November 15, 2014

Everything is changing, v. 3

I just stumbled upon a journal entry I wrote in April 2013, long before Josh and I first heard about ReachGlobal in Berlin. My faith felt frail at the time, and to make matters worse, I was incredibly frustrated with my job. 

My cubicle at my former job, cleaned out on my last day.

I still remember the Spirit clamoring on that April evening, pleading with me as I washed dishes at the sink. Sit. Be still. Talk to me. As I slammed the last dripping plate into the dishwasher, I gave up the fight. I wiped down the counter, retrieved my journal, and took a seat in the empty living room. Rain pattered on the skylights and a candle flickered on the coffee table. I began to write.

College is done. That once unlived adventure—lived. Mystery and anticipation—gone. Now I sit in a cubicle and answer phones. Prospective students, kind donors, rude fundamentalists and desperate radio listeners… I don’t know what to make of all these interactions, but I always come home exhausted.
What if Josh and I just went for it? We’ve been talking about traveling, about making videos and recording music, about meeting new people and just living. We don’t want a house with a picket fence in the suburbs, complete with 2.333 kids and enough money in the bank to become subtly damned consumers.  
What if this season, this time in Chicago, is a brief period that will launch us into real life, an adventure? What if we took steps into the dark and groped for your hands and giggled with excitement? Oh God, please lead us. We do not want to be safe or culturally confined.
I desire to empower people with your story. You are powerful. You reach into corpses and infuse life. You step into our history and fix your eyes on every moment—on every glimmer or hint or outright crime of murderous self-lordship—and you forgive. I want people to know that. I want to pour out myself so that others can look and live. 
– 10 April 2013
This is part of the prequel to Berlin. This is part of my story, my desire to go and do that seemed so stifled at the time. 

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin

About six months later, Josh and I were made aware of the opportunity to live and work in Germany. It seems that this ministry has been handed to us as a gift—an answer to a half-forgotten prayer on a rainy evening—and I am speechlessly grateful.

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