'm okay with empty hands, because that does nothing to my very full heart…

and so, here i am another year, full of hope that this year will be my brother's, that this year will belong to him and my students, that they'll come to know Jesus and bask in His beautiful love, knowing that He will always, always be enough…