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…