Lesson Learned?

For so long, I thought I was stripped of everything I knew, of my very home...but I have been learning something lately- that that isn't the case. 

Sure, my days aren't spent beneath the Mexican sun- loving on babies, holding things loosely, and reveling in Spanglish. 

Sure, I'm not there, but God's telling me that I don't have to be. 

He's telling me that wise-old saying, written years before I ever came to be, 

"For such a time as this, Daughter."

He's whispering that I can love here. I can love now. 

Our hearts have the truest, purest ability of being in many places at once. 

Take my two jobs for instance: being spent in the classroom with my students, and then falling back into place with my regulars at the Goodwill. 

I used to ignore life stateside. I didn't think that there was worth to this other life I lived.

But why is it we forsake the mundane; we refuse it to be our ministry?

Why is it that we beg to differ that we are where we are for a reason? 

We think love is only required in the grand scheme of things. 
We think it must come easy, that it must be requited. 
We think we are only being used when we are lost in our dreams, caught up in our purpose. 

But what are you fighting for, and more importantly, what is being overshadowed?
Why are you refusing to be used, right where you are?

There are people to love here, aren't there?

There are moments that become shadowed, by our own mere refusal to let them be seen. 

I am here for the students that need a little extra attention, to sit beside them and spell things out a little more clearly- attaching them to their memory. I am here for the students that get distracted and fight to be known. 

I am just as here for the regulars that come in at night, pouring themselves out to me. The grandmothers that are taken advantage of, the children that I've watched grow up before my very eyes. I am here for the ones that come in for company on a nightly basis- afraid to go home alone.

I am to be love to them, each and every last one. 

I know this comes as a broken record. 

How many times can these words fall from my heart and down to my typing fingers? 

But I guess sometimes the lessons we need to learn the most, are the ones that God continues to rain down upon us incessantly. 

Just as we stubbornly refuse to get out of bed on the hard days, our God stubbornly refuses to give up on us. 

He keeps teaching. He enters in. He makes Himself known. 

He sends a child into your store asking for a Bible, because her grandmother's heart is just too heavy. 
He sends a student into your classroom, because they are always written off as the jokester. 

He sends a patient into your care, because someone chose to look the other way. 

He sends a needy heart into your life through social media, because they have seen all other friends lost with the seasons. 

These are the sent--do you see them?

They are right here. 

Refuse to believe the lie that you have to be miles away from everything you know, to be used. 

It's time to love. Love these. Love the least of these. 

                                                                                                  

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. 

communing with written words...

It’s one of those days when darkness wants to creep in and take over my soul, and it’s just not letting go.

But I’m closing the night with the reality that I need to wake up, stand up, and hold my empty hands up.

I need to look up.

Because there is more to this, there really is.

Sure, I’m still waiting on that job, where my passion can finally rest, and my heart can finally feel at home.

I’m still begging for friendships to come up to me and hold me, to be known.

I’m still hoping for that some ‘one’ to maybe show some interest in me, for who I am, without the hopes of changing me.  Cause there’s still that little girl in me, that doesn’t want to live forever alone.

But life beckons me every sweetly still, and I have to think that there is more to this.

…That these things aren’t what it’s really about…

That instead it’s about becoming the beacon of love with twinkling blue eyes, it’s about holding someone up and getting them out of their demise.

It’s seeing their problems in the wake of my own.

It’s seeking God, in every last thing of this life of mine, so that His glory might be shown.

It’s coming to the realization that maybe He needs my hands emptied, pocket change all I have to spare, realizing that even in this, the mundane of dreams, He’s still right there.

It’s easy to fall into negativity when that’s all a heart is around, but I don’t want to live chained and bound. 

I want to wake up.

I want to stand up.

I want to speak up, live with empty hands held up.

And maybe I’ll just have to come here and commune with my words as I close the night, to remember these things, keep them tied around my wrists ever-so tight.

On Hiding & Rejection

It’s a Friday morning, and I’m feeling quite accomplished. The meaningless tasks: laundry, deleting emails, straightening, setting goals for myself, logging miles, balancing checkbook, importing CDs have nearly all been completed. And well, the exciting thing is all of these have been completed and I have just come my first interview.

My inbox has been housing rejection letter after rejection letter. Subject lines could have just said you don’t meet our standards, instead of boosting my hopes, only to be let down upon reading them.

I have been kind of stuck lately. I hid myself from those closest to me and have been harboring bitterness to get me through my days. I went into hiding. I forbid myself from speaking to others, closing up my sad, angry hardened heart from anyone and everyone.

I kept myself from writing and freeing myself with words poured out.

I have been willfully afraid of being vulnerable. And well that tried and true, coping mechanism of mine is often used, but never helpful.

It took honesty and light from my sweet Mother to bring me out and over.

I’m not there yet, and well truth be told, I never will be.

But the beautiful thing is, that I’m moving.

My heart and soul are slowly waking again.

With this awakening, comes a realization that I was placing my worth in those rejection letters. I was placing my worth in being a college graduate who goes about her days lifting unwanted clothing off the floor and hanging it back up, all over again. I was telling myself that being unwanted in this job market- probably meant that I was unwanted- in every regard.

So I closed up, locked myself in, threw out the key.

I refused to move.

I cried myself to sleep many nights and just wondered what on Earth I was doing in this country, with a heart settled under the Mexican sun. I wondered what good I could do myself with 7.25 an hour, how on Earth I could get out from under bills and student loans- clinging to the tightrope, feet curled under, thinking just maybe one day I could pack my bags and leave all of this behind.

I’m still making that 7.25 an hour, rising and falling with the Goodwill, being my daily destination.

I’m still receiving rejection letters.

But…

I’m coming out of hiding.

I’m facing the hard truths of loving a foreign country, miles away, settling into the fact that it may take me awhile to get back there.

I’m remembering that there is grace in coming back to my Father, and there is hope ever still.

I’m running even on the days, when breathing comes sporadically and my feet scream at me to stop.

I’m paying off one bill at a time, cause that’s what it’s gonna take to get there.

I’m stumbling back into community, something made with me in mind.

I’m seeing that one can rise from the ashes and loneliness of depression, by the single choice of fighting back the covers to see another day.

There’s beauty in progress. There’s beauty in movement.

And if I have to tell myself every single day that He is faithful, when I am faithless, that is what I’m going to do. Because I’m tired of living back bent and heart torn with bitterness, finding my worth in everyone and everything but my Maker.

I’m not defined by my inbox full of rejection.

I’m not defined by my depression.

I’m not defined by my loneliness.

The number of clothes I hang up and pick up off the floor does not define me.

But rather, God in His infinite grace and mercy defines me.

And this is exactly where He chooses me to be.

expectations

I grapple with the feeling of being stuck lately. Immovable. Unshaken.

The other day, I was reveling in contentment of the unknown ends to job-searching stateside, gathering that my heart could be anywhere where my language is spoken as first-nature.

But then I’ve already made it to the other side. The side when I’m questioning could I really manage where English is commonplace, could I manage settling back into the sway of things without another thought…

You see- my heart still lies with those beautiful brown-eyed hearts, with Spanish falling off their tongue and laughter catching their eyes in a twinkle.

So there’s this part of me that feels responsibility and expectations calling me stateside for a time, but then simultaneously there’s another part of me being called by my children, to come back home.

But what do I do from here?

I’m going to love them to the tips of my fingers.

They’re going to hear and see the love from miles away, that’s exactly what I’m here for.

I need to stop thinking the mission field is just Mexico.

I need to stop limiting my God from using me, right here, right now.

But my heart needs to be willing. 

Because I can be moved…

God can move me.

I am not bound by fear, wherever my God desires to take me, I will go.

I will live my life to love.

These bones aren’t dead.

They are alive.

I’m alive.

I live and move and breathe, with Mexico ever-present on my heart.

And well it’s been that way for ten years, and nothing will ever change that.

I think it’s time that I start to live intentionally, as though God’s very purpose is what keeps my heart beating. Because that’s true, right?

He keeps me whole.

He holds me together.

He is the author of my story, the perfecter of my faith.

He spoke my life into being and placed words to flow eloquently through the tips of my fingers.  He gave me life to be awakened by a foreign language, a foreign field.

When criticism tempted me to retire the pen and empty pages, when fear tempted me to keep quiet instead of claiming to speak another language, when uncertainty kept me questioning the move from something stable and known, into the unknown, when brokenness had a hold on my heart- God saw a woman, fully capable and able with HIS STRENGTH. He spoke life into my quaking bones and told me there was more to me than being home.

I am a woman with a heart that longs to be poured out all for love’s cause. I am a woman that was given the voice to speak two languages. I am a woman that sees everything about Mexico, the quirks, the beauty, everything to be home. I am a woman who was purposed to write until His words stop coming, and the pages are meant to remain empty. I am woman, sought out to serve Him on the foreign fields and the ones at home. I am a woman, willing to keep my heart open to love all, and not just one- to keep my hands empty to hold, all those about me.

I am a woman, and I am His, and He is mine.

regroup and release.

I have been regrouping, detangling myself from stresses that came and took hold of my heart. I have been settling from spells of difficult goodbyes and leaving behind roots of my heart in the soil of Mexico, in the walls and classrooms of NOE.

And I’m sitting on the other side and all I can do is think of how blessed I am. As a twenty-three and four year old, I was given a flight, and monthly support, but more importantly I was given a home, and a family. I spent ten months loving on children, loving on His people. Sure, I had worries that came up from relationships, but I lived to love.

And well, I’m here. I’m currently joining the ranks in search of jobs. But I don’t want to lose that living to love. I think it should walk with me, through these next steps of my journey. That should be part of what moves me, living to love.

If I have learned anything, it’s that God’s faithfulness compels me to the field, stateside or on foreign soil. It’s that His joy is contagious, and that this beautiful life with all its’ pain and heaviness is all worth it. It’s that sometimes you just have to move ahead blindly, without clear direction and well, God will give you a NOE, a place where you just feel like you are right where you should be. A place where your laughter exudes from your spirit, because every single day your calling is to love,and well love does.

Love moves and flows through your beating heart and lingers still when you’re gone. Love imparts a sense of hope in place of hopelessness, and I just want to be love, wherever He takes me.

Tears are coming, all because I left with a heart full, and this time that fullness has seemed to walk out of all of this with me. I think that’s proof in itself- that I’m right where God needs me to be. Time will tell, where He wants me, but surprisingly I’m not worried. Instead, I’m putting myself out there with confidence, because I’m certain that God made me for such a time as this. And what a welcome feeling, it is to feel such a freedom.

My name is Kristen Main, and well my life has been forever changed. This year marks ten years of serving on the field of Mexico in three beautifully and distinctly different cities. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my life any other way. God has called me to love His children and within this past year, He’s gently reminded me that I can do precisely that anywhere in this world.

And wherever I end up, those three cities and their people travel with me, memories stored up and stowed away, shaping me into a woman after God’s own heart. And well, that’s all I want to be…