Home

Trying on a new background...the pink was getting to me. Around this time of year, when winter really starts to set in for the long haul and I know I am looking at another 5 months of cold, I start longing for Pacific Ocean. Funny how I grew up near it but always took it for granted...now I'd kill for just one day to lay in the hot sand and run through the waves. Maybe kill is an overstatement. Anyway, I miss the west coast.
There's nothing wrong with being homesick. It's natural to miss the places we knew and loved for most of our lives. Turning that around to the non-physical type of locations, I realized this week where my walk with Christ has come too. See, with Him, wherever I am, no matter what I am doing, I am home. That's what gives me peace about going to the mission field. I've always known that He's not sending me somewhere by myself...rather,I'm following Him to where He wants me to serve.

This week, I realized that I have not been home in quite a long time. Sure, I'm in my living room, warm and cozy with the fire crackling in the stove nearby, but I've been gone for the longest time. I don't like being this way. It's like when your shoes and socks are soaking wet, when traffic is nasty and everyone on the planet is snarling at each other. You want to be home more than anything in the world. You can stop in some place for a while, grab a cup of coffee, but you know it's not the same thing as being home where you belong.
Pardon the preceding pathetic metaphors, but really, when we as Christians get away from our Savior, we get away from home. We can try other things to distract us for a bit from the misery that comes with not walking with Him, but it doesn't work for very long. I know where I belong, no matter where my physical location might be. I know as long as I am with Him, I'm home. Nothing else compares, and nothing else is worth it.
So back to talking about the mission field...someone recently asked me why I want to go overseas. In my recent "run away from home" retardedness, I really forgot a few things. First, that I am so prone to wandering from Him, it terrifies me.I dread the thought of a life without Him, yet it is that very life that I seem to run to as fast as possible most of the time. Second, that God can use any vessel He wants to fulfill His purpose. He could use a brick if He wanted to. I don't know why He is allowing me to do this, but I am ready to follow His will. If He wants to use me, if He chose me to follow Him, then my home is with Him, wherever that may take me.

Hope this made sense, wrote it in the dead middle of the night on an empty stomach and depleted caffeine stores.
Closing note...tonight I was reading online and saw this article. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/latinamerica/6783415.html
During this season of joy, it's so easy to forget what's going on around us.
In Christ,
Gina

I'm back!

DOH! Trying this again. I started to write a post earlier but it turned into a diary of an emo white woman, and let's face it, even I wouldn't subject anyone to reading that.

So I haven't posted anything here since October and am not sure if I still have any readers or not. I got pretty swamped with exams and projects for a while there. Thankfully, school ended on Wednesday and I am a free woman till January 11th. This weekend was my first free weekend since August. I slept for about 26 hours between Friday night and this afternoon. Seriously. It was awesome. For the first time in months, my eyes are not bloodshot and I'm not yawning constantly. I might just spend the next three weeks sleeping, getting up long enough to eat, drink, and go back to bed. I'll shower once a week.

Seriously though, this is only going to be a half break. I have to start reading my books for next term so that I actually know what the teacher is talking about when we get started. The great part about being in my second year is knowing what is coming at me. I already know that I am going to get my butt kicked, that I will cry, that I will hit a slump around late March, and that I'll unconsciously clench my jaw from stress. Well, not really on the last part there...I finally cracked a molar from doing that this semester and now have awesome 20/20 hindsight about how wise it might have been to invest three dollars in one of those squeezy rubber balls or at least a mouth guard. But I probably would have looked pretty dorky....sitting still, reading, with a mouth guard in place. Yea, cracked teeth are better. Very sexy too, I might add. It's like I'm permanently establishing the fact that I am from the Four Corners region. At least I could move to the south and fit in relatively easy. Might not have the accent, but all I'd have to do is flash my broken pearly whites and folks would be like "oh, yea, you must be kinfolk of SueJo and Earl...say, you got that Jello salad recipe SueJo's always keepin from us?" Don't diss it. It's a good back up plan.