Laying down the pencil...

My throat catches at the thought of His mercies that wash over me with the sunlight peeking through the windows, the rays that reflect on the bluest ocean of tiles, His presence confronts me and I am...

I am amazed, because He has heard me. 

He wasn't absent in those tear-stained goodbyes said over a ten year period. 

He wasn't far when I was shuddering in an airport, trembling at the heartache that accompanied me as I sat alone, in the wake of leaving my beautiful children behind. 

NO, He wasn't absent and yes, maybe I thought He was for a time, but in hindsight I see that He was ever with me. I see that His cheeks were stained, too. His eyes were swollen and He wasn't silent. Instead, He was gently singing over me in a soft whisper, but I didn't listen closely enough. 

I got caught up in the moment and I lost control attempting to draw up my life in a series of brisk strokes, perfecting the idea with my innocent expectations. 

And, I thought I was strong enough, I thought I was ready. 

I saw my little, bright-colored house in the Baja, with children running in and out of the revolving door. I saw it, daydreaming in missions class. 

I saw it when Mexico was with me and when it was out of sight, but never out of mind. 

I thought I had it all figured out. 

However, that is where I went wrong...

I swiped His hands away, declaring that I knew everything I needed, that I would make it happen. 

That my house would become reality, that love would become mine to forever hold, that I would have a ring on my finger, and that I would live happily ever after. 

But when I asked Him to enter in, He turned my life upside down. 

He entered in and gently, with a precious, powerful force took my controlling hands off the pencil. He placed them in my lap and resumed the work, that He had never ceased, whether or not I chose to acknowledge it with grace. 

And He started to paint a picture, foreign to my dreams, by using a paragraph about a faraway place named Morelia, Mexico. 

He resumed the leading and ever so swiftly I caught onto the need to follow. 

I began to follow without the pull to control and I started to walk into the life of mine, He had planned from the beginning of time. 

And I realized something. 

My ability to paint a picture with my life, to breathe life from the pages of my sketches, pales in comparison to my Maker's talent. 

I lost control by taking control, clenching my fingers around "things" that would fade away with the dust encountering wind. I refused to believe that there was anything better than my dreams, my plan, my love. 

I refused to let Him enter in, because somewhere in my heart of hearts I knew that I was denying Him my heart. And if I were honest with myself, I knew that my plans weren't really His plans. I knew that my idea of love was misconstrued and that no one, not even "the one" could ever fill up my heart's desire.

 

So with hesitancy at first glimpse, I let Him enter in, and He opened my eyes to the truth. He opened my eyes to see that I wasn't ready for the mission field five years ago. He opened my eyes to see that my dream wasn't big enough and that I was too comfortable. He opened my eyes to see that "that one" only did my heart harm and took my eyes off HIM. 

In 2011, He challenged me to take a leap of faith and walk into the unknown, off the plane and into the arms of my greatest fear, being alone in a crowd of unfamiliar people. 

He challenged me to let go of the love that I had loved for seven long years. 

I will be the first to tell you, it wasn't easy. I still have my days when my heart rushes back into the unforgiving arms of nostalgia, to what it was like to have a keeper of my deepest, darkest secrets. 

But in Him, I found healing. A healing that isn't fleeting with the coming ebb and flow of emotions, but a healing that remains steady and enough to draw my heart back to where it has always belonged. 

And sure, maybe you would sit with me over a cup of steaming coffee and listen to my story that at times was consumed with an undeniable pain...and be left wondering. 

You'd be left wondering how I got here and how I left my plan, my love behind. 

So here is the answer, beautiful friend. 

I never did. 

He did. 

He entered in and erased my lofty ideas and dreams that I knew were perfect and He carried on the story He always had written, kept in His pockets, creased from the wear and tear, rewritten with His beautiful handwriting. He began to pick up the pencil and continue to write my story according to HIS perfect, beautiful plan. 

And well, that story it's still being written, but at the moment you'll find my heart lost among my ninety students at Centro NOE and the hundreds more that call NOE, their second home. You'll find that I'm a house-renter, that loves having company fill up the walls with laughter and the smell of fresh coffee steaming on the stove. You'll find that I'm a single woman, that often accepts the call with grace and understanding that my time, is and never will be His. You'll find that I'm setting down roots for the coming years and realizing that Morelia, Mexico has always been the home to my dreams. 

And you can join this story, this journey. Here is a little glimpse at http://vimeo.com/67433340#at=0

Financial help is still welcome and needed as I settle into owning a house here in Morelia: http://onlinecfc.com/giving/

After you login, you can choose at the top to give a one time gift or a monthly gift, then choose “Kristen Main” from the list of options, and enter the amount you would like to give.  You can also pick up a form to have funds automatically deducted from your account at the welcome center. 

 

 

 

NOE, you have my heart...

Sometimes my heart feels too much to properly explain. I’m on the other side of having spent the entire day reveling in my Morelia alongside newcomers. Aside from the exhaustion that is pulling at my eyelids and leaving creases and traces of its presence, I’m left with words that can’t wait for proper timing.

 

Sure, I should be sleeping.

Class will come soon enough and I’ve so many things to do that I haven’t even given a second glance, but words don’t ask for my permission, they don’t look for the most opportune times. In fact, they often look for the times when my soul says sleep would be much more satisfying, but that would be throwing in the towel. That would be giving up, and I can’t let my heart reckon that that is okay anymore.

Tonight, we dedicated the new NOE with the founders and twenty high school students from Portland, Oregon and current students and past students, alike. 

I heard stories of NOE that were absolutely unheard of to me. I listened to the hearts behind this dear place that I know now as home and I couldn’t, I couldn’t keep the tears from falling. Because NOE means too much to me, so much that at times my heart can’t contain what all I am feeling; there is just too much love that compels me to keep settling in and laying down roots for the future that awaits me here.

And well tonight, I’m grateful that I have been gifted with hands to serve cake spilling over with blue icing and steaming pozole. I’m grateful that I have been gifted with feet that can stumble into mini-dances and a voice that can sing to avoid trembling at the cold wind. I am gifted because I have hands, feet and a voice that can serve.

And all it took and all it takes is a willing heart…

I can’t even tell you. I just sit here and I’m overwhelmed that God would use me in such a grand way, that He would use fifty words to bring me to a place that would steal every bit of my heart and stow it away for keeps and my impending return.
 

I am too blessed. I am too blessed to keep it all in to myself.

 

And well, I am sitting here with tears standing in my eyes, because I’m thinking of my darling current and past students and their needs. I’m torn with their hurts and their pain, because they don’t just take up seats in my classroom, they take up pieces of my heart and their lives consume me and keep me here, they keep me pushing forward even when the missing of home becomes heavy, when the thoughts of my loved ones in Indiana take over.

Yes, my students keep me here and I am spent with the idea that I am a 

part of something so grand and 

beautiful, in awe that my Maker chose me with Morelia in mind, from the beginning of time, before I even got graced with my name. And so I will live and so I will love until my sweet Maker says all is well and it is enough...

love drowns out fear

It’s been an epic whirlwind of a past couple of weeks, a whirlwind that has left fear by the wayside and spurred my heart to be fearless.  

Valentine's Day a hundred of students congregated under low lights of hearts hung from the ceiling, laughter and joy brimmed about the Ark (our basketball court). And I found myself on stage opening the night in prayer (in Spanish, a feat that I often can’t embrace) and then introducing the most hipster and the most fashion alongside a dear friend.

The next day, 88 students and teachers piled into two buses to celebrate the part of Valentine’s Day, that often goes overlooked in the States, to celebrate friendship and revel in the greatest picture we have of love, Jesus, Himself. 

Upon arrival, every student was split up into a group to be led by one of the four American interns that are making Morelia, Mexico home for a year…and yes, that included me, the ever-worrying, stressing girl that has a huge dislike for games.

But it happened. And you know what?

All these things have opened my eyes up to something grand,

That when I put my eyes on God, my heart knows no limits, that anything is possible.

A sigh of relief and a cup brimming over with joy is how my days end, because I rest in the certainty that my God is enough, He is always enough.

My key ring is a little heavier these days, too. I am now a proud renter of a house in Morelia, Mexico and it just goes to show you and I both, that the limits that we place upon ourselves are nothing in the grand scheme of things. It goes to show us both that settling is a choice that we make and nobody else can make the decision to settle for us.

So I moved and I’ve planted the seeds of my future, with the blessing of my sweet Maker. And my heart is full and giddy, because 10 years later I am living proof that when you hand over your dreams to God…he doesn’t discard them and pile them to collect dust, but works on them, he grows them and when it’s time- he let’s us walk into our dreams, dreams bigger than we could have ever imagined.

I have walked into my dream with a pair of keys on my key ring and a house that I have christened to be another piece of NOE, just a couple houses down, a house where His people can find rest.

Meanwhile, my classes have become more than class and I’ve found myself settled onto the concrete floor time and again, listening to the chorus of different stories and voices that make up my classroom, watching as they find themselves vulnerable among a class of sixteen other students…and that my dear ones is beauty, when you enter into something so much bigger than yourself. That is beauty.

And well, I’m surrounded by beauty and fear doesn’t have a hold on me these days. 

I’m immersed with the satisfaction of knowing that God is enough and He will always be enough. 

I'm astounded that "the more," I begged and pleaded for in torrents of tears at that high school retreat did not go unheard. He heard me and my life is now living proof that God does not discount your dreams, He instead draws them to life. 

If you are reading this and you would like to become part of my journey there's always room for support, love and prayers: http://onlinecfc.com/blog/2013/05/28/kristentomexico/. 

As I mentioned above, I just moved into an apartment with a very dear friend and we have a lot of needs. We are still lacking a bed, a refrigerator, pots and pans and other things that are needed to make a house a home!

a soul's debrief

It's been a whirlwind of a time, here lately, and here, well that can be said of life Stateside and abroad, beneath the Mexican sun. And the words have been guarded and stowing themselves away, putting as much distance as possible between me and my guilty typing fingers.

And albeit, part of that was my all-but refusal to waste a single minute when my feet touched the cold, left-over snow-covered ground.



And oh, it was beautiful.

I don't tend to lose myself in the joy of the holidays.

I'll be honest sometimes my eyes have snubbed the red cheerful cups at Starbucks, this time of year. But when I got to Chicago and attempted at getting comfortable with my head on my backpack and my feet hanging over the obnoxious bar in the middle; I found myself joyful. Joyful that my eyes fell upon Christmas lights in an almost vacant airport and joyful that my 4 AM cold, trembling hands could gather around a red Starbucks cup. Joyful that after four months of distance I would soon be reunited with the ones that I love. The ones that for years have been mine to love.

The days were packed with mother/daughter dates, mini-reunions, nights by the fire and filled to the brim of reveling in Christmas. Which for years has been something my heart has avoided doing, but this Christmas was different.

And I wholeheartedly agree with Donald Miller when he says sometimes you have to leave places and things behind for awhile, to come back to them with a new-found love. Part of me chalks up this experience to that truth and the other well, I think and I know in my heart of hearts I was spent. That four months had come and gone and I had forgotten what it was like to be home.

So God filled me up.

Christmas Eve 2013 will be something cherished for years to come. Seven chairs around the table, plates brimming over, joy twinkling in every eye, drops of sarcasm and overbearing laughter. It was beautiful. I still refuse to let go of the feeling. It was that beautiful.

Fast-forward to all of the crazed mishaps with the airlines. Cancelled flight, lack of notification, 2 am phone call, lost bag. And well four days later than I was supposed to, I made the trek back running to my gate, arriving with two bags instead of three.

And here I am.

My heart is full again and this time with more of the ones that I love. The ones that for this year have been mine to love. These first few weeks have passed by quickly and I have been resettling into what it means to live in Morelia, Mexico. Resettling into doing something that I was made to do, something that I love to do.

My students welcomed me back with big bear hugs, sighs of relief and shouts of glee and I was reminded that yes, even though it's difficult to make so many transitions between here and there, home and home, it is all worth it. I was reminded that God still needs me here.

Bible Study and Youth Group have been growing and more of my students are showing up on Monday and Friday nights. It's a beautiful thing to see the hearts of my students tendering towards the idea that they are here for a reason bigger than themselves, to see them begin to tender to the fact that God loves them.

This past Friday, I was given yet another opportunity to share in youth group and this time I felt an undeniable sense of comfort that is usually incredibly absent. This time my eyes looked up from my pages and fell upon students that have captured my heart. I was able to speak above a whisper and relay to their hearts that life is a race worth running. And that when we start running, we'll never look back at what was, we will run with joy awaiting what will be.

In quiet moments like these, I question why He chose me.

People tell me 'oh you are so brave for moving to that dangerous country, oh you are so giving to work for nothing.'

But when the light dims and I sit with my Maker, the truth comes out.

I'm not the brave one, He is.

I'm not the giver, He is.

This life isn't even mine to live, but somehow even when there was but a mere glimpse of who I was to be, He delighted in me enough to bless me with a burden for a foreign country.

I am blessed and there are times when I have to fight back tears at the reality of how blessed I am, at the thought of how far He has brought me and at the beautiful truth that He isn't done with me yet.

With that being said, 2014, your word is fearless. 

Fearless, because I have learned that striving to live for God is far better than settling.